With controversial subject matter like that, I too would hide behind a colorful pen name.

Published in the UK in 1906, "Studio lyrics and other trifles" by Rose Garance and Cinnabar with a note by Terra Vert (all, of course, pseudonyms).

Wonder if Archie foresaw Video Game Wrist, Text Thumb and 21st Century Stress Syndrome.

From 1934 London, Archibald Montgomery Low's "Our Wonderful World of To-Morrow : A Scientific Forecast of the Men, Women, and the World of the Future."

"Doc, I can't breathe." "Drink more water." "Doc, what about this frightful rash?" "Take a long bath."

A coworker showed me this title one day and commented, "That's kinda taking snake oil to a whole new level."

From 1846 New York, James Gully's "The Water Cure in Chronic Disease : An Exposition of the Causes, Progress, and Terminations of Various Chronic Diseases of the Digestive Organs, Lungs, Nerves, Limbs, and Skin, and of Their Treatment by Water, and Other Hygienic Means."

It's certainly a lofty claim this book's title alone seems to imply but the idea of water ("and other hygienic means") being a potentially potent tool in the treatment and curing of diseases was no doubt a fairly controversial idea in the medical world of the mid-1840's.  In fact, it would be another two decades before Joseph Lister developed a sterilization technique for medical purposes--and even longer before American medicine commonly accepted his ideas.  The modern practice of the sterilization of tools, hands, etc. prior to surgery seems an obvious necessity to us today but it wasn't until about 1890 that American surgeons largely adopted these methods.

In fact, doctors who've studied the 1881 case of assassinated U.S. president James Garfield believe that he would likely have survived his wounds if those tending to him had used sterilized tools and hands to probe his body in search of a missing bullet (Alexander Graham Bell even designed a metal detector specifically for the case but the bedsprings interfered with the function of the device).  After the shooting--which occurred a mere four months after his taking office--Garfield survived for eleven painful weeks before numerous infections (likely due to the unsterilized probing) brought about his death.

Can't choose between the "Is he into me?" quiz and the article on subterranean mollusks? With Selborne, you don't have to!

A periodical first published in 1888 London:  "The Selborne magazine for lovers and students of living things."  (It's a natural history magazine but don't feel bad if you did a double-take.  I sure did.)

"Ahmen-khamen hasn't paid up yet. Curse him with the wrath of the scarabs!"

A coworker sent me this book title and her impressions:  "'The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou.'  Sounds kind of like a prehistoric collection agency to me."

Wonder which country is the dung beetle....

A 15-page political pamphlet from 1871 London: "Europa's menagerie and Britannia's 'bulls': A zoological survey of the political situation, from the Silver Streak to the Golden Horn, shewing how the boa-constrictor strangled the tiger-monkeys, and the 'bulls' had to keep an eye on the bears."

Possible lyric: "I used to travel and wander and stay out late / Now, I'm up all night and watchin' this gate."

Google-translated (from German) title of a book published in 1841:  "Songs of a Cosmopolitan Nightguard."

I gotta see these devices!

From mid-1800's London:  "The marvellous adventures and rare conceits of Master Tyll Owlglass: newly collected, chronicled and set forth in our English tongue by Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie and adorned with many most diverting and cunning devices by Alfred Crowquill."