Melancholy Baby

[Cheeky Actress]

Interesting insight regarding mental health issues during the 17th Century.

Melancholy Baby

[Kate Souris]

Oh Lilly....this just about made me fall over giggling....

[Misson]

Nice description of the four humoural types. (Ever notice how personality types are nearly always grouped in fours? I believe that started with the four humoural types.) I have yet to read a really good book on the Galenic humoural theory and blood-letting. (Although this page is a pretty good one on the topic. it contains good info on the instruments that were used instead of leeches during period.)

I figure to put a whole chapter on the subject of blood letting in my tome since it was considered the solution to damn near every health problem. I'd really like to find a good modern book on the topic, but I'd also sort of like to lay my hands on Nicholas Culpepper's Two treatises, the first of blood-letting and the diseases to be cured thereby, the second of cupping and scarifying, and the diseases to be cured thereby. (Although it's probably full of f's for s's and impossible spellings.) Culpepper wrote a notable book on healing herbs that I have managed to get (and not read).

BTW, leech jars are very popular collectibles. They seem to fetch pretty decent prices on eBay.

[Cheeky Actress]

Oh Lilly....this just about made me fall over giggling....

Thought you'd get a kick out of it, Kate!

Glad you liked it...and I hoped that it was somewhat informative.

[Cheeky Actress]

I have to thank you, Mission for putting the 'leech' subject in my crawl and posting the link to the letting site.

As I stated in the blog, though the conversation about leeches started with a comical tone, it really got me thinking about the subject about health in the 17th Century; both physcial and mental well-being).

...and with my character development regarding the passing of her child...this would address the issue of melancholy and mental well being. Hmmm, perhaps I will start looking into Asylums (Bedlam) of the time period?!

Though, I am under the mind-set that even though leech use my have fell out of favor during the 1680 to 1730s, I do find it hard to believe that it stopped all together.

In my seach on the web, I did come across a lovely picture of a "Blood Letting Chair" from the 1680s. Damn if I can find it now?! I will see if I can find it today.

[Misson]

I'm sure you're right about it not stopping altogether. Fads were fads, even then - certainly some people would have continued in the fine old ways. Note too that a lot of the rural areas used whatever medical practices they had been taught previously because there were so few physicians there. Also, there were an abundance of quacks in London and the British Isles. Physicians were very expensive and many regular people turned to self-medication, street vendors and patent medicine. So some vendor could easily have purveyed leeches at this time. (Land medicine is not my particular interest, so I have only read a small amount on it. Most of this line of thought is courtesy of the book The Age of Agony by Guy Williams.)

BTW, your child could well have died of smallpox - it was a very common malady that killed a large number of children during period. Somewhere recently I read that it was believed at this time that a child was not your own until it had survived smallpox.

[Cheeky Actress]

Interesting note about smallpox...yet, Mistress Lilly's child passed under "dubious circumstances"

For those who are interested on learning more about their own traits,

Here is a link: Are you a Melancholy Baby?

[Blackbead]

Mission:

Isn't there some evidence out there that blood-letting caused a lightheaded feeling and a kind of euphoria? I seem to recall reading a long time ago (while doing some research about Civil War medicine) that this was noticed in some patients and resulted in a sort of psychological addiction to blood-letting. In another life-time, I dated a woman who was really into tattoos and piercings (another topic for a long, rum- supported evening) and she talked about how the pain and the process were so addictive. I recall how the governor who provided the comic relief in "Captain Blood" seemed almost excited to get another blood-letting. Any thoughts?

Blackbead

[Capt. Sterling]

BTW, your child could well have died of smallpox - it was a very common malady that killed a large number of children during period.

Hmmm before writing this into the scenario...question, wasn't smallpox still considered a very serious illness, not the same but up there with the plague? Or did an outbreak of smallpox not cause citywide concern and was just considered a common illness?

We need something more typical of childhood diseases, that would commonly kill a child but not send the entire town into a panic.

[Cheeky Actress]

Here is an interesting find! There was actually a Cult of melancholia during the 17th century.

This curious cultural and literary cult of melancholia arose in England about the early 17th Century. The religious upheaval and uncertainty caused by the English Reformation and the church paying a greater attention to the topics of sin, damnation and salvation let to this effect.

There was a resurgance of this phenomenon, though not under the same name, during the Romantic Period (roughly 1820s thru 1840s).

