Tag Archives: #amwriting

Old Time Medicine

When I was a child, I read numerous novels written over a century ago, such as Anne of Gables, Emily of New Moon, and The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery. Characters who got sick in these stories routinely mentioned taking laudanum. I hadn’t heard of this medicine but assumed it was similar to our everyday modern drugs. So I was surprised to later learn that laudanum is essentially opium. 

Anne of Green Gables took opium?

She almost certainly did. From the 18th to the early 20th century, laudanum was a common drug found in most household medicine cabinets. People took it for headaches, coughs, diarrhea, and “female complaints.” They fed drops to babies to ease teething pain and colic. 

Drawings reveal that the juice and seeds of the opium poppy were used as medicines in ancient Assyria and Egypt. Opium treatment emerged in Europe in the 1660s, when doctors dissolved opium in liquor and added cinnamon, cloves, other spices and sometimes honey to mask the plant’s bitter taste to create a drug they called laudanum. The medicine worked quickly and more effectively than other drugs available at the time and came to feature in about 25 % of all prescribed medications. Opium was also the secret ingredient in 19th century drugs advertised and sold under innocuous brand names like Dover’s Powder and Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.

While doctors appreciated the value of opium, they were aware of the dangers. Overdose, called “acute poisoning,” could be accidental or intentional. Opium was the most common method of suicide in the 1800s and too many drops of laudanum tragically resulted in infant deaths.

Addiction, or “chronic poisoning,” was another problem. Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s medical treatments led to a life-long laudanum addiction. His famous poem, “Kubla Khan,” was inspired by an opium dream.  

In the early 1880s, researchers isolated the active ingredient in opium and named it for Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep and dreams. Morphine is ten times as strong as the same amount of opium but can be more precisely measured, preventing overdose. Hypodermic needles were invented to inject morphine powder and soon people could buy hypodermic syringes in the Sears catalogue for $2.00. 

Next Bayer pharmaceuticals developed the even stronger heroin and marketed it with its other new drug, aspirin. Some people thought aspirin carried higher risks because it caused bleeding. 

But many doctors and members of the public pushed for restrictions on dangerous drugs. In the early 20th century, governments passed laws making opium and its derivatives only available by prescription and requiring companies to list ingredients on drug labels. Researchers gradually developed effective medicines with fewer serious side effects. Laudanum is still available today but is mainly prescribed to control diarrhea when other medications have failed. 

Why am I interested in old time medicine? It’s because my new historical mystery novel, A Killer Whisky, deals with common drugs of the early 1900s. These also included cocaine – great for nasal inflammation – and whisky. During Prohibition doctors were allowed to prescribe liquor to relieve stress, pain, and other physical and mental ailments. Many people took advantage of that legal loophole and enjoyed the medicine’s intoxicating side-benefits.  

References:

Halpern, John H., MD and Blistein, David. Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World. New York: Hachette, 2019.

Inglis, Lucy. Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium. London: Macmillan, 2019.

Malleck, Dan. When Good Drugs Go Bad. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015.

Mastering the Macabre

At Calgary’s When Words Collide Festival for Writers and Readers this weekend, I’ll be moderating a panel titled “Mastering the Macabre: Techniques in Crime, Mystery, and Thriller Writing. The session will explore the techniques used to create heart-pounding narratives that keep readers hooked until the very end. Hear from panelists as they discuss how to craft compelling mysteries, develop intricate crime plots, and evoke suspense. Ideal for writers seeking to sharpen their skills and fans of the genre. Join us Saturday at 9:00 am for a discussion that I expect to be both enlightening and entertaining.

Panelist Juanita Rose Violini created this chilling poster:

Novels Make Great Historical Research

My favourite research for my novel-in-progress set in 1918 Calgary has been reading novels written by contemporary authors of the time. This week I finished Rilla of Ingleside, the eighth and last book of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series. When I was a child, I devoured all the Anne books. I loved the first three novels in the series best, but once Anne realized Gilbert was her true love she got boring and the stories shifted focus to her six children. The story of Rilla, the youngest, grabbed me more than those of her older siblings because Rilla grows as a character and the war’s impact was poignant. 

