The Jane Austen Handbook by Margaret C. Sullivan Read Free Book Online Page B

of hot supper. If you are going to town for a time, take a young neighbor with you and make sure she gets to the assemblies to meet young men.
    •  Give good advice where it is needed . If a young neighbor is prepared to throw herself away on a half-pay officer or someone equally undesirable, impress upon her the foolishness of such behavior and how she will regret disobliging her family.

HOW TO TREAT THE SICK
    “We have entirely done with the whole Medical Tribe. We have consulted Physician after Physician in vain, till we are quite convinced that they can do nothing for us & that we must trust to our own knowledge of our own wretched Constitutions for any relief.”

—D IANA P ARKER IN
S ANDITON
    In the Regency, medical practitioners believe diseases are caused by an imbalance in the body’s four humors (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm). Obtaining relief or curing disease is simply a matter of determining which humor is in excess and relieving the imbalance through one of the following methods.
    •  Bleeding . Releasing an excess of blood is an excellent treatment for fevers and headaches. Leeches can be purchased at the apothecary; simply attach a leech to the affected area and remove it once it is swollen. One might forgo the leeches and cut open the patient’s vein instead, allowing blood to flow until the patient swoons for best effect.
    •  Laxatives and emetics . An excess of bile can be treated with various plants and tinctures that help to purge the body. Better out than in!
    •  Taking the water . The warm, mineral-laden waters that gush from springs in Bath, Cheltenham, and other spa towns act as a laxative, purging one’s system of excess bile while the minerals replenish the body. If one is unable towalk to the pump room, one can engage a sedan chair to carry one there. For some maladies, bathing in the water is more effective than drinking it.

    •  Laudanum . Tincture of opium can help to relieve pain or calm a nervous complaint. Slip a little into a colicky baby’s milk; put a drop or two into your tea if your nerves (or children) are plaguing you; put in a few drops more if you are in real pain.
    •  Amputation . When wounds become septic, as they so often do, there is nothing else to be done but to remove the limb. One sees this often in military and naval men; in the heat of battle, surgeons overwhelmed with wounded do not have time for more delicate treatments.
    OF MEDICAL MEN
    During the Regency period, there were three types of medical men to consult if one was not feeling at all the thing.
    Physician: As a gentleman, he was unable to touch the patient or do anything active on the patient’s behalf—gentlemen, after all, did not work.Physicians were educated at one of the universities and then attended medical school or trained with another physician.
    Surgeon: Surgeons generally had no university degree but trained by dissecting corpses obtained from a “resurrection man” (grave robber) or from the gallows. They set bones, performed amputations, and treated other traumatic injuries but were never to be considered gentlemen.
    Apothecary: Apothecaries dispensed drugs prescribed by a physician; some people preferred to cut out the middleman and consulted their apothecary directly for advice on diet and medicine. In country villages, the apothecary was often the only local source of medical advice.
    HYPOCHONDRIACS IN JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS
    Mary Musgrove in
Persuasion
: Queen Whiner of the Austen oeuvre, Mary complains of illness mostly in a desperate bid for attention from her husband and in-laws. Mary’s sore throats, you know, are always worse than anybody’s!
    Mrs. Churchill in
Emma
: It is hard to tell if Mrs. Churchill was really ill or just seeking attention, but she certainly used her ailments to keep her nephew Frank dancing in attendance. She was probably as astonished as anyone else when she actually died.
    Mrs. Bennet in
Pride and Prejudice
: Mrs. Bennet