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Dr. Crawford Long’s Remedy for Insect Bites – Another Use for Ether

By: Michelle DiMeo

On May 20, 1847, Dr. Crawford W. Long was called to see a child residing 6 miles outside of Jefferson, Georgia, who had been bitten by an insect four hours earlier. He was at least 100 yards away when he “distinctly heard her screams”. The child was in extreme pain and suffering from various symptoms, including stomach cramps, difficulty breathing, chest pain, and muscle spasms in the abdomen. The family had given her “about half pint of brandy … two portions of sen[e]ka snake root boiled in ^sweet^ milk and … two teaspoons full of Aqua ammonia, but all without the least benefit”. Dr. Long administered “eighty drops Tinct Opii, a teaspoonful of Hoffmans Anodyne, and the application of the strong Aqua ammonia on a pledget of cloth to the bitten part and retaining it until vesication was produced”. After seeing some improvement, he continued with doses of Hoffman’s Anodyne and the Tincture of Opium in thirty minute intervals, noting the patient was “greatly relieved”.[1]

Hoffman's Anodyne
With Permission from www.SureCureAntiques.com

The preferred remedy, primarily a combination of Hoffman’s Anodyne and opium tincture, worked as an anti-spasmodic and a pain-killer. Hoffman’s Anondyne was a compound sometimes known as “Spirit of Ether”, produced through a process of distillation. Though originally named after the German physician Friedrich Hoffmann (1660- 1742), the recipe was still popular across Europe and the US during the mid-19th century. One 1850s pharmaceutical study of the remedy’s chemical properties found that versions of it varied greatly between commercial manufacturers, between international pharmacopoeia, and from Hoffman’s original recipe.[2]

Dr. Crawford Williamson Long (1815-78), an American surgeon and anesthetist, is one of the first physicians to have administered ether as an anesthesia for surgery. After receiving his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, he practiced medicine in New York before returning to his home state, Georgia, in 1841. As early as 1842, Dr. Long used sulfuric ether during the surgical removal of a tumor. He continued to use ether in operations over the next few years, but he failed to publish his results until 1849, after anesthesia was already heralded as a major medical innovation.[3]

Dr. Long's Remedy for Insect Bites
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, MSS 2/0093-01

While Dr. Long is celebrated today for his innovative use of ether in surgery, the double-sided single-page manuscript from which this story was taken shows that he was also using popular ether-based medical remedies to treat common household ailments, such as insect bites. After the turn of the nineteenth century, ether was drunk in medical remedies in the United States and Europe and became a popular recreational drug in many European countries.[4] In this manuscript, Dr. Long reports that he successfully administered this treatment a second time and he was writing this account specifically because “A great variety of Sovereign remedies have been recommendend [sic] ^as being usefullest^ for the treatment of bites of poisonous insects”, but there was “still great diversity of opinion among the Members of the Medical profession”.

Dr. Long’s narrative is also a good reminder to us that sub-divisions within the medical field were not as defined in the past as they are today: there was nothing wrong with a surgeon exploring pharmaceutical remedies. Further, the fact that he records in detail the household remedies his patient had already tried before he administered his own validates the possibility of their effectiveness, even if they were ineffective in this particular case, and it offers a good example of how diverse medical treatments were often intermingled.


[1] The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, MSS 2/0093-01, “Holograph remedy for poisonous insect bites, c. 1847”. This item also includes a typed donation letter from 1971 recording the provenance of the item.

[2] William Procter, Jr., “On Hoffman’s Anodyne Liquor”, American Journal of Pharmacy, 28, 1852, 213-18.

[3] W. M. Crawford, “An Account of the First Use of Sulphuric Ether by Inhalation as an Anaesthetic in Surgical Operations”, Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, 5, 1849, 705-713.

[4] Science Museum, “Ether”, http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/ether.aspx Accessed 11/9/2012.

Not quite the real thing

By Sally Osborn

One interesting aspect of manuscript recipe books is the frequency of recipes for ersatz or substitution products. This was perhaps understandable in an age when access to ingredients might be haphazard or require travelling a considerable distance. However, it also possibly reflects the desire to do what today we would call ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, particularly in offering suitable dishes at table.

