Medieval Medicine

Discussion in 'Research' started by T.Trian, Apr 8, 2014.

  1. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Thanks, that helps a lot.

    I take it "no bloody discharge from nose" does not mean actual blood that'd come from the nose after it's been punched a few times / broken?

    I've got plenty of chronic aches, so maybe I could give her something like I got: a busted shoulder (came down badly from a throw and now the joint is loose), cracked meniscus in the knee (wore it down by running a lot with less-than-ideal technique while I had some extra pounds), a cyst was cut out from within a bone in my wrist and that never healed properly, something like those perhaps?

    Her sword is a regular longsword, so it's really pretty light (about 1-1,5kg / 2,2-3,3lbs), but of course her fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders take a beating when she fights / trains and her knees won't much appreciate the extra 12-15kg / 26-33lbs of mail worn regularly, i.e. hours almost every day (plus all the other gear she carries) and the eventual full plate armor will probably also take its toll on her joints, but that happens much later in the story (the mail she gets fairly early though).

    How would a blood clot develop? I mean, what causes would there be for such a blood clot and how quickly would it form and cause urinary retention? Is that more of a problem for the elderly or can a younger person experience it as well? She's pretty healthy in the beginning, but over the course of the story, she's exposed to all kinds of stuff (violence, bad weather when traveling / sleeping outside, low quality and too little food, poorer hygiene than what she's used to, i.e. often has to go several days without bathing / washing etc. etc). Can any of those cause anything that might cause the retention? Or some other ailment that would also cause urinary retention (such as constipation if, e.g. she takes some kind of opiates while recovering from injuries)?
    The notion of the medieval treatment in question is just so chilling that it'd be cool to have in a story. :D
     
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  2. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, about the groin wound: could she sustain some nerve damage? Are there any notable nerve(endings?) in there? Does nerve damage always cause either numbness or diminished strength or can it also cause pains / aches?
     
  3. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    Yes, I was referring to spontaneous bloody discharge as well as one that just won't stop. Lots of things can cause bladder clots, but they need to produce substantial bleeding, which is usually visible in the urine. The obvious ones are trauma to the bladder, urethra or even a kidney, kidney or bladder stones, injury from catheterisation. Infections and inflammation if left for very long time I suppose can cause clots, but it's not a common cause. The big one is also cancer, but you don't need to worry about that in this case.

    For your scenario, I'd go with kidney or bladder trauma, if she was punched in the kidney or if her bladder got nicked, either due to pelvic fracture or a hard blow (we see it in road traffic accidents sometimes) she would bleed and some of that blood could clot which could obstruct either the bladder or even the urethra. Catheterisation would pass through that clot and relieve the retention. Usually, this kind of thing heals up in a few weeks, and the original injury is extremely painful. Bladder trauma is often accompanied by other extensive injuries, such as in road traffic or even pedestrian injuries, which could fit your scenario because it sounds like she got the equivalent of being run over by a car worth of injuries.

    The nerve is a femoral nerve. It's the most lateral structure in the inguinal canal (closest to the hip, whilst femoral vein is closest to the pubis, artery is in the middle). It arises from L2-L4 nerve roots, and enervates quad muscles. So, if severed, she wouldn't be able to extend the knee. It also provides sensation to medial (close to midline) and anterior thigh, medial shin and arch of the foot. But, if only 'nicked' rather than fully severed, it can grow back (albeit very slowly) and she could work hard to keep her quad strength in that leg in good shape but end up with some permanent numbness. Other than that, the aches you describe is easily what she'd end up with.
     
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  4. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    After the past few months I believe in frontal lobotomies. :rolleyes:
     
  5. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    It's fiction, so you can hardly go wrong. I didn't read @jazzabel's posts very closely but I assume you are getting information you seek there covering trauma.


