Medical Science in 1896

I know very little about the history of medicine beyond the last 20 years, so I need a little help with the research.

What did doctors know about amnesia, and how did they treat it?

What did doctors know about asthma, and how did they treat it? What folk remedies were there for asthma?

I_Lam_Edhellen wrote:

I know very little about the history of medicine beyond the last 20 years, so I need a little help with the research.

What did doctors know about amnesia, and how did they treat it?

What did doctors know about asthma, and how did they treat it? What folk remedies were there for asthma?

Both really depend upon where the story is set.

In London, in the 1800's, when pollution was overwhelming, people who had the means often took trips to the country to get away from it so they could breathe more easily. Poor people who couldn't breathe because of said pollution often drowned the pain in gin, at least in London. I only happen to know that because one of Jack the Ripper's victims, Annie Chapman, had trouble breathing and was quite often in a lot of pain, but that probably wasn't because of asthma.

For amnesia, a quick google search reveals that hypnotism was sometimes used in trying to recover memories for amnesia. Psychology was also starting to become a recognizeable and respected profession during that time period. However, my google-fu is not that strong as that's about the only thing I can find. You'll probably be better off finding information in the library, perhaps in a history of mental illness, or a history of medicinal practices.

What type of amnesia are we talking about? There's quite a few, and it's all very weird and wonderful. I'll assume it's a variant on the "forgetting one's past" kind, rather than the a form of anterograde amnesia (they're pretty fascinating, as it causes an inability to remember new things).

In 1896, Freud wasn't particularly well-known, which is a bit of a shame as he had some very interesting ideas about amnesia, namely that it was the repression of traumatic memories. In fact, in 1896 he published a couple of case studies of patients whose repressed memories he had uncovered using his "talking cure". His ideas wouldn't have been particularly widely-known at the time, though, so unless your story is set in Vienna psychoanalysis was unlikely to have been used.

At this time, hyponosis probably would have been used, and the condition would have probably been labelled as a form of "hysteria".

As for asthma, it's only really been prevalent since the 1960s. It 1896, a lot of such conditions may have been labelled as "neurasthenia", which was a kind of umbrella term for "we don't really know what the hell is up". Chances are, if your character is a woman, she would have been fainting a fair bit due to being stuck in a corset while being asthmatic. Neurasthenia was thought to be caused by the stress of urbanisation (though Freud, ever the filthy bastard, was convinced it was caused by masturbating too much), and it was typically cured by rest, often in the country or somewhere warmer abroad. Rest, by the way, means being forced to stay in bed all the time, in the medical understanding of this period.

You might even be able to tie the two conditions together. Doctors in this period were very fond of whacking the label of "hysteria" on anything they didn't really understand.

The setting is Yorkshire, in this tiny village named after the Clarford estate, which happens to own most of the land in the area. There's a doctor in the village who basically made his living off the ailing Lord Clarford. He's quite well educated.

The patient is a teenage immigrant boy, who looks like he's from somewhere in Asia. He has been living in London for the past 15 years. He had asthma before living London, so if his lungs were a mess before, they are now. He was picked up in Tibet by a wealthy anthropologist adventurer to be an exotic servant for his son. Our patient was stabbed, stuffed in a coffin, and delivered to the Clarford Estate still alive. This makes the idea of "hysteria" very likely, doesn't it?

As for amnesia, he's faking it. He doesn't want to get sent back to the people trying to kill him, so he tells the discoverers that he can't remember who he is or any of his past. He did get his head bumped around a bit though... did doctors make a connection between head injuries and memory loss?

I_Lam_Edhellen wrote:

He did get his head bumped around a bit though... did doctors make a connection between head injuries and memory loss?

Yes. It was popular knowledge by this time, and if IIRC the "memory" was supposedly located in the occipital part of the brain.

Thanks! That was extremely helpful! Look for the story I'm working on in the In Progress forum in the next century, if I ever get around to actually writing.

Is there any kind of helpful reference site where this sort of historical/medical information is readily available?