*Please note- This site search does not include the Vic. & Tas. BMD's, Lots o' Links & Worth a Look Books
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Now truth more than fiction is strange,
as customs and laws they have changed;
There're things quite absurd
that we've never heard
and some of them seem quite deranged
as customs and laws they have changed;
There're things quite absurd
that we've never heard
and some of them seem quite deranged
MEDICAl MADNESS
Two and a Half Minute Surgery
Known as ‘the fastest knife in the West End’, Robert Liston was a British surgeon, during the 1800's before Ether was introduced. While you were wide awake & being held down, he could saw off your leg or arm, stitch you up again, all in just 2 1/2 minutes. He would often try to break his own record & say to his assistants- 'Time me gentlemen, time me!’. Sometimes in his haste, other body parts would mistakenly be sliced off as well. Robert Liston |
Accidental Death
At an inquest yesterday on the body of Mr. Edwin Clayton, who was suffocated at Endon (between Leek and Stoke) by swallowing his false teeth, a doctor said he found the top plate of Clayton’s false teeth wedged behind the claque of his throat, which would cause him to attempt to vomit, but he would not be able to do so, the fluid would enter the lungs, and he would be suffocated. A verdict of “Accidental Death” was returned. (Yorkshire Evening Post, June 8th, 1904) http://www.lovelyish.com/2012/09/24/strange-ways-people |
After the procedure, the barbers "washed" the bandages which were hung outside on a pole to dry, and to advertise the therapeutic specialities offered in the barbershop. Flapping in the wind, the long strips of bandages would twist around the pole in the spiral pattern we now associate with barbers.
http://wordinfo.info/unit/3364/ip:17 |
Four Royal Birthing Traditions
1. For hundreds of years, royal women gave birth in front of spectators. It was a big custom among the French royalty—poor Marie Antoinette was almost killed by the great crush of people who poured into her bedchamber at Versailles when the doctor shouted that the baby was coming. A public viewing, no matter how uncomfortable for the one being viewed, was designed to prove to the entire court that the child was indeed the fruit of the royal woman’s womb, that there hadn’t been a switch up at some point. 2. Royal women gave birth generally the same as other women, with the customs of the day. That meant that for the vast majority of royal family history, babies were born at home, or at whatever palatial estate the royal mother happened to be in at the time. In 1970, Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, was the first royal baby to be born in a hospital (University College London) 3. For the vast majority of human existence, pain relief for women in labour was rare—and for at least some of history, said to be against the wishes of God. One woman in 1591 was burned at the stake after she asked for pain relief during the birth of her twins. Though not quite so extreme, that was the general attitude even after the discovery of relatively safe anesthetics in the 19th century. Ether and chloroform were all right for things like surgery and limb removal, but delivering babies the painful way was woman’s lot in life. In 1853, at the birth of her eighth child, Queen Victoria asked her attending physician for a bit of the good stuff. Dr. John Snow administered chloroform to the Queen via a saturated cloth: “Her majesty expressed great relief from the application. Victoria’s decision, ushered in a new era of drugs for childbirth. After the floodgates opened, doctors were throwing anything and everything at delivering mothers, from nitrous oxide and quinine (anti-malarial!) to cocaine and opium.
The attending doctor was excoriated in public for not using forceps to deliver the child. The demand for forceps soared, ushering a new era of birthing protocol; the doctor, however, killed himself three months after Charlotte’s death.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51781/4-historical-royal-birthing-traditions 'Doctor' injected Cement and Super Glue to Enhance Woman's Butt
http://digitaljournal.com/article/314786
Lewis Carroll, however, seems to have based his mad hatter not on Robert Crab, but on a certain Theophilus Carter, not a hatter but a furniture dealer, who was known locally as the Mad Hatter, partly because he always wore a top hat, and partly because he was quite an eccentric and produced some wacky inventions.
http://corrosion-doctors.org/Elements-Toxic/Mercury-mad-hatter.htm
It is hard to determine the exact number of inhabitants of the rapidly expanding London at this time, but the estimated population was close to two million and constantly rising. This was not only due to the birth rate, but also the constant flow of immigrants hoping to find the streets paved with gold.
The Victorians- The squalor and the splendour http://www.barryoneoff.co.uk/victorians.html
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