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The History of Comfort

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serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 04, 2017, 08:22:00 pm ---You might say what I feel was lacking in my education wasn't instruction to use primary sources but how to find sources in the first place. I had to teach myself, long after the fact, that sometimes other writers' sources can clue you in on what's available and where it might be.
--- End quote ---

Exactly. I never learned how to find primary sources, either. I can find them in journalism, among living people -- sometimes that's hard, but I know the techniques. But finding them for long-dead people, especially nobodies (i.e., not Thomas Jefferson, but some random person who lived in Jefferson's time), seems kind of overwhelming.

So if I were researching Woodrow Wilson's role in the Paris peace conference, and I wanted to get Wilson's thoughts on the matter, and I knew that someone had published Wilson's complete papers, it might not be too difficult. Writing about anyone famous, especially someone whose letters or journals have been collected, or whose activities were reported in newspapers, would be relatively easy.

But if I'm trying to find out how it felt to get a toothache in the 17th century or whether people get sick of eating bread and broth for every dinner or how it felt to wake up in a freezing house on a minus-10-degree day and not feel warm until you or somebody has stoked the fires ... or any of the other daily discomforts (or at least suboptimal comforts) in ordinary people's routine lives, I think it will be considerably harder. Even poring over old diaries and letters would be kind of a needle-in-a-haystack project. Especially because people who are uncomfortable by our standards don't always know there's a better way and therefore don't feel uncomfortable by theirs.

For example, the Widow Brown might have recorded suffering a toothache in her diary of 1682. But she's not going to write, "If only someone would invent ibuprofen to relieve some of this wretched pain!" Or someone on their 893rd consecutive night of eating gruel wouldn't think, "Oh, what I would give for a big juicy steak, baked potato with sour cream and a nice salad!" They wouldn't mention it at all because it was just the way it was. They ate gruel, their neighbors ate gruel, everyone they knew ate gruel all the time. It wouldn't be worth a mention in their diary any more than we'd make special mention of our taken-for-granted daily routines. (Future historians will find a wealth of data in Facebook archives, though!)

But the reference books mentioned in the article look like they'd be a good place to start. Maybe they'd somehow point toward some ancient doctor or healer, or somebody writing about the misery of Black Death (not exactly a routine daily discomfort, but a start) or whatever would help home in on the subject of discomfort.

And maybe tracing back the development or invention of the thing that relieved the discomfort -- the discovery of aspirin, say -- might shed some light on what it was like to live before that thing was developed.

I also think visiting the little village in Ghana or wherever would provide some good hints about what kinds of discomforts to look for.

Front-Ranger:
At the risk of taking us off on a tangent, before the "invention" of aspirin, people used willow bark, which was known to reduce headaches and fever as far back as Hippocrates, 400 BC. This was part of the body of knowledge which was mainly kept by women and transferred by oral teaching, but much of it was written down from time to time and is widely available. The role of women historically was to comfort and ease pain, to nurture, etc. and you may find in your research and writing that the two themes might start weaving together somewhat. Anyway, it is a fascinating subject!

Here's an overview on willow bark: http://www.umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/willow-bark

As far as the steak, potato and salad goes, peasants ate greens in the spring and knew where to find all the best ones. Some were eaten raw but most were steamed or stewed; peasants also knew where to find the most delicious mushrooms, onions, and other ingredients. Rather than a steak, they could snare a hare or a partridge, get a deer or wild boar, or fish for some cod or set a trap for a lobster. But these were generally for special occasions. If they ate meat every day, they would probably die. Many raised lambs, goats, chicken or geese/ducks so they had a varied diet. With no refrigeration, I imagine sour cream was plentiful, as was fresh cream and cheese, mainly from goats or sheep. Root vegetables like potatoes tasted much more delicious and were more nutritious than they are now. Peasants would have known to save some of the potatoes back and cut them into "chits" to plant the next spring. I know there was a lot of discomfort among people but I imagine it was centered around displacement due to wars, traveling, droughts, etc.

Your post reminds me of a comical scene in the Outlander series where Jamie Fraser, a Scottish laird who was visiting France was invited to have an audience with King Louis (don't know which one) and found him suffering from constipation. He sidles up to the king and tells him that he always eats porridge for breakfast and he attributes that to never having problems with constipation. The king, once someone explains to him what this "porrich" is, says that he "never eats peasant food."

Jeff Wrangler:
I understand the "historical" parts of Outlander take place somewhere around the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. That would make the French king Louis XV.

I've heard that about willow bark. I think it contains something that's found in aspirin, but I may be remembering that wrong.

Potatoes, of course, are a New World product, so our European peasant ancestors in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance would not have had them. They would have had root crops like turnips and parsnips and carrots and radishes. I like turnips.