    So let me address two different issues, one is realism and the other is the myth of romanticizing the medical knowledge of the past.
    I don't disagree with these posts, just with the extent of the role of such observations at the time. It sounds intuitive: they must have noticed what worked and what didn't. One would think so but history doesn't bear this out and there are some reasons for that.

    I'm not saying they never stumbled upon actual remedies. It's more complicated than that. I'm merely cautioning against the tendency to believe ancient medical knowledge was greater than it actually was.

    There are texts documenting the widespread use of botanicals. Consider the sheer volume of those that were worthless and even harmful remedies compared to the few that were effective like willow bark (contained precursors for aspirin) for pain and fever. This is evidence little if any careful systematic observation was going on.

    If an observations was of direct and rapid actions, plants with active ingredients would more likely be known. So drugs for pain relief, drugs that bring fever down, drugs that cause vomiting or diarrhea, and hallucinogens would have been more easily discoverable. And sometimes correlation does turn out to be causation like with using honey and molds which had some bactericidal or bacteriostatic properties on wounds.

    Established medical researchers unwittingly romanticize the effectiveness of medicine from the past.

    The use of botanicals was widespread, extensive and often very detailed in ancient texts from all over the world. Here's a nice compendium in summary form:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358962/

    But notice how little is said about actual efficacy.

    http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/botany/medicine.htm
    (bold is mine)

    Here's another discussion of the use of botanicals in the distant past and once again it appears to suggest the use was successful or at least done with valid reason:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658564/
    So let's look at Galen, an early pioneer in medical research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen
    When your underlying beliefs about disease are wrong, your research is biased in a negative way.

    That says a lot about Galen's possible success. It suggests medicine was further advanced treating trauma than maybe it was treating illness.

    Notice further in the article he felt threatened by other physicians of the day and ended up fleeing the area.

    When the established medical community is threatened by change, good research is slowed. When Dr John Snow documented convincing evidence the cholera epidemic in 1800s London was coming from the Broad St Pump, his colleagues refused for a decade to accept the conclusion from his well documented epidemiology. Snow at least was able to convince a local authority of the source and they removed the handle from the infamous pump, greatly slowing and eventually ending the epidemic.

    To sum this rambling up: because the beliefs about disease were wrong, superstition ruled the day. Consider how superstition worked with other things. Crops failed, people prayed. They didn't look for drought resistant crops. People got sick, they blamed witches, they didn't observe the fact healthy people only drank boiled water with tea. So you should expect the same kinds of superstitious conclusions with botanicals and other medical interventions.

    At the same time, people dissected cadavers and did do more careful research when it came to anatomy. Not that they understood exactly what it was they were looking at, but one can see where careful observation played a greater role than it did at the time when it came to less obviously observed evidence where superstitious conclusions were readily drawn and hard to later discard.

    There is a romantic notion elevating the effects of ancient remedies. People believe medicine of the day must have been based on observation. The problem is, our brains have barriers with our natural tendency to assume correlation equals causation. It wasn't until more modern methods of science allowed people to overcome this natural brain flaw in reasoning that trial and error and careful systematic observation became a significant part of medical research.


    Wow, looks like a great resource for writers!

    http://www.timetravellersguides.com/historical_periods/TTGME/medieval.html
     
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  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    @GingerCoffee - It boggles the mind sometimes, how much stubborn adherence to theory can stymie efforts to learn, isn't it? Many of these old 'scientists' were not so much interested in learning and discovering as they were in supporting their theories. And some of those theories were pretty far-fetched. A good example is that theory that 'like cures like' - the shape of a leaf indicates what it's likely to cure, etc. And the whole 'humours' schtick.

    All these kinds of theories got in the way of good science. It must have been a real challenge, to 'discover' what cures actually worked, because these healers would have had to test their theories on either themselves or on patients. Yikes.

