Look-a-like Medicines

[hta1970]

Ok, I may just be having a bad day, but I can't find the previous topic dealing with look-a-like medicines. So I thought I start this one. sorry if this is redundant.

For Paregoric, would cola syrup with anise oil and peppermint oil work?

[retter]

Search "Civil War Medicines" or Doc Nelson. He had a pretty good list. Also I think Noah had a list too.

[Linda Trent]

For Paregoric, would cola syrup with anise oil and peppermint oil work?

For display? Or for giving to "wounded" or "sick" when they're brought in to the hospital? It makes a lot of difference.

Linda.

[hta1970]

Linda,

Ideally like Noah and Tim have done would be to make them usable for "treatment" and dispensing. In some cases I have the real thing which, like powdered alum, would work, though I will not dispense it. I don't think anyone would want to be given powdered rhubarb.

But I'd love your ideas for what would work for show versus dispensing.

[jgr1974]

Medicine from the era was not as we know it today. Most poultice, salves. or pain killers, were concotions of local herbs and various plants. This type of medicine is called Homopathic today. It can easily be searched most herbs etc could be gathered in your own backyard. Do a search on American Indian medicines, and you should come up with a lot of good info!

The Mad Mick!

[Linda Trent]

Linda, I'd love your ideas for what would work for show versus dispensing.

I don't really have an answer for you, however, I always have a concern about what's used to give to people who aren't really sick. Yeah, I understand that it's probably such a small dose that what harm will it do. However, after years of putting on events where I've provided food and have asked the participants what their allergies are, I'm really surprised by the number of people with pretty severe allergies.

For Stuggle for Statehood I had to deal with people who had: Celiac Disease, Diabetes, Shell-fish and Nut allergies, as well as iodine.

For the Trial event: cucumbers, tomatoes, dairy products, shellfish, fish w/ milk, alcohol, and sensitivity to caffeine. That out of just 19 people.

Some of the people, including myself (I just developed an allergy to shellfish a year or two ago), can't have even a tiny amount of what we're allergic to without a bad reaction.

Having been around the medical aspect of the hobby from time to time I've seen people just hand out "blue mass" or "laudanum" without telling the receiver what it is they're really getting. And the receiver oftentimes not realizing that he/she should mention their allergies.

Coke syrup was a medication that I was given as a child. It's got a high sugar and a high caffeine content. Even for those who are somewhat sensitive it's probably not enough to matter; but for those who are sensitive enough to substances that even a little bit matters, they can't immediately recognize the substance the way they could the caffeine in a cup of coffee, or peanuts in a bag of nuts, alcohol in a flask.

I don't know what the answer is, unless we just make certain that we talk it over with the receiver before the event (or at least before the scenario).

Linda.

[hanktrent]

Medicine from the era was not as we know it today. Most poultice, salves. or pain killers, were concotions of local herbs and various plants. This type of medicine is called Homopathic today. It can easily be searched most herbs etc could be gathered in your own backyard. Do a search on American Indian medicines, and you should come up with a lot of good info!

The Mad Mick!

If you're serious and not just trolling or being funny, that's about as wrong and mixed-up as possible. Check out some of the posts in the medical forum here, including the ones with extensive links to medical books, to see what it was really like.

Taking it from the top:

Medicine from the era was not as we know it today.

Okay, that's the only part that's right!

Most poultice, salves. or pain killers, were concotions of local herbs and various plants.

Except in some of the minor fringe branches of medicine, which weren't accepted among military doctors anyway, most medicines were concoctions of herbs imported from overseas or minerals.

This type of medicine is called Homopathic today.

Homeopathy was a specific type of medicine then, too, and was accepted about as much or as little then as now. Allopathic medicine was practiced by military doctors and was the dominant type of medicine then. The normal medicine practiced today, for example the treatment you'd receive from the average modern M.D., is the direct descendant of period allopathy.

However, homeopathic medicine does not consist solely of things made of local herbs. The strength of the dose is the most noticeable difference. Homeopathy used, in general, all the same substances as allopathy, but instead diluted them to miniscule doses, even so small that none of the original medicine remained. The philosophy was that "like cured like" so a medicine that caused a symptom in large doses would cure those symptoms in incredibly small doses.

Allopathy used the same philosophy as doctors use today: medicines are given which are believed to cure symptoms in recognizable doses, though they may have unavoidable and undesirable side effects.

It can easily be searched most herbs etc could be gathered in your own backyard. Do a search on American Indian medicines, and you should come up with a lot of good info!

Check out any list of medicines supplied to military doctors, or listed in the civilian U.S. Dispensatory, and tell me how many could be "gathered in your own backyard." In fact, there's a thread in this forum from not long ago, looking for evidence of how many indigenous substitutes the C.S. Army actually used, because the evidence so far indicates that requisitions for regular medicines were being filled, at least in the ANV, so local substitutes were rarely used.

American Indian medicines were promoted by the botanicalists, root doctors, Indian doctors, etc. in the early 19th century as a reaction to the heroic medicine of the allopaths, but in the 1860s, it would be as unusual to find that kind of doctor in a military hospital as it would today. And actual medicines used by American Indians didn't necessarily correspond with medicines promoted by whites as American Indian medicines--it was an advertising point.

Check out the medical forum here and I think you'll see that most of the folks posting here have a pretty clear idea about period medicine, especially military medicine, if you're interested in the subject.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[hta1970]

Linda,

Oh I am well aware of allergies and plan to make that one "non authentic" question I ask before administering anything. As for the laudnum, it would have been given in a dose of 10 to 30 minums mixed with water.

But thanks for being concerned for what our look-a-likes can do to people who have food sensativities.

[NoahBriggs]

This past weekend I did some "surgery" on a few casualties who dropped into the Bushong yard. I asked in a low voice to every person who was plunked on my table if they had allergies to cola syrup, anise, licorice, or peppercorns before I did anything, knowing full well there might be someone with allergies. Nobody was, fortunately. They all played along nicely and I got some rehearsal in for After the Battle.

I'm proud of the repro medicines the group on this board have come up with. I think we have the best and most accurate simulated meds in the hobby, and it shows when we do our presentations.

[Linda Trent]

Thanks Noah and Harry. I've not had a chance to work with either of you in the medical field (at ITW, we didn't get to do the hospital scenario we had hoped to be able to do). If I offended either of you I apologize. The last thing I want to do is offend anyone. My primary purpose for my post was merely a heads up to those who never really thought much about it.

Linda.