Polite Society- Anesthesia in the Victorian Era

Medicine is such an interesting topic and I could easily make an entire series out of exploring what medicine was like throughout the ages, but that would be more like a book than a blog. In fact, just exploring one era would yield a whole books-worth of information, so instead I present to you a week of medically-related incidents through time.

Today we begin with the topic that led me to first examine the medicine and treatments of past ages; anesthesia. Pain is universal and the desire to lessen pain and suffering led early man to begin performing surgery, but this was fraught with peril even if the operation was a success because the trauma to the body from the stress and sensation of surgery could be overwhelming. The ancient Greeks used herbal mixtures to lessen the pain of surgery but this could not rightly be called an anesthetic. The word "Anesthesia" is Greek, meaning "without sensation", but the term was not coined until the poet and physician Oliver Wendall Holmes suggested it in 1846.

Holmes was responding to an amazing new technique he'd witnessed in Boston, when on the 16th of October a dentist named William Thomas Green Morton administered inhaled ether to a patient who then had a tumor painlessly removed from his neck. Prior to this some plant-based tropane alkaloids (opium, atropine) had been used, but they were very difficult to standardize and could easily overdose and kill a patient. In 1859 cocaine first reached the market where it was enthusiastically endorsed by none other than Sigmund Freud, who thought that it would help to wean people off of morphine.

Just after the discovery of inhaled ether anesthesia, chloroform was also developed in November of 1847. It's popularity grew rapidly after John Snow administered it to Queen Victoria in 1853 during the birth of Prince Leopold; but it quickly proved difficult to control and the first death attributed to chloroform anesthesia followed in January of 1848. This left morphine and cocaine and its derivatives as the chief forms of anesthesia through the turn of the century.

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Italian Renaissance Hairstyles

In keeping with my last post on Italian Renaissance costume I thought we would take a look at something we didn't touch much on; hairstyles. They were extremely varying; up and down, braided, netted, entwined with silks and ribbons, even pearls, and, of course, dyed, bleached, and curled. The only thing in somewhat short supply seems to be hats, and really who would want to cover up what you had spent so much time constructing? "Do you have any idea how long it took me to get the curls placed?!" 1544 Portrait of Laura da Pola by Lotto Occasionally a small cap, or scuffia, was worn either with side curls, or with most of the hair stuffed up underneathe:- 1490 portrait by Ghirlandaio 1502 Betrothal 1510 Portrait by Araldi Another notable hair decoration was the reta, or hairnet. Some of these were beaded, some woven in decorative patterns, and some left very simple. 1505-1508 Siena 1545 Lavinia Under and around these ornamentations, o

The De Berry Project- The Fabric and shoes

As I mentioned last time I am working on a version of the outfit to the left for an event coming up soon in July. I wanted something with a hat to shade my face, and not too hot since we are going to be outside in the middle of a Virginian summer. The fabric gods were not kind, when I went to my local fabric stores. There was really nothing in the right weight, color, pattern, fiber, or amount; especially the amount since I need about 8 yards for the undergown and 10 yards for the overdress. Part of the problem is that there are no waist seams, so each piece has to be cut from a long continuous length of material. Also, those sleeves are about four yards by themselves. I resigned myself to ordering online, which I hate doing because it's so hard to be sure of the color etc without seeing it in person, and by the time the fabric arrives often there just isn't time to send it back and get something else. I went first to an oldie, but a goodie; Thai silks. I knew they would

How Our Ancestors Slept

As someone who wakes up during the night feeling frustratingly refreshed...and then struggles to rise in the morning, I found this article to be a kind of vindication. Apparently the way we sleep has changed. For more information you can visit the link here .

Amphorae

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