Hello, So today, I am welcoming my lovely friend, and wonderful author, Joana Starnes, with her post about illness in the Regency era.
I have known Joana since 2014, when we realised through Facebook that we lived in the same town. We met for a coffee and the rest is history! We have shared many, many adventures since then, attending the festivals together, going to lectures and talks, visiting National Trust properties, and as many other activities as we could possibly manage - sometimes with the most tenuous Austen connection - but any excuse for sharing a day out together! I am so glad to call Joana a friend, and it is all thanks to our mutual love of Jane Austen.
So now, it's over to her. Thank you for this excellent and interesting post, Joana!
JUST DON’T GET SICK!
When Jane was ill at Netherfield in Lost in Austen do
you remember Mr Bingley insisting ‘No-no-no,
Miss Price must stay here, she is the best possible nurse. She has Paracetamols’?
And well he might rely on Amanda’s paracetamols, because there was precious
little he or anyone else could offer as a substitute.
If you ever lay hands on a time machine and set it to the
early 1800s be sure to have a healthy supply of painkillers and antibiotics
with you, and if you’re not past childbearing age think again before you get
the engine running! Mrs Bennet blithely tells her husband that ‘people don’t
die of little trifling colds’, and if that held true it was largely thanks
to human resilience and not to Georgian medicine.
The best medical attention that Mr Darcy’s ten thousand a
year could buy would have been from a Fellow of the Royal College of
Physicians. The charter granted by Henry VIII gave the Fellows and their
licentiates the exclusive right to practise in London and for 7 miles around.
The College also granted an ‘extra licence’ that permitted the holder to
practise as physician outside the 7 mile limit, but the restrictions were
difficult to police. As for the degree itself, it was acquired by studying the
writings of Hippocrates (400s BC) and Galen (129-216 AD) and it was acceptable
to have someone sitting the final examination for you.
Outside of London and the major cities the most common
medical practitioner was the apothecary, such as Mr Jones, summoned to
Netherfield to attend Jane and prepare draughts, in the absence of
paracetamols. In theory, the apothecaries were the equivalent of a modern day
pharmacists.
(The Apothecary and his
Trade, John White, Bath 2015)
They were supposed to supply medicines rather than prescribe
them, but especially in rural areas they might have been the only source of
medical attention and acted more or less as general practitioners.
(Visiting the Apothecary,
Bath 2015)
Some, the surgeon-apothecaries, would have been
apprenticed in performing minor operations such as lancing boils, setting
bones, bloodletting and sometimes even amputations.
The training varied widely. At the beginning of the century
the successful completion of an apprenticeship was enough for setting up
practice and earning a living from dispensing drugs and performing minor
surgery. Apothecaries greatly outnumbered doctors, even in major cities. In
1775 Bristol, for example, there were 8 physicians to 56 surgeon-apothecaries.
And their services did not come cheap. Household bills from
Dunham Massey, a large estate near Manchester now in the care of the National
Trust, show that in 1822 two apothecaries were paid £55 pounds over a 3-month
period, at a time when the house steward, the highest-ranking male servant,
earned £90 a year and the third housemaid £10 a year.
All well and good. If you’re taken ill in Regency England
let’s say you’re lucky enough to afford the best treatment money can buy. Let’s
say you can even afford the services of the disciples of one of the most
reputable physicians of his day, William Buchan, MD (1729 – 1805), Fellow of
the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh and author of the Treatise on the
Prevention and Cure of Diseases that went through 19 editions, sold 80 000
copies in his lifetime, was translated into the main European languages and
among other things earned him a letter of commendation and a gold medal from
the Empress of Russia.
William Buchan, MD
If Georgian medicine is your thing and you’ve skimmed
through the Treatise for fun, you will have discovered that some of Dr
Buchan’s principles were surprisingly in tune with modern concepts. He believed
that cleanliness, exercise and a sensible diet keep people healthy; that fresh
air is beneficial in the sickroom; that feverish patients shouldn’t be covered
with too many blankets, and that the number of visitors to the sickbed should
be kept to a minimum in order to limit the risk of infection. Also, he
maintained that mothers should nurse their babies if at all possible, and if a
nurse is hired the mother should keep a close eye on her offspring’s welfare
rather than abandoning her newborn child ‘to the sole care of a hireling.’
He argued that babies should not be swaddled and that suitable clothes allowing
free movement should be used both for children and adults. Also, that young
ladies warmed by exercise after a long night of dancing should not then gad
about outdoors in their thin muslins without suitable wraps if they cared for
their health. There are whole chapters dedicated to cleanliness, intemperance,
the risks posed by wet clothes and wet feet, as well as the problems caused by
succumbing to strong emotions like anger, fear, grief and love. If you have a
really quiet afternoon, look up Dr Buchan’s Treatise on the Internet and
glance over the introductory chapters. Poor Mr Darcy, he had no idea, had he,
of the medical dangers he exposed himself to when he allowed himself to be
ruled by passion!
