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highlander
08-Jan-07, 15:01
I came across an interesting article of medical reports for Caithness in 1891, the most surprising part i found was the number of people who lived in the burghs,
http://www.scan.org.uk/digitalarchive/viewimages.asp?arc_id=1&group=6

highlander
08-Jan-07, 15:18
In 1832 if you became ill with cholera, the treatment was terrible, you were given 2 teaspoons of mustard powder and tablespoon of common salt, this was mixed with water to make you vomit, and there after drinks of warm water.
When the vomiting has ceased you were given 40 drops of Laundanum made into a toddy of brandy or other spirits.
The patients were wrapped in warm blankets, hot bricks, bottles of hot water, flannels or warm muslins, bags filled with hot sand and salt, this was carefully applied to chest and limbs, using, at the same time, continual friction, with a warm flannel to parts of body not covered with the bags.
The sand, bran or salt would be heated by a girdle or frying pan, this was to be continued untill a doctor could attend, who would give you other medical treatment, no wonder so many people died of cholera, if this was all they could do to help you.

_Ju_
08-Jan-07, 15:35
And then the source of infection was the water itself.......

I heard on the radio other day, the tail end of a programme ( probably bbc 4) that even though there was a doctor suspecting the source of contamination being a certain fountain in London (in soho), permission to close the water source was denied, allowing for a new outbreak......

The history of medicine is very interesting, especially in the way we look back at it and think how primitive when looking at our own and thinking it almost miraculous. I am sure that 100 years from now our medicine will be very primitive and as unthinkable as a heart transplant was 30 or less years ago.