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The Sawbones Book

The Horrifying, Hilarious Road to Modern Medicine

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The Sawbones Book

By: Justin McElroy, Dr. Sydnee McElroy
Narrated by: Justin McElroy, Dr. Sydnee McElroy
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About this listen

A compelling, often hilarious, and occasionally horrifying exploration of how modern medicine came to be!

Wondering whether eating powdered mummies might be just the thing to cure your ills? Tempted by those vintage ads suggesting you wear radioactive underpants for virility? Ever considered drilling a hole in your head to deal with those pesky headaches? Probably not. But for thousands of years, people have done things like this - and things that make radioactive underpants seem downright sensible! In their hit podcast, Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin McElroy breakdown the weird and wonderful way we got to modern healthcare. And some of the terrifying detours along the way.

Every week, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin amaze, amuse, and gross out (depending on the week) hundreds of thousands of avid listeners to their podcast, Sawbones. Consistently rated a top podcast on iTunes, with over 15 million total downloads, this rollicking journey through thousands of years of medical mishaps and miracles is not only hilarious but downright educational. While you may never even consider applying boiled weasel to your forehead (once the height of sophistication when it came to headache cures), you will almost certainly face some questionable medical advice in your everyday life (we’re looking at you, raw water!) and be better able to figure out if this is a miracle cure (it’s not) or a scam.

©2018 Weldon Owen Inc. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. World Witty Marriage Medicine

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All stars
Most relevant  
Amazing as always. I bought the book, I bought the audio book and I've listened to every podcast. So this is a very biased review.

You will laugh, you will wretch and most importantly you will learn a thing or two.

Sid and Juice done did it again.

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An excellent book read by two people with pleasant voices. Fun, if a bit gruesome to listen to over lunchtime

Fascinating

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I absolutely love these two, I listen to every episode of the podcast and cannot wait for another book like this! I listen to it every night as I go to bed, it has endless facts and fun and you'll find something new to smile or squirm about every time you listen - Thank you! 💕

I listen every night😁

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While I appreciate that the authors are not professional narrators, and while I love Justin McElroy’s podcasts, I felt like his recordings were rushed. There are multiple times where he stumbles over words and instead of going for a clean take, they just kept that one for the audiobook. I realize he’s a busy man but it just seems unprofessional. Also a few sentences seem read incorrectly (like pausing for a period instead of a comma in the middle of a sentence) and I just don’t get why they didn’t go for better takes. There are a few cuts here and there but it’s still not a great outcome. I’m not going to criticize the fact that it sounds read and not narrated because, as I mentioned, they’re not professional narrators, since I mainly got this audiobook *because* it was read by the authors. But what I will criticize is the Jay-man’s joke delivery. Most of his humor in podcasts is improvised and not written in advance, but it’s like he forgot how to tell jokes once he had to read something he wrote beforehand. Maybe with this audiobook it would be better to buy the physical book and imagine their voices in your head - I feel like some of the jokes would land better this way. I still loved the content of the book, I just expected more from the narration.

Funny and informative

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I don't listen to the Sawbones podcast but I'm a big fan of the McElroy brothers so I thought this would be a good starting point. Sadly, Justin and Sydnee's performance here was enough to put me off.

I'm sure the actual podcast is more organic and less cringeworthy than this book, but the delivery of material here was stilted and unconvincing. Justin is a naturally hilarious man and a killer storyteller so why he sounds like a bad impression of a bad comedian is beyond me. We have to suffer poor jokes, unnatural delivery and, in the moments where the pair interact, a lack of chemistry.

Sydnee does most of the work here and, while she comes across as bizarrely concerned with listeners copying the horrible acts in medical history she covers, she presents her facts well enough. Again, her jokes fall flat.

It's fitting that the word I would pick to describe this book is 'sterile'. The material is uninspired, the delivery is amateur, and it just comes across that they could have tried harder.

This might just be me but the near constant announcement of chapter titles, section titles, subtitles, and poems (?), all delivered in the same dull tone without any cues that they aren't one continuous flow, makes the narrators sound insane at points.

I would consider this book a misstep, and I encourage the McElroy spouses to keep at it and work on learning how to present their natural wit and charm in this environment.

Not So Hilarious

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