[Misson]

Smallpox was a common illness at this time. I'd have to get to my other notes to cite the book I read recently on the topic, but I have some from Guy William's book that will also serve. From Williams:

“Among these [deadly infectious diseases], one of the most dreaded during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was smallpox –‘the most terrible of all the ministers of death’, in Lord Macaulay’s words. The smallpox he said, was always present…"

From the Wikipedia Entry:

"The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Between 20 and 60% of all those infected—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease."

In 1717, a form of inoculation was brought to England from India (where it was widely used) to deal with smallpox called variolation. Also from Williams:

“In a letter written at Adrianople on 1 April 1717, [Lady Mary, wife of Edward Wortley Montagu] reported the practice of inoculation for the prevention of smallpox:

…The smallpox, so fatal and so general among us, is here rendered entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the smallpox; they make parties for this purpose, and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen together), the old woman comes with a nutshell full of the matter of the best sort of smallpox, and asks what veins you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a large needly (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell; and in this manner opens four or five veins…

The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health until the eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three. Every year thousands undergo this operation; and the French ambassador says pleasantly, that they take the small pox here by way of a diversion, as they take the waters in other countries.

There is no example of anyone that has died in it; and you may well believe I am very well satisfied in the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it with my dear little son…

Lady Mary did have inoculation tried on her dear little son, and after the family returned to England at the end of October 1718 she went to a lot of trouble to make other people aware of the advantages of the operation. Under her distinguished and energetic patronage, a Mr Maitland, who had been the physician of her husband’s embassy, started to carry out the first British inoculations. By 1721 the possibilities of protection offered by the newly imported practice had been successfully demonstrated, and the services of Mr Maitland were in ever-increasing demand.” (Williams, p. 72-3)

[MadL]

Interesting note about smallpox...yet, Mistress Lilly's child passed under "dubious circumstances"

For those who are interested on learning more about their own traits,

Here is a link: Are you a Melancholy Baby?

I do naught fully understand this test, it says I be 35% Melancholy, 23% Phlegmatic, 23% Choleric, 'n 20% Sanguine.

So how does that tie t' me be'n 50% German, 50% Irish, 'n 50% English??

'n I Do NAUGHT 'Live through others'!!!

[Capt. Sterling]

Interesting note about smallpox...yet, Mistress Lilly's child passed under "dubious circumstances"

Not THAT child...Mission is referring to the funeral down in Pip...THAT child.

[Cheeky Actress]

MadL,

The test shows both the strong side and the weak side of the four (4) humoural types in percentages, so if you were:

35% strong in Melancholy - that means have have a 65% weak side to it.

Then you can go to the link that shows the positive side and the negative side of each of the four humoural types.

You want to look at the score that has the higher percent - this will give you your more dominate trait.

[MadL]

You want to look at the score that has the higher percent - this will give you your more dominate trait.

Well...we will naught be discuss'n that in public fer I am Naught kind o' pirate!

But when all four fall so close then do ye take an average o' each one, 'er are th' three lessers just along fer th' ride??

[Misson]

In truth, Mission is not entirely sure which baby we are talking about. Lily had said, "...and with my character development regarding the passing of her child" which is what I was referring to.

[Misson]

Mission:

Isn't there some evidence out there that blood-letting caused a lightheaded feeling and a kind of euphoria?  I seem to recall reading a long time ago (while doing some research about Civil War medicine) that this was noticed in some patients and resulted in a sort of psychological addiction to blood-letting.  In another life-time, I dated a woman who was really into tattoos and piercings (another topic for a long, rum- supported evening) and she talked about how the pain and the process were so addictive.  I recall how the governor who provided the comic relief in "Captain Blood" seemed almost excited to get another blood-letting.  Any thoughts?

Blackbead

What's this? Well, to tell the truth, in all the excitement, I kind of lost track of this post. So let me just respond to it now.

I don't really know.

I really added a lot to this, didn't I? I forget which book I was reading - I think it was James Yonge's Journal - but it talked several times quite matter-of-factly about having to go off and find the surgeon to let a patient's blood while the physician considered more weighty treatment. (There were three types of land medicine men during period - the physician, who advised patients, debated theory and wrote books; the apothecary - who created medicines, usually based on the physician's recommendation and the lowly surgeon - who did everything else.)