Rilla of Ingleside is set during World War One. The novel begins with the war’s start in 1914 and ends shortly after the Armistice of November 11, 1918. Wikipedia calls Rilla of Ingleside “the only Canadian novel written from a contemporary woman’s perspective about the First World War.” I found it an excellent portrait of the experiences, views, and feelings of people living on the Canadian home front. The book led me to make a few changes to my novel, A Killer Whisky, which takes place during the Great War’s final month.  

Rilla lived in Prince Edward Island. A friend loaned me four novels written by early twentieth century Alberta writers. As their titles suggest, Cattle by Winnifred Eaton and The Cow Puncher by Robert J.C. Stead are largely set in ranch country, but the characters venture into Calgary. The Cow Puncher gets into World War One, which ties to its theme that meaning comes from service rather than selfishness. Cattle deals with the 1918 Influenza Pandemic aka the Spanish flu, which features prominently in A Killer Whisky.

The Shadow Riders by Isabel Paterson is set entirely in Calgary during the pre-war real estate boom. While reading all of the books, I kept a pen and sheet of paper handy to jot notes on descriptions of Calgary during that era, details of daily life, and word usage. A hundred years ago, expressions of surprise and horror tended to come from religion, such as “Lord Almighty!” “I’ll be damned!” and the softer “Heavens!” Peppering a novel with these as well as slightly archaic phrases — “he was wont to say,” “it’s a mortal disgrace,” “wicked to do this” — helps bring readers into that former time. 

The fourth Alberta novel I read, The Magpie’s Nest, was Isabel Paterson’s second published novel. Set partly in rural Alberta and New York City, it provided less Calgary detail than The Shadow Riders, but The Magpie offered some interesting commentary. Today’s writers tired of the pressure to promote themselves on social media might appreciate this Magpie character’s view of fan worship: “What does anyone want to meet an author for? Or a painter, or any famous person? You’ve got all the best of them in whatever they create. I’d as soon meet a cook because I liked the meal.”

In addition to their practical value for research, I found these five novels jolly good reads. The female characters are remarkably spirited and smart. While the books’ styles are somewhat dated, I enjoyed them more than many modern novels I’ve read. There’s good reason to call them classics, but they all aren’t easy to get your hands on.  

Rilla of Ingleside is the only one available for takeout from my Calgary Public Library due to the continued popularity of the Anne of Green Gables series. Cattle, re-released last year by Invisible Publishing to mark the 30th anniversary of Winnifred Eaton’s death, is available only for in-library use. You aren’t likely to find Cattle on a bookstore shelf, but it can be ordered or purchased online. The Leopold Classical Library has republished Isabel Paterson’s two novels by scanning the originals since books published in the United States before 1929 are now in the public domain. You can also read e-book versions free online.      

I liked The Shadow Riders so much that I bought the republished paperback and was surprised — “Good Heavens!” — when it arrived in 8 1/2 x 11 format in large font with wide margins. A bargain for $30, even though the original novel probably cost about 50 cents in 1918.    

War & Tulips

Last month I visited the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The museum portrays the impact of war on Canadians from pre-contact to the present day. Before the Europeans arrived, indigenous settlements had warrior training areas, where youths learned skills with bows and arrows and clubs for the tribes’ battles with their enemies. French explorers heightened these conflicts by introducing guns to the weaponry and forming alliances with tribes to aid France’s quest for control of fur trading territories.  

In 1759 Britain defeated France on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City and took over the land that eventually became Canada. Seventeen years later the American Revolutionary War brought an estimated 45,000 US colonists to Canada, where they could continue to live under the British crown. The United States invaded Canada during the War of 1812 in an attempt to drive the British from the continent, but the loyalists held them back. 

At the turn of the century, Canadians moved to fighting overseas. Over 7,000 volunteers rallied to the British cause in the South African War (Boer War). World War One was the first foreign war that engaged the entire country of Canada and affected every aspect of daily life.   

My journey through the war museum’s WW1 galleries began with panels that displayed images of eager young Canadian men leaving for war. 

        Who knew married men needed a wife’s permission?

When the men arrived on the battlefields, life in the trenches quickly lost its glamour. Mud, rats, and disease prevailed. During long hours of boredom, some creative souls made trench art from discarded materials like shell casings, brass bullet cartridges, and chalk. 

