History

[Horsa]

I've started this thread as it seems a few people on here like history. I 1st got interested in history when I found out that it was the only subject at school where they discussed my favourite animal a lot as horses did a lot of work in the past. In fact most of the world would have been at a standstill at 1 time without them. (Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to learn about the constitution of a horse in science class though I read about it in some of my horse, pony & donkey books). It's going to be for all genres of history from all different countries & time periods so if you like medical, soc. & economic history or art history you can share information about that here as well as sharing information about say, American, British, Egyptian, Greek or Roman history & history from your favourite time periods which for some people would be prehistoric while for others might be medieval, renaissance or Victorian Britain. It's a place where we can have historical debates like 1 I had on Twitter over whether Robert the Bruce was Scotland's greatest King or who England's worst King is. I've got some pieces planned when I get chance to write them out. For now I'll share some videos. If anyone else wants to share videos, information or just have a historical chat, please feel free. Enjoy.

 

[Horsa]

The weirdest medicines in history

Trephinning which was the process by which prehistoric man had holes drilled in their head if they had a headache. They later had to carry the bones in a bag around their neck. The reason for this was because they thought headaches were caused by evil spirits entering someone's body so they had to let them out & they had to carry the bones in a bag around their neck as a talisman.

Medicinal leeches to suck blood because people believed too much blood caused illness. Blood letting is another weird medicine from history which was used because of the same belief.

Cocaine tooth drops for tooth-ache.

Heroine for head-ache.

Opium lollies to calm children down.

If anyone else can think of anymore please feel free to add them.

 

[Horsa]

 

[Horsa]

 

[Horsa]

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa52

 

[Horsa]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/galen.shtml

 

[Horsa]

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Avicenna

 

[Horsa]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/harvey_william.shtml

 

[mrzz]

Great effort, @EquineAnn . I enjoy it tremendously. If I may suggest something, I am a bit more interested in our poster's own wordings of the events, using links more as an auxiliary tool. This way I guess things will flow a bit better and we will have more discussions, rather than the thread being just a link repository.

I am quite interested, for example, in the argument about Robert the Bruce.

 

[Horsa]

Great effort, @EquineAnn . I enjoy it tremendously. If I may suggest something, I am a bit more interested in our poster's own wordings of the events, using links more as an auxiliary tool. This way I guess things will flow a bit better and we will have more discussions, rather than the thread being just a link repository.

I am quite interested, for example, in the argument about Robert the Bruce.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you're enjoying this thread. Of course you may. I've got a few pieces planned but writing can be time-consuming. I used the links to put people on until I get a chance to write more & finish writing my pieces. Good idea! I prefer to see people's writing than links myself too. If you ever think I'm becoming link crazy, please feel free to say something like "the link you shared includes interesting information but I'd like to know what you think if you don't mind, please."

I started the argument about Robert the Bruce by disagreeing that Robert the Bruce was Scotland's greatest King because although he was pressurised into betraying William Wallace by his Father he wasn't held up to sword-edge therefore he made the choice to betray William Wallace to Edward I also known as Longshanks or hammer of the Scots who then had Wallace taken to England & executed. Wallace had raised armies to fight the English in the Scottish independence wars.

In my opinion Edward I was England's worst King. He was that greedy he wasn't satisfied with ruling England. He wanted to rule Scotland & Wales too. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. He allowed his army & himself to rape newly married Scottish women. This caused William Wallace to raise an army to fight for independence from the English. He also pillaged Scottish castles & more-or-less killed any Scot getting in the way of him getting what he wanted. He also tried to rule Wales which was inhabited by welcoming people but was confronted by Llewellyn who fought against him. More information about Edward I & his attitude towards him can be found in some Scottish songs. I may do a piece later on about Scottish songs & their depiction of historical events where I share videos of these songs & explain the event they're depicting. A lot of Scottish songs explain bad events in Scotland's history.

This is just a condensed version which I could churn out in the time I had so is a beginning.

 

[Horsa]

I may do a "Today in history" piece.

 

[Horsa]

My favourite genre of history is stage-coaching. I also enjoyed British soc. & economic history & the history of medicine. The only foreign history I've really looked at is the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, Normans & American West. I only really started learning about Scottish history when I went on holiday to Scotland & did genealogical research & found out that 12/15 lots of my ancestors were Scots/Irish & most of them lived in Dunoon before moving during the Struggles of Argyll. I traced my ancestors back to the Picts. 2/3 of the remaining ancestors were English & the other lot of ancestors was Norman/French which I found out later were originally Viking. I was glad I did genealogical research as it helped me to understand who I really was & why I was like I was.