It would make sense to me that if you had enough blood let, you would get light-headed. Could this be euphoric? Well, euphoria is a funny word; what one person thinks is euphoric, another might think dizzy. (It's kind of like being "in the Spirit" - what exactly is it to be "in the Spirit"? It could be the same as euphoric which could be the same as dizzy. But that's another debate entirely, I suppose.) Certainly some people are addicted to pain (that's definitely another debate entirely) but another possibility is that some people are addicted to illness and treatment. This is a psychological addiction and is thought by many to stem from the attention people get when they are ill. As always, most people will do all sorts of things to get more attention.

One thing that has interested me exceedingly about Edward Barlow's Journal is how similar the psychology of people at that time period is to today. I don't post much of his moaning about stuff, but he is a champion complainer when it come to things that inconvenience him. And, just as today, he complains about one set of things that went on in a ship in the beginning of the journal that irritated him as a seaman and then turns around and complains about nearly the exact opposite set of things that go on in a ship when he is put in charge later in the journal. Take that and a hundred other little things he says about things like patriotism, cynicism, lawyers, insurance, prejudice, war, politics, marriage and so forth and you soon discover that the thinking wasn't so different then than it is now. People are people whenever you go. (I really, really advise anyone interested in the daily life and thoughts of a seamen to read this book.)

[Blackbead]

The next book on me shelf - Barlow's Journal it is! Now, let me find a copy . . .

[Misson]

I suggest you get it through a library or library loan. It's too expensive to be worth buying.

[Misson]

Here's an interesting quote on topic from Barlow:

“[1695] And the 7th day of February it pleased God to take to himself my youngest child, who had lain lingering a long time under a consumptive disease. She was about three years and a half old, and a fine hopeful child, our griefs being multiplied, one grief following another. But blessed be the name of the Lord, who then had out of six left us two children, and His loving mercies to depend upon; for He had given and He had taken away, and praised be His holy name that we were yet in the land of the living, for it had been a sickly time in and about London, and the smallpox very rife, of which distemper my child had her first illness.” (Barlow, p. 454)

[Cheeky Actress]

Has anyone heard of the term “Wandering Womb”? From what I am learning, doctors of the time truly thought that a woman’s womb would wander into her head!

Okay...this is a new 'term' which may explain why women were more prone to the likes of Melancholy than men.

But, if you really think about it the word Hysterics has some root in the Greek word hustera - for womb).

Can anyone tell me when and where this idea may have started?

[Matty Bottles]

I have heard of a similar idea - that a woman's womb was in versely related to the size of her brain. So the more education a woman had, the larger her brain got, and the smaller her womb got.

[Silkie McDonough]

well ...think about it ...look at society today ...there are teens having babies and it is in my mind because they are uneducated to the consequences. When they learn better they are less likely to have children out of wed lock or at least until thy are financially stable.

[Cheeky Actress]

I'm not sure if the mind set here is 'education' - especially in the late 17th century.

Religious morals of the time (taking in consideration of the social class) may have also contributed to the women’s moral conscience as well.

[Matty Bottles]

I'm not sure if the mind set here is 'education' - especially in the late 17th century.

Religious morals of the time (taking in consideration of the social class) may have also contributed to the women’s moral conscience as well.

Yeah, I think that Cheeky's point is pretty sound - this wasn't necessarily like the frigid Victorian age, where sexuality (and the biology of sex) was bowlderized right out of the public mind. There would be plenty of examples of the dangers of pregnancy during this time period, especially since it is pre-sanitary conditions, pre-vaccination, etc. I think every person was probably well versed in the dangers of childbirth of the era.

No, I think the premise of the time was that women who think too much, and actually ponder the questions of philosophy and morality (instead of just following moral rules without question*) in a reasoned and considered argument actually reduced the likelihood of pregancy because such endeavors made them barren. In a male-dominated world, when many women were unfortunately valued for nothing more than the progeny they produced, this would be viewed as a tragedy.

Consider again that the individual health needs of women, particularly for reproductive health, were barely individuated from men's until the last century (the twentieth, not the nineteenth), and I think we can safely say that such an attitude toward intelligence and fertility certainly did not exist for the woman's benefit.

*Interestingly enough, this legalistic 'morality by rote' - which transforms the useful practices of human interaction described in social/religious mores into something appearing to be stark and arbitrary - frequently led to rebellions against moral standards, when a thorough consideration and discussion of morality, philosphy and faith frequently strengthens healthy attitudes in those arenas. Accordingly, the twin heresies of angelism and animalism both stem from such legalism, and both distort the Christian description of the human character. Boy, I bet those bossy old dudes feel stupid now, huh?