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Use Any Form of Flax Seeds When Making Flax Tea
The statistics for my Wordpress website show that several people have landed on my blog while browsing for information about making flaxseed tea. They are asking this question: Do I have to grind flax seeds when making flax tea? The answer is: you can if you want to,...
Rev. Mr. Bate Dudley Accused of Crim. Con.
For seven or eight years I have been downloading and reading books published during the Regency era—by which I mean the "long" Regency era running from about 1780 (before the French Revolution) to 1830 (the year King George IV died). Books published during these...
Jane Austen’s English: Thoughts for JAFF Writers
Today, July 18, 2017, is the 200-year anniversary of Jane Austen's death. Would she have been astonished by the popularity of her novels and the events honoring her passing? Would she utter a pithy comment to a Tennessee blogger writing about her use of adverbs and...
Anne de Bourgh’s Rheumatic Affection
My previous blogs about Anne de Bourgh's health asked these questions: What illness made Anne sickly? and Might Anne have had scarlet fever? You may recall that Anne de Bourgh is the heiress of Rosings Park in Jane Austen's beloved novel Pride and Prejudice. In...
Regency Dietary Treatments for Scarlet Fever
Regency-era doctors threw all sorts of treatments at their patients with scarlet fever: gargles made with hydrochloric acid; gentle potions made with antimony—a compound used to promote perspiration (today antimony is used mainly in industrial processes); and caustic...
Regency Medical Treatments for Scarlet Fever
Anne de Bourgh, the heiress of Rosings Park in Jane Austen's popular novel Pride and Prejudice, might have been suffering from a debilitating disease that made her sickly and cross: acute rheumatism, consumption (tuberculosis), tussis (a persistent cough), or a nasty...
Regency Ideas about the Causes of Scarlet Fever
The origin of contagious diseases has been commonly deemed obscure ..." — W. Blackburne, 18031 Anne de Bourgh, the heiress of Rosings Park in Pride and Prejudice, might have had scarlet fever when she was a teenager. If so, what caused it? Dr. Buchan described two...
Is Scarlet Fever One Disease? or Two? or Three?
During the Regency era, scarlet fever was generally recognized as having two forms: a simple version characterized by a mild fever and skin rash, and a malignant version, identified by a high fever and pockets of ulceration in the throat. The latter form was quite...
Did Anne de Bourgh Have Scarlet Fever?
In my previous blog I speculated about the illness that made Anne de Bourgh sickly and cross. Anne features prominently in my novel Cousin Anne, where the seventeen-year-old heiress can be found in London with her parents. While there she falls in love with Mr....
What Illness Made Anne de Bourgh Sickly?
I keep track of the questions that bring readers and other curious parties to my website. A surprising number of people are interested in Anne de Bourgh's inheritance, a scheme which I outlined in a 2014 blog post. A 2015 blog post considered Anne's arranged...
Tidbits from Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide
My previous blog described Johnstone's London Commercial Guide,1 published in 1818. The guide includes a street directory showing which individual or business worked at a specific address. I had been browsing Johnstone's guide to find surgeons who were practicing in...
The Practice of Surgeons in 1818 London
In pursuit of background material on a character in my third Regency novel, which is in production, I recently found myself browsing nearly every page in Johnstone's London Commercial Guide. The full title of this weighty tome is typical of many Regency-era books:...
Regency Doctors Threw Tobacco Up the Butt
Recently I was browsing online and discovered this highly entertaining blog by Terynn Boulton titled "When Doctors Literally Blew Smoke Up Your Arse." Blowing tobacco smoke up a patient's bowel was used in cases of "suspended animation" or, in other words, to revive,...
Flaxseed in Jane Austen’s Day: Infusions and Poultices
I've been running with the topic of flaxseed (also called linseed) for three weeks now. First I examined Dr. Duncan's comments about flaxseed in The New Edinburgh Dispensatory of 1803. Next, I reviewed the health benefits of flaxseed oil. Last week I discussed some...
Uses of Flaxseed Oil in Jane Austen’s Day: Enemas and Burns
Regarding a stricture of the rectum: "In its advanced stage I know of none equal to the injection of cold drawn linseed oil …"1 — Thomas Copeland, surgeon (1781-1855) In a previous post I reviewed Dr. Andrew Duncan's 1803 description of the chemical and therapeutic...
Flaxseed Oil Benefits the Heart and Brain
My previous blog post described flaxseed's chemical and therapeutic properties as shown in Dr. Andrew Duncan's book The Edinburgh New Dispensatory, published in 1803.1 He described flaxseed's historical uses, its mucilage content, its oil (expressed by crushing the...
An 1803 Dispensatory Describes Flaxseed
One of the top keywords that bring readers to my blog is "flaxseed." I'm not surprised, for flaxseed—also called "linseed"—is popular here in North America and elsewhere for its many dietary and medicinal uses. I love to talk about flaxseed! I last mentioned flaxseed...
Somerset House: Two Lives on the Thames
Somerset House on London's Thames River offers quite a few architectural oddities, at least for someone like me who is attracted to Neoclassical architecture but has never read much about it. When my husband and I were in London last year we took 25 photos of the...
Good Breeding: The Regency Principle of Decency
“An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.” — Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773)1 The long, arduous, ugly, disheartening US election is over. Today’s sunrise is a reminder that the world still turns on its axis; we may not be content, but we...
Vade Mecum Books: Handy Regency-Era Guides
Like Jane Austen, I love novels. In recent weeks I've read Jane and The Wandering Eye (the third book in Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mystery series); A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman; We Were Liars by e. lockhart; Warleggan, book 4 in Winston Graham's Poldark...
Fanny Burney and the Seven Men in Black
Last Friday, September 30, 2016, was the 205th anniversary of Fanny Burney’s mastectomy—without anesthesia. Here’s her story. “Yet—when the dreadful steel was plunged into the breast—cutting through veins—arteries—flesh—nerves—I needed no injunctions not to restrain...
1783 and 1816: Two Spectacular Weather Years
Lately I've been thinking about the weather. For one thing, it's hot as blue blazes here in East Tennessee. The cicada chirping has ceased, thus bringing an end to the dog days of summer, but it remains hot and dry, despite the fact that today is the first day of fall...
Matthew Flinders: A Regency Officer Remembered Today
Recently I happened to be perusing the 1816 volume of The Gentleman's Magazine. I was photocopying the meteorological tables, beginning with March, so that I would have a sense of the weather conditions for the months in which several characters in my new novel are...
Regency-Era Heresy over the Cause of Childbed Fever
"You are all familiar with Dr. Chipman's aphorism, 'The process of parturition is the same in the countess as in the cow.' Very true, but, unfortunately, the results are infinitely better in the cow than in the countess." — Karl M. Wilson, M.D.1 Dr. Wilson published...
Childbed Fever: How Many Regency Women Died?
"A deep, dark and continuous stream of mortality."—William Farr, 18761 Most medical practitioners in England's Regency era believed that miasma caused puerperal or childbed fever. The miasma was believed to arrive on foul-smelling air, to emanate from clothing and...