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That was wonderful and...


 Posted by P. Bingham on March 11, 1998 at 13:43:13:


In response to Medical knowledge, written by Captain Everett on March 10, 1998 at 23:20:08


To L and T indexJason:
Thank you very much for that detail.  I'm always fascinated with the history of medicine.
If you are interested in medicine of this period and related information, I read a book a while back that was wonderfully helpful and filled with inside information of the habits and life of the field.  You are going to think me silly, but I looked back in my bibliography and could not find the book.  
I do know, however, that it was a biography on John Keats, who was not only a poet but an almost-doctor as well, or rather, I believe his parents had wanted him to be a doctor and he nearly became one, until his art finally won him over and he decided to quit medicine.  The book details his apprenticeship with a apothecary and then goes on to detail his days in medical school and the London hospitals.  Much of the book was devoted to Keat's medical misadventure.  It covered well the typical days of a medical student, and where they spent their time after work (If I remember correctly, Keats and his friends were very fond of bear-baiting, cock-fighting and the Pantomimes.  
Also, it is interesting to note that there was a heavy session of working with dead bodies for research adn the detail was exceptional, I believe taken from a first-hand account (Keat's).  I remember copying the information for my brother-in-law who was in Medical School at the time.  He said he had already read the very same passage in medical school.  Keats, being a writer, was very helpful in writing much of his life down, however short his life was!
I checked this book out from the library and I'm sorry that is all I can give you! When I get the chance, I'll use the computer to see what books the library has on John Keats and let you know which one it was if you are interested.
Unrelated to medicine, but amusing, I remember noting from this book that, as a child, he played with lead soldiers and also a toy guilotine (smack me for the spelling).  Toy guilotines were very popular children's toys around the time of the French Revolution, for obvious reasons.  I thought that was kind of sick but to each his own day. Right?  He also enjoyed, bird-nesting, rough-shooting, cricket, played ding-dong-ditch, pinning ladies gowns together on market days and waiting to see them split, not to mention the sly act of having tied a cannister to the tail of a butcher's dog!
Patricia





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