    I've made some study (for research purposes) of Native American remedies (primarily North American), and many of these were remarkably effective. I think these folks were relatively free of the kind of superstition that holds people back from understanding. There was lots they didn't understand, of course, but they knew their environment pretty well, and tended to be practical rather than fanciful in finding solutions to problems. They had the advantage of living in small groups, so they didn't have to battle against 'accepted wisdom' so hard as people who lived in more rigid societies. Each individual had more freedom to experiment and to develop what worked and discard what didn't.
     
  7. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Sorry, I'm a little obtuse sometimes and I still don't quite understand this bit:

    I must have misunderstood something 'cause surely her nose would bleed after so many punches on it (I've seen bleeding from the nostrils and bleeding from the bridge of the nose when it's been broken open). What am I missing here?


    That sounds perfect. I've heard it doesn't necessarily even take a huge blow to the kidneys to make a person piss blood.

    Now, by the "original injury," do you mean the blow to the kidneys that caused the bleeding? Counting from the time of the blow, how long would it take (rough estimate) for the blood to clot and cause urinary retention?


    Yeah, sometimes we (almost) feel bad about how much crap we put our characters through, but, then again, since we're not writing about a fencing prodigy, and since she partakes in several fights, it just makes sense to us she sustains her fair share of injuries. And it's fun to write and research this stuff. :D


    Add some blood letting and a few hearty enemas and you got the gold standard of medieval medicine.


    First, your post gave me some perspective on what the medical community of the story might be like, so thanks for that. I figured the community's reluctance to accept new discoveries would be the main reason why the monk does most of his experimenting in secret and doesn't advertise his discoveries / observations except to those who want to learn from him after witnessing his methods.

    The way we've written it now, the church he's a part of is especially strict about adhering to their own standards and practices, so he'd get into big trouble if they found out how often and how much he deviates from the curriculum their medical "experts" teach among those of the organization who specialize in medicine.

    Now, as for the quoted part, I googled a bit, looking for plants / herbs etc. (that would grow in the area or at least on the same continent / relatively close to it) with emetic properties, and I found mandrake, rue, boneset, and mistletoe. I was wondering if there were any other (perhaps more effective?) natural (not-too-lethal) emetics I could use in the story:

    There's a scene where a character is tricked into eating something that induces vomiting, but at the moment it's a made up fruit as I haven't found any suitable alternatives (something a person wouldn't be too suspicious of consuming if offered by someone seemingly friendly). Any ideas? Or should I just stick with the made up one (described like a small, green apple except far more bitter 'cause I once saw something like that used as an emetic in a movie a long time ago, so I figured it might've actually existed somewhere in the world)?


    Can you remember when they used the pig bladders? My google-fu has given me contradicting information, some articles claiming clyster syringes were used between 1600-1800A.D, whereas some articles claim they were already in use in medieval Europe (without specifying the exact period). :confused:
     
  8. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @T.Trian : The main one is discharge of clear fluid (cerebrospinal fluid) which indicates basilar skull fracture following the head injury, and if the bleeding also occurred during the smash and tear, the discharge would look bloody as well. This is not the same as ordinary bleeding from the injured nose. It's pinker and thinner than blood and it can't be stopped. I unnecessarily complicated my answer by adding it in (I was going through head injury assessment in my head, and reeled it off) but it isn't that relevant to you, because if she had that, she'd be really messed up, so don't worry, forget I said anything :)

    Yes I meant the blow that ruptures or bruises the kidney or bladder is excruciatingly painful. It's the sign of organ damage. If she's pumped on adrenaline she might be able to fight through it, but usually it's 'bend over and throw up' type of pain. It would take at least some hours or a day, more likely after up to a week, when the big clot (that formed to stop the bleeding) dislodges, travels and blocks whatever opening is smaller than it. But you can get away with a few hours as well. Just think, even if the clot formed and blocked, she wouldn't know until her bladder fills up, and that takes some time.