One example is a number of ways of preparing a replacement for the German dry-cured and smoked Westphalia ham, which often appears on bills of fare of the period. The title of the recipe is frequently along the lines of ‘To make an artificial Westfalia ham’, as in the one below, although one manuscript is refreshingly honest in naming it ‘To Counterfeit Westfalia Bacon’ (Wellcome Collection, MS 7851). The process was far from quick, as you will see, although the desired smoky flavour would presumably have resulted:

Recipe for artificial Westphalia ham
Image © Wellcome Collection

Rub a leg of Pork with four ounces of salt peter & pint of bay salt & as much white let it lay 3 weekes in salt, adding more salt every week, then dry it with a cloth & rub it over with lam black, hang it up in a chimney for 8 weeks at least, where they burn wood, when you boyle put hay in your pot with it.

Other food replacements were made, including artificial sturgeon (which was a ‘royal fish’ and thus the property of the crown), made from pickled turbot, and artificial venison, as in this example from the Heppington receipts:

Recipe for artificial venison
Image © Wellcome Collection

Artificiall Venison for a Pasty

Bone a Sirloin of beef, and a Loyn of Mutton beat itt with a Rowling Pin, and season itt with Pepper, Salt itt then Lay itt 24 Howers in Sheeps Blood or Clarrett, then dry itt with a Cloath and season itt a Little more and itt is fit to fill your Pasty

What to me is more intriguing, though, are the recipes for artificial asses’ milk. The health benefits of such milk were widely touted, as in this appeal in an undated letter from Eliza Pierce of around 1751:

I wish I could give you a good [account] of my Aunt but she has been excessive ill ever since you left us and has at last been prevailed on to send for Dr Glass who had her blooded to day and advises her to drink Asses Milk and we not knowing who to apply to better then your self have taken the Liberty to send to you for one. It will be a great satisfaction to us all if you can supply us as by that means my Aunt will be able to begin imediately to drink it. My Uncle desires his compliments and he begs you to send one with a foal not above a Month or six weeks old if you have one of that Age if not as young as you can. 

Other sources recommend asses’ milk be drunk for a cough and other disorders. We now know that it contains less fat and more lactose than cows’ milk and is the closest to human breast milk, and of course its cosmetic properties have been lauded since Egyptian times. However, if you found yourself without a convenient donkey to milk, would you really want to replace it with something like this?

A most excellent receipt for Mock Asses Milk sent me by Lady Betty Cicel, when I was ill at Nesden

Take two ounces of pearle barley, wash & scald it, put that water away – then take two quarts of fresh water, boil the barley in it with half an ounce of hartshorn shavings, half an ounce of eringo root, 8 or 10 shell snails rub’d clean & bruis’d, boil those to gether till half is consum’d, then drain it, & have a pint of Milk just boil’d, & when both are cold, mix them together, keep it for now & when you take it sweeten it with brown sugar. (British Library, Hamilton and Greville Papers, Add MS 40715)

A Mrs Hawkins suggested a slightly more palatable alternative, recorded in Penelope Humphreys’ recipe book:

Recipe for artificial asses' milk
Image © Wellcome Collection

take 2 ounces of pearl barly one ounce of Eringer Root one ounce of shavings of hartshorn, one ounce of Conserve of Red roses then put to these things 3 quarts of Water let it boyl tea it is halfe wasted then strain it, and drink a quarter of a pint of this liquor with the sam quantity of new Milk every morning fasting and at 4 a clock in the after noon. (Wellcome Collection, MS 7851)

Perhaps more than anything else, this speaks volumes about the power of suggestion in early modern medical care!

 

Historical Recipes: A Round-Up

The Recipes Project has an active Twitter account (@historecipes) and November has been very fruitful for interesting links. Maybe it has something to do with the nights drawing in, or the festive season rapidly approaching… The following links are the ones that proved most popular with our followers (at least judging by retweets).

The month started with John Gallagher at Earlymodernjohn reflecting on the history of soul cakes and live-tweeting his baking experience.

The Twitterverse was also all a-flutter with an exciting DIY history project at the University of Iowa Libraries: public transcription of the Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks Collection.

On Guy Fawkes Day, we learned how to make fireworks seventeenth-century style at the Whipple Library Books Blog and how to remove ear worms using milk and honey at Sloane Letters Blog. A few days later, Shakespeare’s England shared the secrets of setting a fancy table, napkin folding and turning a peacock into a porcupine. As you do.

There have also been some tantalizing historical recipes: gingerbread (Travels and Travails in Eighteenth-Century England), sippet pudding (Colonial Williamsburg), Louis XIV’s favourite braised chicken (Chateau de Versailles) and — for smelling, anyhow — Martha Lloyd’s milk of roses and pot-pourri (The Jane Austen’s House Museum Blog).

