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I spent much of today at the Library of Congress, reading nineteenth-century home medical guides, looking at how they constructed and addressed the mother-as-family-medical-care-provider. It wasn't the world's most productive day, as only two of the five books I paged were the sort of thing I needed. One turned out to be the 1870 equivalent of a supermarket checkout line pamphlet. One was a memoir that incorporated a lot of information about How The Indians Do Their Doctoring, and What Dr. Benjamin Rush Said. Another was a text for some sort of low-budget knockoff of Christian Science.
The other two were much more along the lines of what I was looking for - diseases and their treatments, with instructions for when to call a physician, surgeon, or generic medical man. All the books had grandiose nineteenth-century turns of phrase, the sort of thing that I relish so plainly that Jason-at-work has commented on the fact that conversation with me elicits the most archaic words in his vocabulary. But one passage made me nearly laugh out loud, and indeed made me recall the laughing-silently-til-the-tears-come technique I at one time had mastered.
I like to think that I'm too sophisticated for bodily-function humor. But when I found the first remedy suggested for a bloody nose, in Cooper's Domestic Medicine (1824) to be "pour cold water on the genitals," I was hard pressed to not put my head down among the books and become hysterical.
To pour... I mean, it would certainly be a shock... but... and how inconvenient, to have to get undressed... especially for a woman in a dress, she'd get it bloody and washing was torturous in those days... and... and... ack! I mean, I thought I had personally been subjected to most of the weirdo cures for nosebleed, as I got a lot of spontaneous ones as a tyke. (One of the few good things my original pediatrician did after her inexplicable transformation (c. 1987) to a raging bitch, was to figure out that it was an oddball reaction to seasonal allergies.) Cold stuff on my face. Cold stuff on the back of my neck (I particularly remember a liter bottle of ginger ale.) Lemon juice to drink. Tissues up my nose. Leaning back. Leaning forward. Lying on the floor - memorable because it made the blood start to come out of my eyes. But no one ever dumped a bucket of icewater in my lap. For which I am profoundly grateful.
The other two were much more along the lines of what I was looking for - diseases and their treatments, with instructions for when to call a physician, surgeon, or generic medical man. All the books had grandiose nineteenth-century turns of phrase, the sort of thing that I relish so plainly that Jason-at-work has commented on the fact that conversation with me elicits the most archaic words in his vocabulary. But one passage made me nearly laugh out loud, and indeed made me recall the laughing-silently-til-the-tears-come technique I at one time had mastered.
I like to think that I'm too sophisticated for bodily-function humor. But when I found the first remedy suggested for a bloody nose, in Cooper's Domestic Medicine (1824) to be "pour cold water on the genitals," I was hard pressed to not put my head down among the books and become hysterical.
To pour... I mean, it would certainly be a shock... but... and how inconvenient, to have to get undressed... especially for a woman in a dress, she'd get it bloody and washing was torturous in those days... and... and... ack! I mean, I thought I had personally been subjected to most of the weirdo cures for nosebleed, as I got a lot of spontaneous ones as a tyke. (One of the few good things my original pediatrician did after her inexplicable transformation (c. 1987) to a raging bitch, was to figure out that it was an oddball reaction to seasonal allergies.) Cold stuff on my face. Cold stuff on the back of my neck (I particularly remember a liter bottle of ginger ale.) Lemon juice to drink. Tissues up my nose. Leaning back. Leaning forward. Lying on the floor - memorable because it made the blood start to come out of my eyes. But no one ever dumped a bucket of icewater in my lap. For which I am profoundly grateful.
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