Sadly, most of the treatment sections of the Treatise make
grim reading. The germ theory of disease would not emerge for another five
decades or so after Dr Buchan’s death. The all-prevailing belief in Georgian times was that disease was
caused by an imbalance in the Hippocratic four humours: blood, black bile,
yellow bile and phlegm, and treatment should be aimed at restoring that
balance. How? Why, by relying on time-honoured methods, of course: bleeding,
vomiting, purgation, applying irritants on the skin to cause blisters and thus
extract the poisons from the body and other similar measures that leave the
modern reader in wonder that patients survived the cure, as well as the
condition. Calomel (mercurous chloride) was liberally prescribed as a
purgative. Everyone swore by Laudanum (tincture of opium, approximately 10%
opium equivalent to 1% morphine) and it was considered highly beneficial in
treating most things, from palsy to nervous dispositions, all the way to
calming down babies and children who grizzled too much.
What
about Miss Bennet’s fever? If the heat of the body is very high, 40-50 drops of
sweet spirit of nitre should be made into a draught, with an ounce of
rosewater, two ounces of common water, and half an ounce of syrup. And prompt
bleeding is of the greatest importance in cases such as these!
But
you may be reassured to hear she must also drink plenty of diluting liquors
such as water-gruel, or oatmeal-tea, clear whey, barley-water, apple-tea or
orange-whey, deemed an excellent cooling drink.
Heaven
forefend that the condition should worsen and affect the lungs! In that case a
man would benefit from losing 12-14 ounces of blood (but less if the patient is
a female of a delicate constitution). And if there is violent pain to the chest
it should be alleviated with a fomentation made by ‘boiling a handful of the
flowers of the elder, camomile and common mallows or any other soft vegetables,
in a proper quantity of water’. Leaves of various plants such as cabbage
might also be applied warm to the patient’s side ‘with advantage.’
Mustard
whey is beneficial in nervous fevers (Mrs Bennet must have required a steady
supply) but Dr Buchan also argues that in nervous disorders exercise is
superior to all medicines. Anything goes: riding on horseback is considered the
best, but walking or riding in a carriage might work as well, as would a trip
to the sea or even a sea voyage. Maybe Mrs Bennet knew what she was talking
about when she thought that a little sea-bathing would set her up for good.
Dr
Buchan has a lot more to say about all manner of conditions, but I’d much
rather not put you off your dinner. Have a look through his Treatise if
you’re of a strong constitution and if you’re lucky enough to go
time-travelling to Regency England just don’t get sick!
* * * * * *
J J Rivlin ‘Getting a Medical
Qualification in England in the Nineteenth Century’
P Hunting ‘History of the Society
of Apothecaries’
Pamela Sambrook ‘A Country House
at Work’, 2003
Wm Buchan ‘Treatise on the
Prevention and Cure of Diseases’, 1785
Images from ‘So You Think You’re Sick’ – a talk
and demonstration by John White at the Jane Austen Bath Festival 2015 (photos J
Starnes).
*** INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY***
Twenty lucky winners will receive a prize from my giveaway, ranging from books and audiobooks, to jewellery, prints, and more! I will randomly draw a number of winners, who will have their choice of the prizes in selection order.
Twenty lucky winners will receive a prize from my giveaway, ranging from books and audiobooks, to jewellery, prints, and more! I will randomly draw a number of winners, who will have their choice of the prizes in selection order.
How to enter:
1. Comment on any of the posts throughout my re-launch - one comment per post counts as an entry!
2. Follow me by email, using the box in the right hand sidebar - if you already do, tell me and you'll still get the extra entry!
3. Like my page on Facebook - again, tell me if you already do (here, or on Facebook)!
4. Invite your friends to like my page - tell me and tag me so I can see!
5. Share my posts on Facebook - again, if commenting only here let me know!
6. Comment on Facebook - let me know here if you do!
6. Comment on Facebook - let me know here if you do!
7. Follow me on Twitter - let me know, also if you already do!
8. Retweet my posts - let me know (here, or on twitter)!
9. +1 any of my posts on Google+ - again, the more posts you do, the more entries you can have!.
10. Subscribe to me on YouTube - tell me if you do, or already do!
**IMPORTANT** Please leave your email address, Facebook name, Twitter name, Youtube name or whatever is needed so I can keep track of and check all entries as there are many ways to gain entries. If you are a lucky winner, I will be in touch by email to sort out the prize.
Good luck! And a massive thank you to my dear friend Joana for that informative post - personally, I suspect I never would have survived in the Regency era!
Other posts from my re-launch tour - comment on each one for more entries to the giveaway!
