Medicine in the GAop

[mrwill]

Learned Colleague,

For the stick and fillet tourniquet, I would recommend woven hemp strap 1" or 11/2" as available here:

https://host96.ipowerweb.com/~frontier/cgi-...product=webbing

The tape that they speak of would be what a tape loom would make like so:

http://www.tapelooms.com/album_cat.php?cat...b37d74e28d369de

The 18 tailed bandage was made of heavy linen or sometimes wool. (As well as all the single and double rollers)

Sutures and ligatures were made of linen or silk thread, sometimes for tying off arteries the hair of a horse tail was used. No sutures or ligatures were left in the wound, once the injured part had healed they were removed. To do otherwise would cause abscesses to form.

Glassware can be obtained from my friends at:

P&B Glassworks 5612 Mooretown Rd, Unit C Williamsburg, VA 23188 (757) 564-8436

Tell then what you are doing and tell them Dr. Mike sent ya.

For ointment jars, bleeding bowls and other cool stuff try the following folks,

http://www.juliasmith.com/

http://hendersonsredware.com/

http://www.westmoorepottery.com/index.htm

I remain,

Y.M.H.& O.S.

M. Williams Esq.

Late surgeon to his Majesty's provincial forces

[Rateye]

Mr. Will?

It appears P+B has no website? Which products/ bottles should I mention when I call?

Also, do you have a source for the common herbs and medicines or advice for improvised examples?

Also is Godwin the only provider, or is there a smith which will take orders on comission?

Rats

[Story]

Theory for Mass Deaths Roils Mexico

(AP) -- Mexicans have long been taught to blame diseases brought by the Spaniards for wiping out most of their Indian ancestors. But recent research suggests things may not be that simple.

While the initial big die-offs are still blamed on the Conquistadors who started arriving in 1519, even more virulent epidemics in 1545 and 1576 may have been caused by a native blood-hemorrhaging fever spread by rats, Mexican researchers say.

The idea has sparked heated debate in Mexican academic circles.

One camp holds that the epidemics could have been spread by rats migrating during a drought cycle; others say newly arrived Spanish miners may have disturbed the habitat of virus-carrying rodents while searching for gold and silver.

The revisionists draw support from one of the only authoritative firsthand accounts of the epidemics, a text lost for hundreds of years until it was found, misfiled, in a Spanish archive.

Dr. Francisco Hernandez, a physician to the Spanish king who witnessed the epidemic of 1576 and conducted autopsies, describes a fever that caused heavy bleeding, similar to the hemorrhagic Ebola virus. It raced through the Indian population, killing four out of five people infected, often within a day or two.

"Blood flowed from the ears and in many cases blood truly gushed from the nose," he wrote. "Of those with recurring disease, almost none was saved."

Harvard-trained epidemiologist Dr. Rodolfo Acuna-Soto, a microbiology professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University, had Hernandez' work translated from the original Latin in 2000. He followed up with research into outbreaks in Mexico's isolated central highlands, where indigenous rats may have spread the disease through urine and droppings.

Acuna-Soto's theory - which has been published in several scientific journals, including Emerging Infectious Diseases and the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene - runs counter to the belief that most of Mexico's Indian population died of Spanish-imported diseases such as smallpox, to which their bodies had no immunity.

"This wasn't smallpox," Acuna-Soto says. "The pathology just does not fit."

He says some historians in Mexico are offended by his theory.

"Much of the reason why these epidemics were left unstudied was that it was politically and institutionally easier to blame the Spaniards for all of the horrible things that might have happened," he said. "It was the official version of history."

Certainly, imported diseases such as smallpox, measles and typhoid fever did cause huge numbers of deaths starting in 1521. But the epidemics of 1545 and 1576 struck survivors of the first die-offs and their children, who would presumably have developed some immunity.

While there is no reliable figure on Mexico's population in the 1500s - estimates range from 6 million to 25 million - it is clear that by 1600 only around 2 million remained.

The epidemic "was so big that it ruined and destroyed almost the entire land," wrote Fray Juan de Torquemada, a Franciscan historian who witnessed the epidemic of 1576, adding Mexico "was left almost empty."

"Many were dead and others almost dead, and nobody had the health or strength to help the diseased or bury the dead."

Other accounts speak of a rodent invasion, and Acuna-Soto teamed up with U.S. researchers to investigate whether an abnormally severe drought may have pushed rats into human settlements or vice versa.

But another Mexican expert in the field insists the rodents mentioned in texts from the era probably came from Europe or Asia carrying the bubonic plague, which sometimes caused its victims to vomit blood.

Elsa Malvido, a demographer, historian and an expert on ancient epidemics for the National Institute of Anthropology and History, says the plague could have caused the more severe hemorrhagic symptoms recorded by Hernandez, because it was attacking a population with no immunity whatsoever.

But Dr. Carlos Viesca, director of medical history at Mexico's national university, says he is close to being convinced the epidemics were native.

"The problem didn't start in Acapulco or Veracruz," the two main seaports where rats would have landed from overseas, he said. Instead, the disease appears to have started in the central highlands at a time when the Spaniards sent mining expeditions to unsettled parts of Mexico, raising the possibility that humans invaded rodent habitats, he said.

