[Vwoolf] puple haze

[Anne Margaret Daniel]

Friends,
in re: potassium permanganate, that all-purpose Victorian anti fungal and
wound cleaner -- or, perhaps, gentian violet -- it was used to cure thrush
in babies, but was also a common remedy for a variety of venereal disorders
and diseases, both as an antiseptic quasi-preventitive, and a cure.
Very best to all, and with every good thought that the poor baby's eyelids
may have been purplish from thinness and healthy veins alone, Anne Margaret


On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 7:17 AM, Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net> wrote:

> Well, my dear chemists, I mentioned this thread last night to the mother
> of two with whom I live and she instantly said ‘had the baby been beaten?’
>
>
>
> *From:* Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu] *On
> Behalf Of *Stuart N. Clarke
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2015 4:45 AM
>
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] puple haze
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> With the advent of the National Health Service and the need to list
> ingredients on bottles and packets, things became increasingly difficult
> for this sort of dangerous rubbish.  As Paul Vaughan puts it in his
> autobiography, the mid-fifties were:
>
>
>
> “the end of an era in the pharmaceutical business.  The Celery Tonics,
> Soothing Powders, Miracletts and Popular Pellets of yesteryear, the old
> survivors from the age of quackery like Fenning’s Fever Cure (formula:
> powdered dragon’s blood) were going the way of Mother Siegel’s Syrup and
> Keene’s One-Night Cold Cure.  The drug industry was now controlled by huge
> corporations manufacturing antibiotics and anti-depressants and, gradually,
> all the armoury of scientific medicine.  Ahead of them, too, were such
> disasters as the thalidomide and chloramphenicol affairs.”
>
> (Paul Vaughan, "Exciting Times in the Accounts Department" (London:
> Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995), 54.)
>
>
>
> Stuart (I haven’t gone yet.)
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>
>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2015 8:29 AM
>
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] puple haze
>
>
>
> I’m off to London this morning (where I will have limited internet
> access), so – you will be pleased to know – I don’t have the time to slip
> into an anecdotal rant about patent medicines and my childhood, but here is
> the beginning of A. E. Housman’s parody of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
> ‘Excelsior’:
>
>
>
> The shades of night were falling fast,
>
>             And the rain was falling faster,
>
> When through an Alpine village passed
>
>             An Alpine village pastor:
>
> A youth who bore mid snow and ice
>
>             A bird that wouldn’t chirrup,
> *And a banner with a strange device—*
>
>             ‘Mrs. Winslow’s soothing syrup’.
>
>
>
> Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup contained sulphate of morphia, sodium
> carbonate, spirits of foeniculi, and aqua ammonia.  It was specifically
> recommended for babies.
>
>
>
> Stuart
>
>
>
> *From:* Jeremy Hawthorn <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>
>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2015 7:59 AM
>
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>
> *Subject:* [Vwoolf] puple haze
>
>
>
> The overwhelming likelihood, I take it, is that the purple is the result
> of some condition such as malnutrition. But I do recall that as a child I
> was daubed with various unguents and patent medicines that turned the skin
> various colours, including mauve. Do I recall correctly that one of them
> was permangunate of potash? Or was that what I used when my goldfish got
> fungal infections? Could one of these have been a treatment for sties?
>
> Jeremy H
>
> Den 13/05/2015 08:52, skrev Stuart N. Clarke:
>
> I do take it (from my hunting on the internet) that there need be nothing
> exceptional about babies with purple eyelids and therefore the implied
> argument is that we should not annotate this.  However, applying the
> principle that “nothing is casual in Woolf”, I would like to be enlightened
> about whether or not there is some special combination of poverty + babies
> + purple eyelids!
>
>
>
> Stuart
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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-- 


Best,
AMDaniel
www.annemargaretdaniel.com
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