Blog Archive for Sarah Albee, Writer of History and Science Books for Kids

Bad’s News

Posted September 10, 2015

The Regent (later King Charles V, right) and the King of Navarre (Charles II the Bad, left) conferring in a tent. From the Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, BL Royal MS 20 C vii f. 135v

Meet Charles, King of Navarre (1332 – 1387), also known as Charles the Bad. Because he tried, unsuccessfully, to conquer both France and Spain, the French called him Charles Le Mauvais, and the Spanish, Carlos el Malo.

What was so “the bad” about him? A combination of unpopular taxation policies, endless treasonous plotting with the English to overthrow his father-in-law, Charles V, the king of France, and for a generally dissolute lifestyle. One of the guys he was known to hang out with was called Peter the Cruel (from Seville). Barbara Tuchman describes him as a “supreme troublemaker,” who was “absolutely without scruple.” (132)*

But it’s his gruesome death for which he is most remembered. On a winter night in 1386 he fell ill with chills and shivering. According to Tom Standage in his fascinating book, A History of the World in Six Glasses**, Le Mauvais’s doctor ordered him wrapped up in cloth. The doctor decided to try the new go-to medicine, distilled wine, known as aqua vitae. Distilled wine was way higher in alcohol than regular wine or other fermented drinks. At the time, it was thought that aqua vitae could be helpful either by having the patient drink it or by applying it topically to the affected areas—in the case of the debauched king, that meant his whole body, as he had fever and chills. The doctor opted for the topical approach. Oopsadaisy. (Other accounts say it was brandy, but I’m pretty sure brandy that’s been repeatedly distilled may be the same thing as aqua vitae.)

Distilling apparatus

They soaked the king’s sheets with aqua vitae or maybe brandy, and wrapped him up from head to toe, to warm his body and induce sweating. But then, “One of the female [others say a male valet] attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissors, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.”** He lived for two agonizing weeks before expiring.

* Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror [mine is the 1978 edition]

**History of the world in Six Glasses by Tom Standage page 98-100

***Francis Blagdon, 1803, Paris as it was and as it is: or, A sketch of the French capital, illustrative of the effects of the revolution, with respect to sciences, literature, arts, religion, education, manners, and amusements; comprising also a correct account of the most remarkable national establishments and public buildings‬

Happy Labor Day

Posted September 7, 2015

Hello, Faithful Friends!

I’ve been away from the blog for a month, and–cough–am sort of still away, for a few more days. My book deadline is looming, but I’ve made great progress on it. And yet, I’m eking out a few more days of work and posting this Labor Day blog from last year…

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday of September every year since Grover Cleveland formally declared it a holiday for the working classes, in 1894.

The no-white-after-Labor-Day rule probably began during the late nineteenth century, when newly-well-to-do American families returned from their country houses to their homes and jobs in the cities. It would have been out of the question to wear white in the grimy, coal-smoky urban centers. (For some cool pics I posted on a former blog about smoky cities, click here. )

In honor of Labor Day, I’ve posted some pictures of people at work. For picture credits, scroll down.

Images:

Lunch break, Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives

Seven “Canary Cottage” young women of the burlesque theater, 1916 (Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-113672)

Lewis Hine, Noon hour at Massachusetts Mill, Lindale, Ga. 1914 (Library of Congress: LC-DIG-ncl-2004003934/PP/)

Lewis Hine, Noon hour at Massachusetts Mill, Lindale, Ga. 1914 (Library of Congress: LC-DIG-nclc-01356)

A two-horse team street cleaner, with sprayer, squeegee, and roller at rear. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)

A one-legged newspaper boy and other “newsies”, on Delancey Street, on December 26, 1906. (Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)

Lewis Hine, Noon hour at Massachusetts Mill, Lindale, Ga. 1914 (Library of Congress: LC-DIG-nclc-02754v)

“Drawing-in” -15 years. Berkshire Cotton Mills. Location: Adams, Massachusetts (Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/nclc.03113)

Frenemas

Posted July 27, 2015

L0036372 Brass, ivory, ebony and pewter enema syringe Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Brass, ivory, ebony and pewter enema syringe Photograph 17th - 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Brass, ivory, ebony and pewter enema syringes Wellcome Library, London.

I’m still deep in the midst of picture research for an upcoming book. In this blog post I wrote about the preponderance of pictures of physicians taking patients’ pulses, and in this blog post I posted a bunch of images of physicians examining patients’ urine. Here’s a picture that shows both at the same time.