A viewer in the museum provided a visual of a chlorine gas — eerie and strangely alluring. The Germans first released the poison gas cloud during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, taking the Allied soldiers unawares. Troops fled in all directions. Thousands suffered burnt lungs or suffocated. The Allies quickly responded by developing increasingly effective gas masks for future battles and retaliating with their own poison gases.   

A cloud of poison gas in Ypres. Photos from Collier’s New Photographic History of the World War (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1918) 
Most touching was the museum’s display of the dreaded telegram, which could arrive any minute with news of a loved one’s serious injury, missing-in-action report, or death.   

Outside the museum, the tulips were starting to bloom in Ottawa, earlier than usual this year due to the winter’s low snow cover and mild weather in March. Each year, Ottawa hosts a tulip festival that goes back to World War II. Following the Nazi invasion, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands took refuge in Ottawa with her two children. Her third daughter, Princess Margriet, was born at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. A section of the hospital was declared Dutch soil so that the baby would hold Dutch nationality exclusively. Two years later, Canadian troops played a large role in the liberation of the Netherlands. After Princess Juliana and her children returned to their homeland, she sent Ottawa and the Canadian people a thank you gift of 100,000 tulip bulbs. Since then, the Dutch royal family has sent tulip bulbs to Canada’s capital every year and Ottawa celebrates each May with a tulip festival. This year’s event takes place May 10-20th. 
During my Ottawa stay, my high school friend and I walked to a park near Dow’s Lake to enjoy the beds of colourful tulips.   

My Stroll Through the 1918 Sears Catalogue

While researching 1918 fashion for my historical-novel-in-progress, I stumbled upon a 1918 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue, which someone had uploaded on the internet. The catalogue’s 1,676 pages provided a treasure trove of details about that year in time and brought back memories of my catalogue browsing in my younger days.  

In Canada, where I grew up, the Eaton’s mail-order catalogue was a mainstay in middle class homes from the early twentieth century until the catalogue expired in 1976. My cousin, who lived in the countryside, ordered all her back-to-school clothes from the thick fall/winter catalogue. My aunt in the city turned ordering and returning catalogue items into a hobby. Her husband joked that the Eaton’s delivery truck made a daily beeline to their street. Catalogues were the forerunner of today’s online shopping although they couldn’t offer one-day service. 

I don’t recall purchasing many catalogue goods, but I enjoyed flipping through the pages to see what was available. A common joke of the time was that little boys–and not so little ones–spent hours studying the ads for women’s underwear. I expect boys living 100 years ago were equally intrigued by the 1918 catalogue’s not-so-demure ladies modelling corsets. Prices for these complex articles of clothing ranged from $1.85 to $3.98 for Sear’s finest corsets. Corsets for children and teenage girls started at 98 cents.

I always find it interesting when old or historical books cite prices that are stunningly lower than today’s costs. On the next revision of my historical novel, I’ll look for ways to subtly insert a few 1918 prices into the story. While the earlier drafts mentioned corsets and petticoats, my catalogue stroll reminded me that people wore more underwear a century ago because houses were colder. The 1918 Sears catalogue featured twenty-eight pages of long underwear ads for women, men, and children. A note explained that wool underwear had become scarce because the Government required woolen mills to prioritize supply to soldiers and sailors fighting the Great War. Most civilians would have to make do with cotton underwear.

The one-piece undershirt and underpants garment was called a union suit in 1918. Long underwear was originally designed to liberate women from corsets, petticoats, and stockings. Perhaps I’ll have my protagonist wear a pair of long johns under her housedress to stay warm in her chilly home. Catalogue ads for coal kitchen stoves, called ranges, promoted their side benefit of warming the room in winter. Customers could purchase ranges fueled by hard coal, soft coal, wood, coke, corn cob, and/or gas. No kindling required. They’d start the stove with a lit piece of paper that might be a page from last season’s catalogue. Old catalogue pages also served as toilet paper and little girls cut out pictures of the models for paper dolls–the original Barbies.

All of these details would add period interest to a historical story and the 1918 catalogue offered many more. Women’s muffs and collarettes made from the fur of China goat, raccoon, opossum, muskrat, marmot, and weasel. Ostrich plumes for hats. Seventeen pages of pocket watches, watch chains, and watch fobs. Collar boxes with a round form inside to keep the shape of men’s shirt collars. Wool robes for riding in open-top buggies and cars.  

