The breaking wheel, also known as the execution wheel, the Wheel of Catherine or the (Saint) Catherine('s) Wheel, was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages up to the 19th century by breaking the bones of a criminal or bludgeoning them to death. The practice was abolished in Bavaria in 1813 and in the Electorate of Hesse in 1836: the last known execution by the "Wheel" took place in Prussia in 1841. In the Holy Roman Empire it was a "mirror punishment" for highwaymen and street thieves, and was set out in the Sachsenspiegel for murder, and arson that resulted in fatalities.
A Witches' Sabbath is a purported gathering of those believed to practice witchcraft and other rituals. The phrase became especially popular in the 20th century.
The Ebers Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Ebers, is an Egyptian medical papyrus of herbal knowledge dating to c. 1550 BC. Among the oldest and most important medical papyri of Ancient Egypt, it was purchased at Luxor in the winter of 1873–1874 by the German Egyptologist Georg Ebers. It is currently kept at the Leipzig University Library in Germany.
Flying ointment is a hallucinogenic ointment said to have been used by witches in the practice of European witchcraft from at least as far back as the Early Modern period, when detailed recipes for such preparations were first recorded and when their usage spread to colonial North America.
The apothecaries' system, or apothecaries' weights and measures, is a historical system of mass and volume units that were used by physicians and apothecaries for medical prescriptions and also sometimes by scientists. The English version of the system is closely related to the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being exactly the same in both. It divides a pound into 12 ounces, an ounce into 8 drachms, and a drachm into 3 scruples of 20 grains each. This exact form of the system was used in the United Kingdom; in some of its former colonies, it survived well into the 20th century. The apothecaries' system of measures is a similar system of volume units based on the fluid ounce. For a long time, medical recipes were written in Latin, often using special symbols to denote weights and measures.
Norbert Blüm was a German politician who served as a federal legislator from North Rhine-Westphalia, chairman of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia (1987–1999), and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.
Ichthammol or ammonium bituminosulfonate is a medication derived from sulfur-rich oil shale. It is used as a treatment for different skin diseases, including eczema and psoriasis. It is applied on the skin as an ointments, most commonly containing 10% or 20% ichthammol.
"Nikolaus" Storzenbecher or "Klaus" Störtebeker was reputed to be leader of a group of privateers known as the Victual Brothers. The Victual Brothers were originally hired during a war between Denmark and Sweden to fight the Danish and supply the besieged Swedish capital Stockholm with provisions. After the end of the war, the Victual Brothers continued to capture merchant vessels for their own account and named themselves "Likedeelers". Recent studies manifest that Störtebeker was not called "Klaus" but "Johann".
Balsam of Peru or Peru balsam, also known and marketed by many other names, is a balsam derived from a tree known as Myroxylon balsamum var. pereirae; it is found in El Salvador, where it is an endemic species.
Ursula Caberta y Diaz is a German politician, former State of Hamburg government official and was the Commissioner for the Scientology Task Force of the Hamburg Interior Authority. She graduated in political economy. According to Deutsche Welle she is considered an expert on the subject of Scientology, and has been observing the organization since 1992. Her book Schwarzbuch Scientology was published in 2007. Caberta is also an official in Hamburg's authority for interior affairs.
Friedrich Fülleborn was a physician who specialized in tropical medicine and parasitology. He was a native of Kulm, West Prussia, which today is known as Chełmno, Poland.
Marwa Ali El-Sherbini, was an Egyptian woman and German resident who was killed in 2009 during an appeal hearing at a court of law in Dresden, Germany, when she was three months pregnant. She was stabbed by Alex Wiens, an ethnic German immigrant from Russia against whom she had testified in a criminal case for verbal abuse. El-Sherbini's husband, who was present at the hearing, tried to intervene. He too was repeatedly stabbed by Wiens and was then mistakenly shot and wounded by a police officer who was called to the court room. Wiens was arrested at the crime scene and subsequently tried for murder and attempted murder. He was found guilty of both charges; it was also found that Wiens's actions constituted a heinous crime, because they were committed in front of a child, against two people, in a court of law, and fulfilled the murder criterion of treacherousness, such as hatred against foreigners. Wiens was sentenced to life imprisonment.
A pishtaco is a mythological boogeyman figure in the Andes region of South America, particularly in Peru and Bolivia. Some parts of the Andes refer to the pishtaco as kharisiri, or ñakaq, or lik'ichiri in the Aymara language.
The National Socialist Underground murders were a series of racist murders by the German Neo-Nazi terrorist group National Socialist Underground. The NSU perpetrated the attacks between 2000 and 2007 throughout Germany, leaving ten people dead and one wounded. The primary targets were ethnic Turks, though the victims also included one ethnic Greek and one ethnic German policewoman.
The Sozialverband Deutschland is a German socio-political advocacy organisation. It was founded in 1917 with a focus on assisting veterans of World War I as the Bund der Kriegsteilnehmer und Kriegsbeschädigten, in 1918 became the Reichsbund der Kriegsbeschädigten und Kriegsteilnehmer, and in 1999, after several further changes of name, became the Sozialverband Deutschland, with the note that it was founded in 1917 as the Reichsbund.
Ernst Hallier was a German botanist and mycologist.
Sacamantecas or mantequero is the Spanish name for a kind of bogeyman or criminal characterized by killing for human fat.
The Hamburg Syndrome is a 1979 West German-French science fiction film directed by Peter Fleischmann and starring Helmut Griem, Fernando Arrabal and Carline Seiser. The film is about an outbreak of an epidemic and quarantine. The film received attention again in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ulrike Beisiegel is a German biochemist and university professor who in 2011 became the first woman to serve as president of the University of Göttingen, founded in 1737. Her research on liver fats and disease was honored with the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Rudolf Schönheimer Medal and an honorary doctorate. Intent on maintaining high levels of scholarship and diminishing scientific misconduct, she has served on many boards and committees, receiving the Ubbo-Emmius Medal for her commitment to good scientific practice and an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.
Medical or medicinal cannibalism is the consumption of parts of the human body, dead or alive, to treat or prevent diseases. The medical trade and pharmacological use of human body parts and fluids often arose from the belief that because the human body is able to heal itself, it can also help heal another human body. Much of medical cannibalism applied the principles of sympathetic magic, for example that powdered blood helps bleeding, human fat helps bruising, and powdered skulls help with migraines or dizziness. Medical cannibalism has been documented especially for Europe and China.