This is by artist Jan Steen, from the seventeenth century. I like the foot warmer in the foreground–you put coals in the crockery and set it under that little stool, and the whole thing can be shoved under your skirts to keep you warm and toasty while you embroider or churn butter or whatever.

Pulse- and urine-checks were about the extent of what highly-paid medieval and Renaissance physicians could do for their patients. Which is probably just as well, since they had pretty scant knowledge of anatomy, forbidden as they were by the Church to dissect bodies. Cutting into a living body was a job left to the less-exalted barber surgeons, who, besides performing services like blood-letting and amputation, could also shave you or give you an enema.

And that leads us to enemas. An enema is a way to introduce a medicine or a “cleansing” agent by means of injecting it up the butt. Enemas (also called clysters or glisters) were extremely popular in western European medicine for quite a few centuries. They’re still popular in Russia, reports my sister, who lives there. At the court of Louis XIV, enemas were thought to be good for your complexion and to keep the mind sharp. The king had thousands of them over his lifetime, sometimes as many as four a day. Certain pharmacists specialized in enemas, and hung huge pictures of butt-plungers outside of their shops. Poisoned enemas were used from time to time to dispatch enemies.

A quick search of “enemas in artwork” on wiki and at the Wellcome Library yields dozens of pictures. I’ll spare you the explicit ones, but here’s a sampling of pictures of, er, imminent enemas. (Say that five times fast.)

Another Jan Steen, with another creepy doctor with a young female patient. Note the enema in his hand. Ew.

Another Jan Steen, showing another creepy doctor with a young female patient. Note the enema syringe in his assistant’s hand. Ew.

1909
Wellcome Library

V0010765 A young fashionable apothecary-surgeon(?) about to give a si Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org A young fashionable apothecary-surgeon(?) about to give a sick wealthy lady an enema. Engraving by A. Bosse, 16--. By: Abraham BossePublished: [16--] Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

“A young fashionable apothecary-surgeon(?) about to give a sick wealthy lady an enema.” Note the servant on the left, who carries an easy chair (to “do one’s ease”). The chamber pot would sit inside it. Wellcome Library

The Wellcome Library caption for this 18th century image: "A fashionable lady being given an enema by a charming doctor."

The Wellcome Library caption for this 18th century image: “A fashionable lady being given an enema by a charming young man.” Ummm, huh. Do you suppose it’s a first date?

“A gentlemen pays an unexpected call on a lady friend only to discover she is in the middle of having an enema.” Awkward.
(Wellcome Library)

Hello Mutter

Posted July 23, 2015

I just returned from a research trip to Philadelphia, where, among other things, I visited the Mutter Museum. It was founded in 1863, and has been at its present location, at The College of Physicians, since 1909. The mission of the museum, as stated on their website : The Mütter Museum helps the public appreciate the mysteries and beauty of the human body while understanding the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease.The museum houses thousands of osteological specimens, wet specimens, and wax models. I think of myself as having a pretty strong constitution when it comes to this sort of thing, but even I felt a little queasy after half an hour of eight-foot-long engorged colons and forty-pound scrotal tumors. You feel a little . . . voyeuristic. Perhaps you’ll be relieved to know that visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside, so you’ll be spared the visuals on these.

Once I focused on what I’d come to see—the exhibit about Vesalius (I’ve blogged about him here), the skull showing the ravages of tertiary syphilis, the display on the use of anesthesia in the Civil War, and the Benjamin Rush memorial medicinal garden, I felt, well, right as rain again.

Rush was a signer of the Declaration and helped found The College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1787. Here’s the pretty garden with no dead people parts in it:

Curling Up with a Hairdo Archaeologist

Posted July 6, 2015

Flavia statue, which Ms. Stephens describes as a “mullet from hell”

A couple of Facebook friends* sent me this article from the Wall Street Journal concerning a scholarly journal called the Journal of Roman Archeology, which published an article about ancient Roman hairstyles. You can read the original article here.

It was written by Janet Stephens. She’s not an archeologist. She’s a hairdresser from Baltimore.

I don’t wish to suggest that there’s anything wrong with hairdressers or people from Baltimore publishing articles in scholarly journals. But what’s remarkable is that this piece of original scholarship, published in 2008, is one of only two articles in the journal’s 25-year history written by a non-archeologist.

