Mission

Cutting for the stone is treated in the period literature I've read with a fair amount of reverence and awe as well as an enormous amount of concern for the comfort and well-being of the patient. Somewhere, I read that this was never to even be attempted on a ship, so I actually don't have a lot of notes on the procedure.

That's what I've read. I suspect one reason that it may have become "ahoy" was that it would be easier to say than "Hoy, hoy." (Try saying "Hoy, hoy." It is difficult to enunciate. This may sound silly, but it's the reason that the Spanish combine "a" [to] and "el" [the} into the contraction "al." "A el" is hard to enunciate in front of some words.)

I was the first (and only at the time) moderator at the Force.net (Everyone else on the team was an admin. I was made a mod since I was one of the few regulars who hung around in a particular forum which they gave me responsibility for). I was there from about '97 - 2000. I had several user IDs including MarkCK, MarkCK7, Barstool and stupid.

This is from Stephen Bradwell's Helps for Suddain Accidents: "I was in place about seaven yeares since, when some Gentlemen were taking Tobacco; and as one had knocked out the snuffe or coale of it on the Table; another in jest blew it toward him, he also blew it at him againe. This began to be pursued from one to the other, till a little Girle looking on (whose height was little above the Table) received the evill of their jesting; for some of the burning coale of Tobacco was blown into her eye. It tormented her extreamely (as nothing burneth more terribly) I ran into the garden, where I found some ground Ivie, whereof I gathered some, __ which I stamped, and strayned, and putting a little fine powdred Sugar to the Juice, I dropped some of it into her eye; upon which she received sudden ease, and had it not applyed above twice more, before she was perfectly well: But in the meane time, her eye was muffled up from the outward ayre. Here observe that the eye must never be dressed with any Oyle or Oyntment [the common treatment for burning was egg white with oil - I have often seen recipes call for "salatting [salad] oyle"]; because oyly and greasie things diminish the sight." (Bradwell, p. 122-3)

Can you just imagine what the inside of my head must look like with all those random movie quotes, C&H comic refs, Mad Magazine recollections, Bugs Bunny cartoon quotes and memories of all those old threads, long since dead? I can actually still recall several favorite threads from TheForce.net which I left back in 2000 when that Menace-ing movie came out and spoiled everything... Every once in a while, an idea occurs to me and I start drawing all those loose ideas together and you wind up having to read this stuff again. If only this power could be used for good... PS. This is what the inside of my head looks like: (Complete with the creepy Ark theme. I can hear it now.)

The cross-posting opportunity of a lifetime. How could I resist? (It's from Bright's post in the Marshmallow Peeps thread.)

¿Qué?

I got a pair of Crow's Bill forceps. Now I can fully explain the operation of bullet extraction. Oh, and a got this cool Stikfas skeleton pirate thing from one virtual pal and a skull full of pirate treasure from another.

Square bottles are definitely correct to period. Somewhere around here (probably in this post under one of my other IDs) I quote Moyle on this point. For a chest this old, I wouldn't be surprised if the bottles were changed. I don't think the mortar and pestle would be in the chest at all and I have doubts that the small bone saw would be in there either. Still, they are nice instruments and do appear reasonably close to period as I noted. I do recall reading something about different sized naval ships requiring more medicines. This could mean bigger medicine chests, especially since everything was hand-built in those days. Of course, they could also have more than one chest if they were standard. (They may have been standardized for ship sizes in the Navy, although I don't really know that.) On the other hand, Woodall explicitly defines what would go into a medicine chest for the East India company and I would be inclined to think his chests would all be of a similar size. Since Woodall lists over 200 medicines I would be inclined to think a chest like this would be far too small. OTOH, he also suggests that some medicines were highly recommended for certain types of voyages. This implies that not all medicines were recommended for all voyages and we're back to each chest being hand made and assembled. Still, every sea medicine chest I've seen on either side of period is different than this one, so I still say it is probably a land chest.

It's a neat idea, but since I've been saving photo albums as bookmarks (starting with PiP '07) to do the Surgeon's Journal website, I've noticed that they sometimes disappear leaving broken links. Plus I wonder if everyone would want that sort of link to their album. On another note, I've been putting links to the albums beneath the photos in the Surgeon's Journal webpage for well over a year, so they can be accessed there. Another thought is that, as fascinating as photos of the folks we know at PiP are to us, they're only of interest to people who weren't there when something interesting is going on or if they're looking for something specific. You're basically looking at someone else's vacation photos. Speaking of which, this is a nice shot from William's album:

I wonder if you can rent this for events?