    Just to mention medical community in middle ages. With all the suppression of women and witch hunting, all these traditional healers, herbalists, midwives, who were women, had to hide, since thousands of them were burned as witches because of the skills they possessed, Some say they were persecuted because males wanted to take over the child birthing business. But their wisdom and skills were far, FAR superior to that of their medical establishment male counterparts. So I'd stay away from the establishment and stick with the ladies, witches collecting the herbs, setting the bones and putting the warriors together in their secret witchy cottages in the middle of the forest. Or make your monk's mentor a healer woman, maybe his mother, since that's been passed down the generations, and was frowned upon by the church-enforced patriarchy :D
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2014
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  9. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I'd say this particular issue shouldn't be a problem, really. Nobody 'invented' the pig bladder, so you could assume it could have been in use at any time and in any place where they kept pigs. Nobody's going to argue if you use it in a piece of fiction for this purpose, no matter when the period might be. All it would have taken would have been some healer to have had a 'eureka' moment when it came to methods of administering enemas.

    The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer covers the 'medieval' period of the 13th century. The bibliography at the back of the book is extensive. I'd highly recommend you get the book and have a read at it. It's very readable and colloquial, but there is an immense amount of information in it that you'd find very useful. And of course, you might want to delve further into it, by checking out some of the bibliographical references too.

    I have the book in paperback, but it's also available on Kindle, for around £6, so not expensive at all, for what you get.
     
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  10. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Wilco.


    Okay, I'm starting to get a pretty good idea of how things will turn out: she'll get hit in the kidneys, hard (e.g. the guy might wield a mace or flail instead of a sword and attack her from behind, but her mail would prevent the spikes from sinking too deep), the pain is so intense, she curls up in the snow, and the guy mounts her and starts punching her head, and the rest of the choreography goes as before.

    She could experience the blockage in a day or a few, perhaps. I can stretch it even further 'cause they'll be in the same place for around a week or maybe a bit less, but even then they travel only a short distance (a few miles and they have a cart for transporting the wounded) and then settle down for several months, so she'd have plenty of time to heal there.


    Well, he has traveled up and down and sideways all over the continent, perhaps even visited a few other continents (he's around 40-50yo, old for the time), looking to learn all he can about medicine, so I could mention that despite his travels, his biggest influence may have been some healer woman / midwife (i.e. a witch :D) from his family (could've been the mother, grandmother, aunt, some such), and that's how he learned the truly useful stuff and knows better than what he's been taught by his (very patriarchal and anti-woman) religious organization (they're kinda like Christians in the sense that they also have a large army supporting them, spreading the religion by force, hell-bent on making it the only religion in the world).

    That religion is also the reason why the 17yo girl dresses as a boy; otherwise she'd get into trouble for carrying a sword and wearing armor and, back when she was a few years younger, her hometown's fencing master wouldn't have accepted her as a student either.
    I'm not sure why, but I've noticed quite a few of our stories have a fairly strong feminist (i.e. "equalist") tinge to them. :D

    Oh yeah, just one more question regarding injuries: if you were to disembowel a conscious person, removing an organ at a time, is there any organ that, if damaged or removed (torn off instead of cutting), would cause the victim to start spasming / shaking uncontrollably? Or could just the shock of being disemboweled in general cause a reaction like that?


    @jannert, I was thinking of the period 'cause at first I would've preferred the clyster ('cause it just looks so creepy), but, then again, the pig's bladder version isn't something you see in every story (with enemas...), so maybe we ought to use that instead.

    You wouldn't happen to know how it works? I mean, do they squeeze the bladder when it's empty, shove the tube (or whatever it is that goes up the ass... a metal tube? Or what did they use for that part?) into the liquid they're gonna use, kinda like you'd do with something like this? Or did they have some other way of inserting the liquid into the bladder?


    Thanks for the tip, Jan. The book just elbowed its way to the top of our to-be-ordered -list. :cool:
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2014
  11. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    I'd be a bit concerned about that trap stake that stabs her bicep. If it has been there for a while and possibly contaminated with animal blood, feces, falling dirt from the pit, and all the associated bacteria, it could be highly toxic and one of the most dangerous injuries prior to the second combat since it is an actual deep penetrating wound.