The premise of her article challenges the general consensus among ancient roman historians that most of these elaborate hairstyles were wigs. Stephens maintains that ancient stylists used women’s real hair, stitching it together with a long, blunt needle and thread in order to build the complex hairstyles. Her theory rests on the translation of the Latin word acus, which can be translated as a single-prong hairpin, a needle and thread, or a curling iron. After poring over ancient texts in translation, she determined that while most historians translated the word as “hairpin,” it was much more likely to have been a large needle, with thread that knitted together braids and affixed larger panels of hair to the head.

She goes on to demonstrate how these Roman hairdos might have been constructed, recreating them on mannequins and real-life hair models. You can see the pictures if you click through to the article.

Here’s her video on how to construct a vestal virgin’s hairdo.

(For more about the vestals, you can check out my blog post here.)

*Special thanks to Cathy Ballou Mealey and Dayna Kaufman Lorentz

A Grim Reminder

Posted July 2, 2015

Right now in the headlines there’s a big controversy–in California particularly, but in other states as well–over parents’ right to opt out of having their children vaccinated. As of last week, the California House passed a proposal that would make it illegal for parents to use their family’s personal and religious beliefs as reasons to exempt their children from school vaccinations. Here’s the website for one opt-out movement.

Many of my books touch on the history of infectious diseases, and I’ve lived in parts of the developing world where some of these diseases still occur. So it’s hard to read about parents who have the means to protect their children from so many of these dreaded diseases deciding to opt out of getting them vaccinated.

Let’s turn to Benjamin Franklin for his views on the subject. This is from his autobiography:

“In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”

Smallpox outbreaks occurred periodically in Boston where Franklin lived at the time, and if you caught the disease it either killed you or left you immune (and usually scarred). Whenever the disease returned, it struck young children who’d been born since its last visit, and new people who’d arrived. Franklin would have seen at least four big epidemics strike Boston leading up to the birth of his son.

The clergyman and medical man Cotton Mather learned about the use of the smallpox inoculation from his slave, Onsemus, who came from West Africa, and Mather and his colleague, Zabdiel Boylston, tried inoculating people during the smallpox epidemic of 1721. It was extremely unpopular, because people feared it would give them the disease rather than prevent it. In fact, about 2% of people died, versus 15% mortality the “common” way. (This was seventy years before Jenner’s discovery of the less-ricky cowpox vaccination, 1798.)

Franklin’s sadness and regret suggest he wishes he’d taken that risk. Parents today, especially those with health insurance and/or the means to protect their kids, should heed his words.

Portrait of Ferdinando de Medici from the sixteenth century

*Portrait of Ferdinando II de’ Medici*
Date	1626

Lead Astray

Posted June 29, 2015

I’ve been thumbing through old magazines, looking for advertisements to possibly include in my upcoming book, and came across an ad in this issue of The American Magazine, from December, 1923:It’s an ad for LEAD PAINT on page 195.It’s too small and detailed to include in the book, but fascinating nonetheless. A first glance might look like it’s a joke–like this Saturday Night Live spoof where Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin discuss highly dangerous toys for children.

But no, it’s not a joke. The National Lead Company proudly touted its products for decades. Shall we look at this in close-up?Yes, lead was included in the manufacture of sports equipment for kids, toy soldiers, dolls, fishing tackle, golf clubs, and, of course, paint. This ad was part of the start of a vast marketing and public relations campaign to create a positive image for lead paint. The Little Dutch Boy was the trademark of the company, a golden-haired, flush-cheeked, healthy-looking child with a paintbrush full of lead-based paint in his hand, a reassuring icon for parents, and, like Joe Camel, targeted to appeal to younger consumers.

The National Lead Company knew full well that lead was dangerous and toxic, but in the days before strict regulation, they were permitted to advertise to kids and to continue to produce their products with relative impunity. It wasn’t until the 1950s when some brave scientists, notably Clair Patterson, began to publish troubling scientific studies that linked lead exposure to neurological problems in children, at great peril to the scientists’ careers. Public opinion finally began to turn against lead-based paint, and by the 1970s, laws were passed lowering acceptable lead levels in paint.

Lead manufacturers had more success with lead-based gasoline, which wasn’t phased out completely until 1996.

Mind the Gap

Posted June 25, 2015

How have I not yet done a blog about codpieces?