The catalogue also sold War Savings stamps to “support our boys at the front,” official war pictures taken by the US government of trenches, gas attacks, and war ruins for ten cents each, and rubber face masks, presumably to improve complexion. The catalogue states, with surprising candor, “The usefulness of rubber masks has been exaggerated. We make no specific claims for these articles, but we offer them for women desiring them.” They also offered a washable rubber night strap to reduce double chins for the bargain price of forty-nine cents. 

If you’re interested in your own stroll through 1918 daily life check out Sears, Roebuck and Co. Chicago: Originators of the Guarantee that stands the test in the Scales of Justice. https://archive.org/details/catalog1918sear/page/n3/mode/2up

Hikes & Ice

On January 25th, I fell on an icy Calgary sidewalk and injured the muscles around my hip. During the following week, I thought I was recovering enough to do a hike in the mountains and then a long walk on ice-covered Lake Louise. Two days later I couldn’t hobble across my kitchen without feeling pain. This prompted me to see my doctor and a physiotherapist.  

An X-ray determined no fractures, broken bones, or misalignment. The physiotherapist thought my injuries were relatively minor and said they should resolve in a few weeks with rest, exercise, and physio treatments. The problem was that I was scheduled to leave in two weeks for a hiking holiday in Arizona with 33 members of my Calgary hiking club. The physio and I doubted I’d be able to hike by then and, if I could, the exertion might set my recovery back, as it had done on the earlier hike and Lake Louise walk.

I still planned to go on the trip but prepared to spend some or all of the days resting my hip in the Airbnb house my husband Will and I were renting with some other club members. I downloaded numerous books to read and organized writing work to do on my computer. It wouldn’t be terrible to relax outdoors in warm sunshine and I’d still enjoy evening dinners and entertainment with the group, but the prospect of missing the main purpose of the trip was disappointing. 

My progress through four physio sessions was slow. I faithfully did my exercises and barely stepped outside for two weeks. The weekend before we left, I tried a few neighbourhood walks. After half an hour, my hip was sore and I couldn’t wait to shuffle home. 

Will and I flew to Phoenix on February 20th and spent the next day walking around Scottsdale. My hip was fine but tired by the end. I still decided to try the shorter version of first hike the following day. To my surprise, I felt no discomfort with my hip. Nor did my muscles bother me much the next morning. So I joined my fellow hikers again and then again on day # 3. All of these hikes involved clambering over big rocks. How many rocks could there be in Arizona? 

Day # 4 featured a hike along Saguaro Lake, which I’d done seven years earlier and recalled as being relatively easy. The elevation was less than that of first three hikes and the lakeside trail was mainly dirt with small rocks to step around. A picnic lunch and relaxing boat cruise on the lake followed and then an evening at the Silver Star dinner theatre with 1950s & early 60s that brought back memories. 

The fifth day’s hike was longer the previous ones (about 14 km vs 8 km). I suggested to my housemates that we do something shorter, but they wanted to go with the group and I went along. I’m glad I did and I enjoyed the first half of the hike, but my hip ached with every step of the last section. I decided 8 km was the limit for my hip. The highlight of this hike was a rare crested saguaro cactus. The abnormal growth formation at the top is found in one in roughly 10,000 saguaros. 

On day # 6, we drove to Wilcox, Arizona, our gateway to the Chiricahua National Monument. The first afternoon we did an 8 km hike over comfortable terrain to a view of Natural Bridge. 

For our final hike of the trip, the plan was to do a 14+ km long loop. After six straight days of hiking, nine of us opted for a shorter loop through fabulous scenery at a leisurely pace. It was the one day I wanted to keep on walking at the end. 

The forecast called for rain starting at noon, but the sunshine stayed in the park. Will and I enjoyed a late lunch at a beautiful viewpoint.  

Now I’m home and my hip still feels a little sore, but I can’t say the seven days of hiking set my recovery back. I’m grateful I was able to experience so many wonderful sights and great companionship on the trails. These days, I’m giving my hip its well-deserved rest, doing my exercises faithfully (more or less), and trying to avoid another fall on Calgary’s icy sidewalks.