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A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

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Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#51

Post by vanattab »

pessimizer wrote: post #2

This is a bit unfair, all doctors were fucking terrible before the late 19th century, and lowered the lifespan of everyone they touched. They also seemed to prescribe mercury for everything. The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. The problem, I guess, is that the confidence and autho…

So of the things it we think of as antiquated an unhelpful such as using maggots to clean infected wounds and what not is actually making a comeback. Maggots are every good at dissolving and consuming dead/infected flesh and produce dozens of anti microbial compounds. And me be a critical tool as various strains develop resistance to antibiotics.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#52

Post by david422 »

lqet wrote: post #14
lofatdairy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't disagree that medicine has come a long way but I'm going to say that this is a giant disservice to some very great doctors in history. My favorite example is John Bradmore, who saved the life of King Henry V after he was shot in the fucking head with an arrow. Not only was John Bradmore a surgeon, he was also something of metalworker (and in fact, was arrested for making counterfeit coins; he had to be pulled…

Here is an image of the tool: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyiqN6UXMAAZbrM?format=jpg&name=... I must admit it's pretty clever.

That is ingenious and terrifying.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#53

Post by pessimizer »

eru wrote: post #33
pessimizer wrote: post #2

This is a bit unfair, all doctors were fucking terrible before the late 19th century, and lowered the lifespan of everyone they touched. They also seemed to prescribe mercury for everything. The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. The problem, I guess, is that the confidence and autho…

> The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. Didn't you go for a barber for these kinds of problems anyway? Or later on, to a surgeon, who was very much not a doctor.

That's me making excuses for doctors since we include surgeons with doctors now, so I gave doctors credit for surgeons' work then. Anatomists and surgeons were actually accomplishing something in medicine, so although surgeons would still kill you half the time, if you were dying anyway a coin-flip's chance was a blessing.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#54

Post by giraffe_lady »

vanattab wrote: post #51
pessimizer wrote: post #2

This is a bit unfair, all doctors were fucking terrible before the late 19th century, and lowered the lifespan of everyone they touched. They also seemed to prescribe mercury for everything. The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. The problem, I guess, is that the confidence and autho…

So of the things it we think of as antiquated an unhelpful such as using maggots to clean infected wounds and what not is actually making a comeback. Maggots are every good at dissolving and consuming dead/infected flesh and produce dozens of anti microbial compounds. And me be a critical tool as various strains develop resistance to antibiotics.

This comes up a lot because it's like the one single example and it's viscerally striking. Are there other examples though?

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#55

Post by giraffe_lady »

jcl wrote: post #38
pessimizer wrote: post #2

This is a bit unfair, all doctors were fucking terrible before the late 19th century, and lowered the lifespan of everyone they touched. They also seemed to prescribe mercury for everything. The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. The problem, I guess, is that the confidence and autho…

I was impressed by the story of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who, in 1848, accidentally had a gunpowder tamping iron blasted through his head. A doctor was somehow able to treat the wound, such that he was able to make a near-complete recovery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

rail spike through the dome definitely puts you in the "you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon" category. you're going to the doctor no matter what because they can't plausibly make your life worse at that point.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#56

Post by ekianjo »

vanattab wrote: post #49
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often hear the lament about "illegal to perform dissection!" But let's be honest. If you dissect a pig, you could have made all those discoveries about how the heart worked and what lungs were for and which organs connected to what. You didn't need a human subject.

How would you KNOW it worked the same as a human heart if you have never seen the insides of a human. This is pre-darwin so the common evolution of mammals is not yet understood.

people were not stupid back then. you could dissect dozens of animals and see the clear similarities. lets not pretend we woke up with science just yesterday.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#57

Post by giraffe_lady »

rob74 wrote: post #28
P-NP wrote: post #13

Quote from the article: "Dr. Taylor’s standard procedure included administering laxatives and bloodletting from the patient. In addition, Taylor used the blood from slaughtered pigeons as eye drops, and often applied a baked apple to the eye with a bandage. Adding to the abuse, he charged large sums for his procedures—especially if he judged that the patient was wealthy. Bach survived a few weeks after the second pro…

You have to remember that's pretty much par for the course for that age. One classic example is the "care" that was administered to George Washington, which likely also hastened his demise: "Doctors then arrived and bled him four more times over the next eight hours, with a total blood loss of 40 percent. Washington also gargled with a mixture of molasses, vinegar and butter; he inhaled a steam of vinegar and hot wat…

I don't think the argument that "we have a lot of records of this behavior so it was normal" is persuasive, for the reason that our records aren't an even slice of history. We have much much more record of what rich people did and were affected by, and much less about everyone else.

It may have been, probably was, normal for wealthy people to subject themselves to this sort of treatment. But I think the majority of people would have seen a local barber, midwife, or healer, who had different traditions that may not have been more effective but seemed to have generally favored less invasive interventions. The majority of people probably just sat at home and hoped for the best, which likely had better outcomes than what the rich were paying doctors to do to them.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#58

Post by ekianjo »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #12
pessimizer wrote: post #2

This is a bit unfair, all doctors were fucking terrible before the late 19th century, and lowered the lifespan of everyone they touched. They also seemed to prescribe mercury for everything. The only rational use for a doctor back then was if you needed emergency surgery because you were going to die very soon. It was a situation that they could only make better. The problem, I guess, is that the confidence and autho…

Lest we forget, for surgeries & blood letting with a more positive outcome, the comon men went to ask the barber (thus the blood stained rotating poles). Doctors were really something only nobility could employ.

> Doctors were really something only nobility could employ.

Not true. The concept of hospices civils existed for centuries in western europe and were usually supported by religious organizations.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#59

Post by nominusllc »

Aidevah wrote: post #26
Tepix wrote: post #18

Nice piece. The guy's name is Georg Friedrich Händel, not Handel. Even if you don't have that letter on your keyboard, you can still find ways to enter it: https://www.confidentgerman.com/how-to-write-umlaut-a-u-o-s-...

Handel became a subject of Britain in 1727 by an act of parliament[1]. The text of the act itself[2] clearly referred to him as "George Frederic Handel" with no umlauts. Considering he spent the rest of his life in Britain as a naturalised British citizen there's little reason on insisting to use the umlaut for his name. [1] https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_HL... [2] https://digitalarchive.pa…

Put some respect on his name.

Re: A doctor who treated Bach and Handel with disastrous results

#60

Post by nominusllc »

beeforpork wrote: post #36
rob74 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you have an ambiguity between names where the Umlaut is replaced with "ae"/"oe"/"ue" (Haendel) and names that are actually written with "ae"/"oe"/"ue" (Goethe)...

There is nothing ambiguous about it, because it's the same pronunciation. It's a convention of how this particular name is spelled. But does German have ambiguities here? Yes, it does. In the instrument 'Oboe', the 'oe' is pronounced as two syllables: long 'o' plus schwa. It cannot be written with 'ö'. It should better be written 'Obohe' (my controversial proposal). And dialectally/regionally, 'oe' may be long 'o' in…

there is no schwa in oboe, its oh-bow not oh-bow-uh

ō′bō <-- see? From the American Heritage Dictionary 5th-ed. A schwa is the upside down 'e' which is not present.

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