    I would suggest a quarterstaff or even sword blow to the back rather than a mace. A flanged or spiked mace head is designed to stove in plate armour and still deal injury to the victim. To someone wearing chain mail, the impact would be extremely destructive, shattering bone and delivering massive shock. Maces and war hammers were the primary killing tools of armoured knights and not swords as often depicted in films.

    Assuming everyone involved in the combat has some degree of training, anyone getting a chance to strike the unprotected rear of an opponent's head would go for the base of the skull, the area just below the corner of the jaw, or the temples. Even without armour gauntlets, blows to these areas are easily fatal. The other option would be to grip the entire head and repeatedly slam it against the ground if it wasn't soft and muddy. The skull might hold up, but the concussion damage would be severe. Also, why isn't her attacker using the mace? You need something to account for that. (Which you might have already done, but I thought I'd mention it.)
     
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  12. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Since she's not the luckiest person in the world by any stretch of imagination, I figured she'd have luck on her side on this one: the spike that'd pierce her bicep would've been exposed to rain etc. so it'd be somewhat dirty, but it wouldn't be one of the spikes that impaled the animal, so it wouldn't have the germs (or whatever) from the dried up blood and wouldn't be smeared with feces either, so the wound would likely get infected, but it wouldn't be the worst case scenario (old animal blood + feces).


    A sword blow works for me (originally the guy did have a sword anyway).


    Oh yeah, I didn't give out enough information of the scene, my bad. Thanks for bringing it up. Here are the specifics:
    There are twelve combatants, all more or less trained, some already wounded to begin with, the bad guys already tired from having chased one of the good guys a good distance (on foot), and when the rest of the good guys (and gals) arrive, it becomes this chaotic melee where skill plays a smaller role than luck when it comes to survival.

    The girl sees one of her friends engaged in a clinch, so she hacks at the bad guy's head from behind, but while she's focused on that, the other bg, who's fighting another of her friends, sees an opening and strikes at her head, but her friend he was fighting charges in, tackling him, so his blow hits her back instead.

    The bg ends up wrestling with her friend and loses his sword in the tussle, but he manages to sweep and shove her friend aside who is then attacked by another bg, so this bg can continue his attack on the girl, who has now fallen on the ground from the blow to the kidneys, and since his sword isn't in his immediate vicinity (because its fallen somewhere in the knee-deep snow), he chooses to attack her since he's unarmed at that moment and she's the easiest target for him (but since she's still conscious and might get up to keep fighting, he intends to take her out of the fight).

    He could also grab her head and pound it against the ground, but since there's so much snow, it might not be as effective as punching. She does fight back, even after giving him her back (or, rather, she tries to shield the back of her head and her neck from the punches, trying to turtle up while also trying to escape from under him, so she's moving until the KO, making it difficult for the guy to land a solid hit to just the right spot), so she's protecting herself to a degree, but at some point she does get KO'd and he lands a few more punches before he's killed by another of her friends (who can't stop to help her / check on her because the fight is still going on around them).

    If you catch any inconsistencies or stuff that still doesn't make sense, I'd appreciate it if you pointed out those bits. :cool:
     
  13. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    It all sounds really good to me (story wise, I feel really sorry for the poor character :D). Don't be concerned about 'equality' element. I believe that's the only way to tell stories to their full potential - not inherently discriminate on basis of gender. The male-only hero narrative is the unnatural, enforced by church format, so you are only bypassing that and telling the stories naturally, as they are meant to be told. Even with the worst violent oppression, woman's internal world was more one of a defiant slave than a victim. Women endured oppression for so long, and reclaimed their rights as soon as they could, thousands of years worth of history did nothing to how we see ourselves - as equal to men.