Codpieces are among the more, shall we say, curious fashions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—and that’s saying something, because there were some crazy fashions during this time. They were worn at the crotch area of men’s trousers and held closed with ties or buttons. They were originally conceived as a way to cover up a man’s private parts when the hemlines of men’s tunics became shorter and shorter, until they were barely below the hip. Something had to be done to cover the gap at the top. But even when longer tunics were worn (or balloon breeches came into style), codpieces were worn ornamentally.

Here are a few examples:

A Money Making Endeavor

Posted June 22, 2015

In honor of the U.S. Treasury’s recent announcement that it plans to put a picture of a woman (gasp) on the ten-dollar bill by the end of this year, I thought I would repost this blog I wrote a couple of years ago, about a cool chapter in the history of American currency.

In 1896, the the Bureau of Engraving and Printing redesigned the U.S. paper money. Four artists were chosen to design the new bills, and the results were pretty spectacular. Instead of showing U.S. Presidents (and Founding Fathers), the new bills were neoclassical allegories.

Sadly, though, when President Cleveland chose not to run again in 1896, his Treasury Secretary retired and was replaced by a new Secretary, Lyman Gage. Gage, a banker by training, held a dim view of the artsy new currency designs, holding that paper bills should be practical, not artistic. Gage cancelled the new currency designs, and it went back to looking more or less the way the modern bills do.

But for almost a year, we had some awesome looking bills. Here’s the one-dollar bill. It shows History (the woman reclining) instructing a student (I’m not sure why he’s nearly naked) and pointing toward an open book showing the US Constitution. And the Washington DC skyline is in the background.

Here’s the back of the one-dollar bill. It shows George and Martha Washington (there’s a refreshing concept!):

Here’s the two-dollar bill. The central figure is Science, and she is introducing Steam and Electricity (the two kids) to Commerce and Manufacture.

On the back we see Robert Fulton (inventor of the steam engine) and Samuel Morse (inventor of the telegraph).

And here’s the glorious five-dollar bill. It shows Electricity presenting Light to the World, surrounded by Strength, Fame, and Peace. Although most people loved it, bankers objected to the fact that the numbers on the back of the note weren’t in the corners, making it hard for bank tellers to count money, and religious groups and society ladies objected to Electricity’s nudity and campaigned to recall the bills. So the Treasury promised to move the numbers to the corners, and the artist promised to put more clothing on Electricity for the next printing. (There was no next printing.)

Here’s the back of the fiver, where you see that the numbers aren’t very readable. And yes, those are two Union generals, Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan, with Liberty between them. This design was probably not so popular in the South.

Sources:

http://flyingmoose.org/truthfic/1896.htm

http://www.philadelphiafed.org/education/teachers/publications/symbols-on-american-money/

http://www.frbsf.org/education/teacher-resources/american-currency-exhibit

Duck, Duck, Geese

Posted June 18, 2015

A pontic duck
from http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast259.htm

Fans of Monty Python movies may remember this scene about a killer bunny from the Holy Grail [warning: it’s meant to be funny, but the over-the-top gore may be somewhat upsetting]. What makes it memorable—and comical, in a black-humor kind of way—is that a cute little bunny is such an unlikely antagonist, and yet turns out to be “the most foul, crude, and bad-tempered rodent you ever laid eyes on!”

Vicious

In the real world, cute or unlikely-looking animals have been used for other nefarious or unlikely purposes. King Mithradates of Pontus bred flocks of Pontic ducks, which purportedly preferred to dine on baneful plants like hemlock and belladonna with no ill effects to themselves. And yet their eggs, blood, and meat were poisonous to humans. Mithradates incorporated some of their blood into his famous antidote. At least, that’s what Pliny wrote, although he wasn’t exactly a detail guy.*

And then there are the attack geese. According to Pliny (see above), when the Gauls were about to mount a surprise attack on Rome’s Capitoline Hill in the fourth century BC, the sacred geese who lived in the temple of Juno started honking and flapping their wings like crazy and woke the Roman guards in time to repel the attackers.

As a result, geese were carried on a litter in a solemn procession every year for the next five centuries.** I’m not really clear why any self-respecting goose would agree to be paraded on a litter and not try to fly away. Pliny is unhelpful on this point.

Beware of Goose

 *Pliny 25.1.1-3 as quoted in Mayor, Poison King p 102 http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780691126838

**Aelian, On Animals 12.33/Pliny Natural History 29.57 as quoted in McKeown Cabinet of Roman Curiosities, 130. http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780195393750