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Field / Garden finds

Discuss antiques and other collectables
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Del.Monte
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Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2021 10:11 pm
Location: The Sunny South East

Re: Field / Garden finds

#51

Post by Del.Monte »

Did he offer taxidermy to his patients in case his prescriptions failed? :mrgreen:
'no more blah blah blah'
765489

Re: Field / Garden finds

#52

Post by 765489 »

Del.Monte wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 10:17 am Did he offer taxidermy to his patients in case his prescriptions failed? :mrgreen:
There was even a play written about him. When you think about it, people were probably taking their life in their hands going to some of these doctors. Go in with a rash, come out with lead poisoning!

https://www.bridport-arts.com/event/the ... r-roberts/

Dr Giles Lawrence Roberts M.D and Friends
Our Celebrated Druggist, Apothecary and Accoucheur.

cordially presents

THE GOLDEN GIFT
A Scientific Comedy Lecture

Detailing the life and times of GILES LAWRENCE ROBERTS M.D

An entertaining theatrical inquiry into the Medical Practices of Georgian Bridport containing tales of a Doctor of Science and Spirit.

replete with character, song, comedy, cauterisation and efficacy of bloodletting.
CelticRambler
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Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 6:19 pm
Location: Central France

Re: Field / Garden finds

#53

Post by CelticRambler »

Ncdjd2 wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:13 pmthe ingredients were stated as the following - "The 'Poor Man's Friend' ointment consists mainly of lard and fine English beeswax, plus calamel, sugar of lead, salts of mercury, oxide of zinc, oxide of bismuth, venetian red, oils of rose, bergamot and lavender. I take it the "sugar of lead" and "salts of mercury" are toxic ?
Yup - that's a fine example of para-medical quackery from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This was a period characterised by a peculiar blend of serious, meaningful progress in medicine and pharmacy, and completely irresponsible experimentation by "educated" professionals. The main benefit from an ointment such as that comes from the lard and beeswax. Everything else is just thrown in to make it look/smell/sound good, or because the compounding pharmacist heard about some miracle properties from someone who heard it from someone who read about it on a pamphlet ...

By the start of the twentieth century, it was becoming obvious that mercury (in all its forms) was very toxic, but after a couple of hundred years* of being told that something was good for you by people with "letters" after their name, it was hard to wean the populace off their favourite poison, so some of these treatments continued to be used right up until my youth.

* or even a couple of thousand, if you go right back to the beginnings, when the Arabian scientists first identified the benefits of mercurial compounds. They, at least, had the good sense to limit their use to external applications; when the Europeans and Euro-Americans re-discovered them, they decided it would be a good idea to take them internally too. :roll:
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