    I also love the parallels you have with our world :)

    With disembowlement, I don't think a person could stay conscious for long. We lose a lot of fluid through exposed bowels, couple that with severe bleeding just from splitting the abdominal wall and peritoneum, yikes. Also mesenteric blood supply (to all of the gut) is very rich, so exsanguination would be, in my opinion, quite rapid. Unless if the killer cauterised bleeding points using say, tip of his sword heated up until it glowed orange. Stab wounds to the gut, on the other hand, take quite a long time to kill a person, but disembowlement, I'd be guessing but I can't see someone surviving for more than an hour. Organ removal would just increase the bleeding. Splenic artery or vein when severed, is really hard to tamponade (occlude, stop bleeding). Portal vasculature (liver) is the same. Then you have abdominal aorta, if that's severed, a person can lose entire blood volume in just a few minutes, inferior vena cava, stomach, yeah, the poor victim would be long dead. Think Jack the Ripper's final victim. Vast majority of the mutilation occurred post-mortem.

    Gosh, I feel a bit sick after imagining all that. I'm going to sit in my awesome new garden, under a lovely cherry tree and drink tea. (#thinkhappythoughts)
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2014
  14. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Sometimes I do feel guilty for all the things we put her through. :D In the end, however, that's just her character and her nature, to dash headlong into dangerous situations if she witnesses something bad happening, so we couldn't write her any other way without changing her in a significant way: she has idolized the heroes of the classic hero tales since she was a little girl and her dream is to become like them, a sword-wielding hero(ine) righting wrongs.
    A part of her development process is the disillusionment she goes through when she realizes (pretty early on) that the world of "heroic" violence isn't glorious, but dark, ugly, and very, very painful.

    As for the disembowelment, there's no cauterization and it doesn't need to last longer than, say, a minute or so. We have a few supernatural elements in the story, but they are very subtle. In that particular scene, a niavka (a carnivorous forest nymph who looks human save for a few tiny details) wrestles a man to the ground (yup, she's much stronger than a normal man, kinda like comparing a grown man's strength to a child's), straddles him, tears open his stomach, and starts to pull out his intestines to eat them. At the moment, the first thing she yanks out is the small intestine.

    After that, we don't mention any specific organs because the scene is told through the 17yo girl's POV and she doesn't really know human anatomy (might recognize the heart and lungs, but that's about it, if even that) and she's very, very drunk at that point (in the puking, almost-passed-out phase).

    Looking back at this thread, discussing only the more gruesome parts of the story makes it seem much gorier and darker than it really is. :D
     
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  15. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    Just as encouragement, some of the most famous warriors in Chinese history were the women of the Yang clan. (Film based on historical characters) :)

    (English trailer)

     
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  16. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    This is somewhat off-topic, but since it's an interesting subject and it's my thread, maybe it can take a couple of OT posts. :D Who knows, maybe it might even spur a new thread if enough people have something to say about it:

    @Bryan Romer, looks like a cool movie. Of course the fights aren't realistic, but I do appreciate the incredible choreographies (not really a surprise as I spotted Jackie Chan's name there) that take a lot of skill and practice to execute so well.
    It was also nice to see that the women wore sensible armors instead of boob plates, mail bikinis, or other such silliness so prevalent in Western sword productions (Game of Thrones is a refreshing exception to that rule as well, especially Brienne's character, as was Eowyn in the LOTR movies and Jovovich's rendition of Jeanne D'Arc in The Messenger).

    I know female fighters have been relatively rare in ye olden times, but one thing that I think probably also affects the recorded numbers is that quite often the women dressed up as men (since some armies didn't accept female fighters even if they wanted to join), so if nobody knew they were really women, their existence would have gone unnoticed in the history books (unless they did some truly outstanding deeds, and since some did, it stands to reason, by my logic, that there were other such women in the ranks, but went unnoticed because they didn't accomplish quite as much).