Relatively few Spaniards were affected by the outbreak, possibly because in either eventuality they were protected: If the cause was bubonic plague or smallpox, their bodies had greater immunity to it; and if it was rodent-borne, they were less likely to come into contact with the animals.

[Sjöröveren]

Look at the threads I miss when I'm too busy to check in....

I suggest we take an informal head count of those of us who are interested in Medicine at sea. We could form a Guild of sorts, for purposes of exchanging ideas, in the tradition of Royal Societies. Anyone interested?

[capnwilliam]

Count me in, Sjorovaren! :) I've been thinking about formulating a ship's surgeon persona. I currently have nothing in the way of equipment, though.

My mate Jan is interested in period household medicines.

Capt. William

[capnwilliam]

Is no one else interested?

Capt. William

[Lady Alyx]

Me me...but I thought Dr Rateye was first asking amongst us if we knew of any cures...aye like holistic cures. Things we have learned of or learned from our folks. My parents came from the old country and they still practiced a lot of old cures handed down. Where you looking for any of these or strictly surgical?

Recently I was doing some research on Quinine and found that had helped with Malaria back when it was horrid.

So I am in on this discussion thread. I would love to hear of more holistic remedies. Here's a simple one.. Ginger for nausea. I swear by it!

[capnwilliam]

Lady Alyx,

I was responding to Sjorovaren's message about forming a Medicine at Sea guild.

As my wife Jan is interested in period home remedies, please share 'em with us! :)

Capt. William

[Sjöröveren]

I think I'll try to track down some of the folks who have posted on the subject in previous threads and invite them to join this theorhetical guild.

[Capn_Enigma]

Ginger for nausea.  I swear by it!

Yuck! Ginger would give me nausea! But then I'll prob'ly start swearing, so it seems that you're all right!

[William Brand]

So I am in on this discussion thread. I would love to hear of more holistic remedies. Here's a simple one.. Ginger for nausea. I swear by it!

Seconded. We keep a box of ginger snaps for when we're feeling ill.

[Capt Grey]

I would love to learn about medicine of the time. A surgeon persona would be great but, alas, probably not believable for the female pirate.

[Lady Alyx]

Captn Enigma, Re- Nausea

No for reals, Ginger will make it go away so fast you won't even know what hit ya. I keep a tin of Altoids Ginger by me bed. Please give it try! Ginger candy or ginger ale even.

[Sjöröveren]

I would love to learn about medicine of the time. A surgeon persona would be great but, alas, probably not believable for the female pirate.

Not really. Many of the healers for the common folk were women. (Speaking in terms of land-based here, not sea-going) Surgeon and Physician were members of guilds, and often refused to see the lower classes, and the common folk couldn't afford them anyway. But they still got sick, so they went to bonesetters, "witchy women" and other female practitioners.

And of course, a pirate ship probably wouldn't have any sort of surgeon, unless they were forced to serve against their will.

[Mission]

Ah, a GAoP era procedure that you won't soon forget (especially if you're a guy.) This is from James Yonge's book Currus Triumphalis, é Terebinthô.

"Observation IX.

Anno. 76. A young Man about twenty years old, living with Alderman W. (whose Nephew he was) from some disappointment in Love, as was imagined, or rather as himself confessed, on a Religious account, to cure salacious heats, did castrate himself, by griping up the Testicles, with the whole Scrotum in one hand, and with a keen Knife in the other cutting them off close to the body; the sudden pain and effusion of bloud made him faint and fall back on the Bed, where he sat while the thus acted Origen Secundus. He bled very largely before any one discovered it: when I came, finding such a large flux[of blood], and the

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man much weakned, I hastily griped up the Wound in my hand, thereby stopping the excess of the Hemorrhage; while Mr. Munyon prepared the Dressings:when they were ready, withdrawing my hand to make way for their application, the bloud forthwith spouted out, as it had been from a small quill [ha ha]: but we soon stopped it, by laying on the divided Vasa buttons of Tow [little wads of linen tied to resemble a button] dipt in the hot Oil of Terebinth [Turpentine]; and over all a large Pledget [bandage] dipt in the same: over which we also put two or three Plegets more armed with the common Defensative and boulsters of Linnen, moistned with Posca [a mixture of vinegar, water & herbs], and so rouled him up: the bloud instantly staunched, but the refraction thereof threw him into a Syncope [he fainted again], together with coldness of the extream parts, no pulse, &c. I concluded Death would follow; we gave him a glass of Sack [common Spanish wine] while the following mixture was preparing, of which he afterwards drank liberally, till his spirits were recovered to a good degree;

Rx. Aq. Miabilis, Flor. parlysios, Melissæ, Corasor. nigr. an {ounce}iij, Spec. cons. Hyacinth. {dram}j. Pulv guttatæ {scruple}ij. misce.

We opened the Wound next day, found tokens of good digestion [beginnings of healing in the wound], and as fair as heart could wish. It was long e're he could

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recruit his spirits, so much exhausted by the Hemorrhage; but the wound in a months time was almost cicatrized [healed over with new skin], so as he followed his business." (Yonge, p. 76-8)