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...

Quinsy: A Classic Example of Regency Ignorance

My previous blog post addressed the practice of “medical moonshine” during the Regency era. In Jane Austen’s day miasma — the foul, noxious, polluted air arising from swampy ground or cesspools — was believed to cause most diseases. For chemists and...

There’s a Leech for That!

If you lived during England’s Regency era (1811-1820), you considered leeching a standard medical therapy for nearly every ailment. Did you suffer from pleurisy? Then leeches were applied to your rib cage where the stitch or side pain was located. Was your brain...