    Another reason that I believe has affected their disappearingly few numbers in recorded history is patriarchy: it's not unheard of for men to claim a woman's deed, accomplishment, or invention as his own for whatever reason (jealousy / misogyny, fear that whatever she did wouldn't be noticed if it looked like it was done by a woman etc), and since officers sometimes steal the glory from the grunts even if the latter did the heroics, it would make sense that some officers stole the glory of some female grunts just as they did from their male counterparts.

    Yet another possible reason is tied to the second: so far the only medieval warrior women I've read about have been nobles or otherwise of high social standing. Since there was a time when history books ignored peasants and their ilk, it wouldn't surprise me if some low born, low ranked female soldiers existed, but their existence was never noted in writing.

    What we're trying to do with this story is to explore the life of one such girl since she, too, is low born and not even a member of any military (the story does have a woman soldier too, though). Since we lack historical examples, we have to make a lot of it up as we go along, but in a way that's a part of the story's charm; we have more options without real precedents to draw from.

    One big obstacle, however, has been the fact that neither of us know much about historical European swords(wo)manship, so we have interviewed a bunch of fairly successful female HEMA practitioners (one of them was actually a longsword champion, having competed in an international tournament against men and won).

    What surprised me way back when was that, since longswords are very light, while they aren't as effective as equalizers as firearms, they level the playing field so much that it's entirely plausible that a skilled woman (or even a girl) could best men in a melee fight. Strength does play a part, but more than being a major factor in the end result, it affects tactics.
     
  17. Bryan Romer

    Bryan Romer Contributor Contributor

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    One reason for the rarity in female fighters in Europe was the military system during the medieval and middle ages. While knights were all noblemen and their sons, automatically excluding women, the general mass of the troops were actually conscripted farmers. Once again, the lords would call for a muster and the men were required to attend while the women stayed home to maintain the farms and children.

    Have you seen this list?: http://womenshistorymonth.wordpress.com/resources/women-and-series/women-and-war/female-warriors/

    In one to one combat, say in scouting teams or even assassins, high skill with a sword can make a woman an effective killer. The sword technique of the Taoist nuns of Ermei Mountain in China is still famed even today, and I have seen very impressive demonstrations of sword skill and martial arts by female Wudang Taoist nuns.

    The problem on the battlefield was that most combat, especially in Europe, was in the form of a clash of shield walls. This was true in Roman times and on through Viking/Saxon and even Norman times and later before the English introduced mass archers. Knights made up a very small percentage of the combat force. Shield wall combat required sheer body weight and physical strength as much as skill. Basically is was a deadly shoving match with each side stabbing around over and under the shields as both armies were locked together.

    The other main alternative were pike/spear formations. But again, these weapons required massive upper body strength with discipline and obedience being more important than martial skill.

    That's what the knights were designed to do i.e. smash a hole in the enemy shield wall and spear formations and allow your side's foot soldiers to get in and behind the enemy.

    It was only in the East, Persia, India, China, and even Russia, where light cavalry and horse archers were favoured that it was possible for women to be effective on the battlefield.

    So the most likely role your female character would have is that of skirmisher/scout or archer. Ratchet cranked crossbows did not require as much body strength to cock as a hand cocked one or a longbow, or she could use a lighter recurve horse archer's bow as was popular in Eastern Europe.
     
  18. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Liked the link, @Bryan Romer. Thanks.
     
  19. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    First, thanks for the link. Interesting stuff. Also, nice analysis of melee combat and its nature. I got some ideas from that.

    The 17yo girl isn't in any army, she's more like a combative traveler; she on a "quest" (to reach a certain place and do something there) and on the way she just ends up in fights here and there for various reasons (has a tendency to butt in into other people's business when she sees something that goes against her sense of justice, she has a volatile temper and an aggressive and competitive nature, sometimes the friends she's traveling with end up in trouble and she dashes in to help them etc, i.e. she's a bit immature and often invites trouble, but that's just a part of the character).