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on June 05, 2017, 11:05:19 am ---At the risk of taking us off on a tangent, before the "invention" of aspirin, people used willow bark, which was known to reduce headaches and fever as far back as Hippocrates, 400 BC.
--- End quote ---

Good point. I'd have to incorporate that kind of thing into the book. The willow bark might not have been quite as convenient as my Advil, which is in the bathroom maybe 30 feet from my desk, and it was probably reserved for more severe cases rather than routine headaches -- which was possibly for the best! -- but it and other herbal remedies were certainly part of enhancing comfort in the days before Walgreen's. I've always been suspicious of using anything to reduce fever because I think fever, uncomfortable as it is, is a sign of your body trying to protect itself -- it's not the problem in itself. That's my theory, at least. I'm not a doctor.


--- Quote --- This was part of the body of knowledge which was mainly kept by women and transferred by oral teaching, but much of it was written down from time to time and is widely available. The role of women historically was to comfort and ease pain, to nurture, etc. and you may find in your research and writing that the two themes might start weaving together somewhat. Anyway, it is a fascinating subject!
--- End quote ---

Another good point! One theory about the witch persecutions was that it was a way to get rid of those female healers and replace them with male "doctors." And you're absolutely right, there's tons of historical documentation of all of this.

Then again, as recently as 100 or so years ago they couldn't treat a huge array of common diseases. According to the Stephen Soderbergh show The Knick, set in 1900, they didn't even know there were different blood types, X-rays were just being introduced, and they were just starting to figure out surgery.

Women in childbirth not only had little if any access to any form of anesthesia (though that's of course happened forever, thanks to that scheming Eve), but were quite likely to die in the process, a mortality rate that was much improved after doctors started washing their hands between patients.


--- Quote ---As far as the steak, potato and salad goes, peasants ate greens in the spring and knew where to find all the best ones. Some were eaten raw but most were steamed or stewed; peasants also knew where to find the most delicious mushrooms, onions, and other ingredients. Rather than a steak, they could snare a hare or a partridge, get a deer or wild boar, or fish for some cod or set a trap for a lobster. But these were generally for special occasions. If they ate meat every day, they would probably die.
--- End quote ---

Die? How? You'd think if their constitution allowed them to gorge on meat at celebrations -- "carnivals," -- they wouldn't be literally killed by daily moderate doses of the stuff. Unless you mean the way modern people in wealthy countries are at least partly killed by their diets, via heart disease or cancer, usually in late middle age at the earliest.


--- Quote ---Many raised lambs, goats, chicken or geese/ducks so they had a varied diet. With no refrigeration, I imagine sour cream was plentiful, as was fresh cream and cheese, mainly from goats or sheep. Root vegetables like potatoes tasted much more delicious and were more nutritious than they are now. Peasants would have known to save some of the potatoes back and cut them into "chits" o plant the next spring.
--- End quote ---

Wow, peasant life sounds pretty much like a trip to a spa!  :laugh: Obviously you're right, certainly to some extent. My suspicion is that for many people throughout history, delicious food wasn't plentiful, at least not all year around, but maybe I'm just being chronologist. Anyway, that's the kind of thing the book could clear up.


--- Quote --- I know there was a lot of discomfort among people but I imagine it was centered around displacement due to wars, traveling, droughts, etc.
--- End quote ---

Well, with the exception of traveling -- unless by traveling you mean "fleeing" or "forced marches" -- I think of those kinds of as far worse than discomfort. I wouldn't include people subject to pillaging, genocide, torture and all of the other forms of horrible suffering that people have experienced in history. Except maybe to note that many people feel safer now from enemy attacks, so that's a form of comfort. Emphasis on the "many" -- obviously there are also many, many people currently being subjected to them, as well as people who don't feel safe on a daily basis even in their own neighborhoods.

Anyway, I think it could be an interesting book and research project. Who wants to co-author?

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: serious crayons on June 06, 2017, 11:56:47 am ---Good point. I'd have to incorporate that kind of thing into the book. The willow bark might not have been quite as convenient as my Advil, which is in the bathroom maybe 30 feet from my desk, and it was probably reserved for more severe cases rather than routine headaches -- which was possibly for the best! -- but it and other herbal remedies were certainly part of enhancing comfort in the days before Walgreen's. I've always been suspicious of using anything to reduce fever because I think fever, uncomfortable as it is, is a sign of your body trying to protect itself -- it's not the problem in itself. That's my theory, at least. I'm not a doctor.

--- End quote ---

From what I'm able to find, generally speaking that's correct. The slight fever you might get with a cold is almost certainly not dangerous. But fever can be a sign of more serious conditions, and the effect of fever depends on a mixture of things, including the patient's age, the patient's overall health, and the height of the fever itself.

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