Tea at Trianon: The Home Medicine Chest

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, February 12, 2017

The Home Medicine Chest

From Pen and Pension:

Many cabinets also contained patent medicines. These were usually sold with little or no information about the ‘secret’ ingredients used in them. It’s easy to dismiss all as fraudulent quackery, but it’s clear that most of those who made and sold them had an honest belief in their efficacy. Without scientific trials of any kind, all evidence for effectiveness had to be anecdotal. Of course those who peddled these items naturally seized on anything positive. Even so, given the high cost of medical attention at the time they might offer some prospect of help.

One common example was ‘Steers’s Opodeldoc’, a liniment rub made from soap, spirit of wine (pure alcohol), camphor, rosemary oil and sometimes spirit of ammonia. Others included such weirdly named substances as Daffy’s Elixir Salutis for ‘colic and griping’, Dr. Bateman’s Pectoral Drops for chest pains and lung complaints and John Hooper’s Female Pills for menstrual pains. J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne was still available over-the-counter when I was a child!. It claimed to cure coughs, colds, colic, spasms, bowel pains, stomach aches and sleeplessness. Its ingredients included morphine, chloral hydrate and cannabis. Even if it didn’t work in an scientific sense, it must have had quite an effect. People gave Godfrey’s Cordial, also known as Mother’s Friend, to fractious children to quiet them down. It contained opium, water and treacle. Dinneford’s Gripe Water for babies contained magnesia, but also a hefty slug of alcohol. (Read more.)