    The other female fighter is in the armed forces, but as an assassin, i.e. it's pretty much single combat, sneaky attacks etc. instead of small group or battle field stuff, so in that sense, both characters "make sense" in regards to what you wrote about medieval warfare / combat.

    It might actually be a good idea to separate these posts (about women's role in medieval combat) into their own thread. I just ought to figure out a title and questions to discuss in that thread.
     
  20. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Even with all this talk about medieval enemas and catheters, I forgot to ask one very crucial question:

    Back then, did they use any kind of lube for either procedure? I've understood the bladder is sterile, so if they used, say, olive / brassica rapa oil, butter, or lard of some sort, would it cause problems with the catheterization? Or did they just ram it in dry?

    Also, another question about catheterization: I read a description of the procedure's medieval equivalent, and in it was said that the patient had to sit on another person's lap (any idea why?) while the doctor (different from the person the patient was sitting on) would stuff a finger up the patient's anus and then press on the bladder with his fist to force out the urine (I'm assuming they did this while the catheter was in).
    What I don't get is... why the finger up the ass? Or were medieval people just particularly... ass-centric?
     
  21. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    I don't know but if they did, it would have been some kind of fat or fat oil more than likely.
     
  22. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Okay, I got a few more questions, this time revolving around (poor) hygiene:

    If a character has lived a fairly stationary life so far, i.e. in a village where they've had regular access to water, and then they embark on a long journey (lasts a few months) during which they get to wash / bathe only about... once a week or so, it's summer, the character does a lot of riding (several 2-3 hour stints per day), and doesn't have more than a couple changes of clothes, how likely would it to get some sort of infections? Oh yeah, the character is female (the same 17yo mentioned before), she's wearing pants / hose, and occasionally exercises (i.e. now and then trains fencing with her friend during their stops, which means they sweat a lot and don't get to wash).

    If she gets some kind of an infection (e.g. yeast? What kind of infections are possible / probable?), would it pass on its own? How long would it last? Or would she need some specific cure for it? Did they have such cures back then? Is it credible she would know it or would she need to head to a city and see a doctor / nurse / midwife or some such who knows about medicine?

    Is there an increased risk of infection or risk of some other kind of an infection when she has her period? As far as I know, they mostly used rags back then, but even so, she probably wouldn't get to change / wash it that often, so, again, her personal hygiene wouldn't be very good unless the menstruation happens while she's in a city / town.

    Thanks in advance! :cool:
     
  23. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    @T.Trian they get Saddle Sores. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_sores. They would use a mix of tar to help with it. Did you know they also use to brush their teeth with a twig?
     
  24. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    You might get an un-lubed catheter through the shorter urethra of a female but I doubt you could get one through the longer urethra of a penis. It's possible water might have been used as a less effective lubricant.

    Even sterile catheters are a source of bacteria infecting the bladder. If you put a cath in and out it's less risk. The body can mange a few organisms in the bladder without an infection occurring. It's hit or miss, depends on the number of organisms introduced and the health of the person.

    I know nothing about these medieval procedures but just going by anatomy and logic:

    Once the catheter is in, urine is going to drain unless the bladder is completely flaccid which isn't likely. Bladders are elastic and naturally retract to the smaller condition.

    However, I can see where one might put pressure on the back side of the bladder through the rectum and pressure from the front via the abdomen. That would likely be to help someone pee without the catheter. One can also sometimes lift the bladder through the vagina which allows a woman with a bladder prolapse to pee. You should look up bladder prolapse. Here's a place to start:

    http://www.webmd.com/women/guide/prolapsed-bladder
     
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  25. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    On top of the saddle sores, you can also get a thing called a pilonidal cyst. They can be extremely painful, I had one so I know. They basically create a pocket of infection and the only way to treat it is with antibiotics or eventually cut it out. I had to have surgery. Here is a link. I'll warn you the pictures are gross. If you do a search on google or yahoo and look at the pictures it's disgusting.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilonidal_cyst
     
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