The last entry is a recent discovery on my end rather than one found via Twitter: Sarah Duff at Tangerine and Cinnamon discussing “Dude Food”. Duff neatly pulls together gender, professional kitchen culture, and the Manifesto of Futurist Cooking.

November’s been a good month for blog posts–and it’s not even over yet!

Coffee: A Remedy Against the Plague

By Lisa Smith

1721, London: The plague raging in Marseilles threatened London’s busy ports. The British government took action, asking a core group of physicians to devise a plan in case the plague reached London. Smallpox was already rampant and the King had ordered a series of inoculation experiments on prisoners. Troubled times.

Enter the impecunious botanist Richard Bradley. (I discussed his interesting life in a recent blog post.) When he wasn’t in debt to booksellers, he made a living from popular medical and scientific writings, such as The virtue and use of coffee, with regard to the plague, and other infectious distempers (London, 1721). He wrote: “At this time, when every Nation in Europe is under the melancholy Apprehension of an approaching Plague or Pestilence, I think it the Business of every Man to contribute, to the utmost of his Capacity, such Observations, as may tend to the Service of the Publick.”

And in the face of the plague and smallpox he offered… coffee. Remedies prescribed by other physicians, he insisted, “are little different from each other.” Coffee, however, “is of excellent Use in the time of Pestilence, and contributes greatly to prevent the spreading of Infection.” Who knew?

Apparently the Turks. Bradley explained: “in some Parts of Turkey, where the Plague is almost constant, it is seldom mortal in those Families, who are rich enough to enjoy the free Use of Coffee.” In his treatise, he discussed coffee’s efficacy and provided (most tantalizingly for the coffee-mad Brits) “an Account of the best Method of roasting the Berries, and preserving them after roasting.”

Coffee tree (Coffea arabica). Line engraving by H. Burgh, c.1726
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

I present to you Bradley’s instructions for preparing coffee. First, he recommended spreading out the ripe berries to dry and harden beneath the sun. The husks were then to be removed so that the berries could be toasted in an “airy place to clean them.” Finally, the berries were ready for the roaster, and this was an important step: the roasting process, Bradley claimed, would determine “the Goodness of the Liquor.” Never fear, though, Bradley had “taken some pains to experience the best Method of roasting it.” His conclusion was that the berries would be heated most equally by placing them in an iron vessel and turned on a spit over a clear or charcoal fire. His personal preference was “roasted in a middle way, not overburnt.” To modern readers, this seems like a lot of work, but Bradley reassured his readers that this process could easily be done at home, as apparently many “Persons of Distinction in Holland” did.

Making the beverage also required special equipment and techniques. To prepare the decoction, earthen or stone vessels were best, as metal spoiled the flavour. Boiling the coffee evaporated “too much of the fine Spirits”. Pouring boiling water over the powder of ground berries and infusing it for four or five minutes in front of the fire would be better and “much exceeds the common way of preparing it.” He provided an alternative, too: grinding the berries into powder, adding the powder and water into a stone or silver coffee pot and leaving the pot in front of the fire for a couple minutes. The liquid was always “thick and troubled” after brewing, but could be made “clear enough for drinking” by adding a spoonful or two of cold water to force the grounds to sink.

Coffee was worth the effort, being the ultimate cure-all. Bradley described its many virtues, which included treating head pains, vertigo, lethargy, coughs, moist and cold constitutions, consumptions, swooning fits, digestive problems, sleepiness, running humours, sores, scrofula, drunkenness, rheumatism, gout, intermitting fevers and infection. It could also purify the blood, provoke urination, stimulate the menses and deworm children. Indeed, it was particularly beneficial for menstruating women. According to Bradley, Arabian women drank coffee during their “periodical Visits, and find a good Effect”, such as contraction of the bowels and toned up genitals. Coffee was not for everyone though. Those suffering from melancholy vapours, hot brains, or paralysis should avoid it.

The reason that coffee would be so efficacious in treating infectious disease was that it lifted the spirits—and those “whose Spirits are the most overcome by Fear, are the most subject to receive Infections”. The correct use of coffee supported the drinker’s “vital Flame”, protecting the drinker from fear and despair. To gain coffee’s maximum benefits, Bradley recommended the following dosage: at least twice a day, first in the morning and at four in the afternoon.

Coffee breaks: good for your health!

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