 

[Moxie]

The weirdest medicines in history

Trephinning which was the process by which prehistoric man had holes drilled in their head if they had a headache. They later had to carry the bones in a bag around their neck. The reason for this was because they thought headaches were caused by evil spirits entering someone's body so they had to let them out & they had to carry the bones in a bag around their neck as a talisman.

Medicinal leeches to suck blood because people believed too much blood caused illness. Blood letting is another weird medicine from history which was used because of the same belief.

Cocaine tooth drops for tooth-ache.

Heroine for head-ache.

Opium lollies to calm children down.

If anyone else can think of anymore please feel free to add them.

I have to say, I can see why cocaine drops would work for toothache, though likely a bit of overkill. (Seems it also originally put the "coca" in Coca-Cola, unless that's a rumor.) Another bit of medical history that I love is, sometime in the late 1800s, some nurse decided it would be better if doctors, nurses and surgeons washed their hands. Seems simple, and obvious to us, but it has saved a lot of lives.

 

[Horsa]

I have to say, I can see why cocaine drops would work for toothache, though likely a bit of overkill. (Seems it also originally put the "coca" in Coca-Cola, unless that's a rumor.) Another bit of medical history that I love is, sometime in the late 1800s, some nurse decided it would be better if doctors, nurses and surgeons washed their hands. Seems simple, and obvious to us, but it has saved a lot of lives.

I agree. The reason why I thought it was weird medicine is because although it worked it drugged you up. That's very true according to what I heard. Florence Nightingale (the lady with the lamp) did a lot for hygiene & cleanliness in wards for the sick. It did indeed. At that time hospitals weren't the sanitary places they are now. Joseph Lister introduced anti-septic surgery which helped to keep hospitals sanitary places & saved lives too. Medical history I especially love is the differences between Galen's theory of circulation & Avicenna & Harvey's theories of circulation & the amount of time it took between each of them being formulated & the fact that although Avicenna discovered the true theory of circulation way before Harvey discovered it this was forgotten about for so long during the Dark Ages & re-discovered during the renaissance period. Even then blood transfusions couldn't take place as blood groups weren't discovered until later. Religion held back discoveries in medicine for so long due to the fact dissection of dead bodies wasn't allowed. When it finally was allowed there was a shortage of bodies for medical students to study so body snatching became a thing.

 

[Moxie]

I'm going to tell you a personal story: my grandfather worked on the railroad. He slipped off the train one icy night in New England, and got roughed up really bad, and lost his arm. While they had very little hope for him, his nurse insisted he couldn't die that dirty, and cleaned him up. He got better. And he married the nurse, who's name, btw, was Florence, my grandmother. :heart:

 

[Horsa]

I'm going to tell you a personal story: my grandfather worked on the railroad. He slipped off the train one icy night in New England, and got roughed up really bad, and lost his arm. While they had very little hope for him, his nurse insisted he couldn't die that dirty, and cleaned him up. He got better. And he married the nurse, who's name, btw, was Florence, my grandmother. :heart:

Your poor Grandad. At least he survived & found a suitable partner. Your Grandma must have been a lovely woman. She was a real "Florence Nightingale" though not the "Florence Nightingale" then. Miracles can happen. It's amazing what water can do. It eases pain a lot as well as cleans.

 

[Horsa]

I'll finish saying what I started saying about body-snatchers yesterday but it got late & I had to go to bed & didn't want to give myself nightmares. Some churches like 1 in Edinburgh built watch-towers for families of newly buried people to use at night to ensure their newly buried family member wasn't snatched. In some areas they built cages around newly dug graves to prevent body snatching. Burke & Hare are the most notorious body-snatchers. Unfortunately they went 1 further because they couldn't get as many bodies to sell to Edinburgh University medical students & ended up killing people to supply their demands.

 

[Horsa]

Happy New Year, everyone! The Romans named the month January after the 2-faced God Janus who had 1 face looking into the past & learning from lessons learnt in the past & 1 looking to the future.

 

[Horsa]

The Romans had a God of healing like the Greeks did. The Romans called him Asclepios whereas the Greeks called him Asclepius.

 

[Horsa]

The Romans built straight roads, invented baths & central heating which were mostly forgotten about until much later. They brought baths, writing, cheese & wine into Britain amongst other things. When they conquered Britain they sent the more defiant Brits into Scotland & built Hadrian's wall.