John over at Machinestchest.com sent me a heads up on a 17th medicine chest that I hadn't seen on eBay. You can find the auction here. It is going for the princely sum of $20,000 which is a bit outside of my price range for re-enactment items. In fact, it is a bit outside of my price range for most things, other than automobiles. It also includes many surgical instruments many of which I know are typical to period (some of them I'm not so sure - like the metal medical containers.) Note that I do not think this is a sea chest because the design is different than all the sea chests I have seen thus far. It also would appear to be too small for a ocean going surgeon, because such surgeons had to carry all the medicines they would need for the voyage to their destination. This isn't to say it couldn't be carried to sea for more local use, but I suspect it is for a land-based surgeon. Still, it is a lovely piece and so I am sharing it. Thanks to John for the heads up. The auction says: "Offered to you is this Extremely Rare 18th century (1700s) antique medical doctor’s mahogany chest with various instruments and equipment inside. This chest was used between 1700 and 1760. The case is made of mahogany wood, reinforced with bronze and lined with velvet plush. It opens as a convenient chest with drawers. Remnants of labels in Latin on some of the drawers. There is a secret lockable drawer on the back, which was used to store some tools made of gold as well as special medicines. The handle is made of bronze and has a special bed designed for it so it doesn’t protrude. Such chests were used by naval and military doctors and contained everything needed to perform basic surgical and other manipulations whenever a hospital wasn’t available. There are various instruments used in giving lifesaving first aid to soldiers suffering bullet or sharp object wounds, as well as original equipment used in the making of various medicines. There is an amputation saw, surgical needles, scalpel, scissors and bullet probes made of natural bone, as well as metal bullet extractor (scoop). Various other apothecary equipment as scales, bottles, jars etc. Dimensions: 11” x 10” x 7”. Truly a collector’s piece that would proudly take its place in any museum or private collection." There are a ton more pics on the auction which I won't reprint here for bandwidth reasons, but of all the instruments, I really like the scissors:

Happy Birthday, Salty!!

Ah, yes, it was Morgan's photos. I don't have her bookmarked because she has only put up 1/2% of the photos she took.

Funny this should come up, I was just mining these for my web page. Mary's Photos include the best ones I've found. Somewhere out there is one of Michael going in that I really liked, but now I can't find it. I suspect that I may be missing one of the photo collections in my bookmarks, tho'.

Who is this? (It's from M.A. d'Dogges collection.)

That's her login ID. Not everyone knows people other than by their login ID.

She's also a re-enactor. (I think she's really cool.) You can read about my encounter with her here.

HB to CrazyCholeBlack of the crunchy life-saving coffee!

I believe that means the person you're conversing with has deleted the conversation. It's probably due more to the limited number of messages they can have in their Inbox than a reflection upon on you or the conversation.

Cheers! Have a good one! (Yet another December birthday...)

To the keeper of the Santa Maria flame in Columbus! Good seeing you at PiP! Have a great birthday, sir!

I watched the first couple of the Jack of All Trades shows and...that ain't Briscoe County, Jr. It's ok, but it's a bit too over the top for my taste. (Yeah, I know.) I like Bruce Campbell when he plays confident and a little cocky - "just under over-the-top." He seems to like to play roles that are swaggering and obtusely oblivious (as he did in the Evil Dead series.) In BC, Jr. he was reigned in a little and played the role heroically and sympathetically where in Jack he's sort of obnoxious and frequently seems to be mugging for the camera. The humor in this show is also a bit too broad for me, the "Ugly American" aspect overplayed and the innuendo kind of overdone IMO. (These are the same problems I find with Bruce's own productions, so I think that may just be Bruce.) In the same way I like Chuck Jones' take on Bugs Bunny (where an eyebrow lift can convey as much as an explosion in Friz Freleng's BB cartoons), I like Briscoe County, Jr. better than Jack of All Trades. Or maybe I'm over-analyzing it. (Not that I would ever do that. )

Hey, Pearl, you made it here! What is the name of your shop at PiP? Do you have a web site for it?

The best initiation I can come up with at the moment is the traditional crossing the equator routine. Of course, we'll need a mast and a yardarm for that, but since Captain Jim once said he was going to build one so we could explain sails & rigging to the tourists, no hay problema.