The CBB :: View topic - EBD and medical knowledge

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#1: EBD and medical knowledge Author: Alex, Location: Cambs, UK

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 3:50 pm
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I thought I'd bring this up as there is some medical chat in other threads at the moment.

I know we all agree that EBD's medical knowledge is practically non-existent. I seem to remember there has been discussion of smallpox vaccinations and lying flat for back injuries previously.

However, I was reading Jo Returns recently, and when Rix gets whooping cough, Madge is very concerned about Jo getting it, but no-one expresses any concern about the babies in the Die Rosen nursery which I find bizarre given that in very small children whooping cough can commonly lead to brain damage and even death due to the brain being starved of oxygen. I don't understand why EBD wouldn't know this given that (according to my lecturer last term) it was something most people were aware of and worried about.

Surely her editors must have known? And how many more glaring medical errors are out there?

#2: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:03 pm
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There's a part in Carola (I think...) where a pregnant Joey hopes her children have German measles instead of ordinary measles. I'm pretty sure that it was known then that German measles cause harm to unborn children.

#3: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:15 pm
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Definitely known - there's a Miss Marple book where that knowledge hinges on the fact, written around the same time. And my Dad can remember, when he was about six, (1946 ish) having all the liitle girls round to play because he had German measles and the neighbourhood mums wanted their girls to have it when young so they'd get immunity.

#4: Author: Róisín,

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:16 pm
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Her treatment of quarantine always amuses me. She burns things that have touched the diseased person, yet some people are consistently allowed in to see them. Rolling Eyes

#5: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:17 pm
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*imagines Joey burning on the stake*

Shocked

#6: Author: Rosie, Location: Huntingdonshire/Bangor

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:34 pm
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Kate wrote:

*imagines Joey burning on the stake*

Burning people is NORTY. *nods*

#7: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:35 pm
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Even when it's Joey? How about Mary-Lou?

#8: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:39 pm
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Before we get totally off-topic, surely lying flat on your back after a back injury was standard treatment until very recently indeed - within the last ten years or so. I know when my mother slipped a disc about 45 years ago she had to wear a plaster jacket for months and couldn't have a bath.

#9: Author: Alex, Location: Cambs, UK

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 4:45 pm
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Argh! I thought when I was writing my original post, I must remember to make a distinction between what was usual at the time and what is just EBD making it up, and then completely forgot. Sorry.

#10: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 8:17 pm
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Kate wrote:

There's a part in Carola (I think...) where a pregnant Joey hopes her children have German measles instead of ordinary measles. I'm pretty sure that it was known then that German measles cause harm to unborn children.

But if Joey had already had German measles herself, she wouldn't have been able to pass it on to her unborn child. Certainly during my childhood (before immunizations for either were available), it was normal to think of German measles (rubella) as minor compared to true measles (rubeola). Keep in mind that a variety of rubeola complications were possible, up to and including death.

#11: Re: EBD and medical knowledge Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 9:34 am
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Alex wrote:

I was reading Jo Returns recently, and when Rix gets whooping cough, Madge is very concerned about Jo getting it, but no-one expresses any concern about the babies in the Die Rosen nursery which I find bizarre given that in very small children whooping cough can commonly lead to brain damage and even death due to the brain being starved of oxygen. I don't understand why EBD wouldn't know this given that (according to my lecturer last term) it was something most people were aware of and worried about.

I think the point is that the babies may already have been exposed (before they knew Rix had caught yet another illness), so there's nothing Madge can do to protect them further - the damage had already been done. Jo, on the other hand, is at the school and can therefore be protected by not allowing her back to Die Rosen. So, not really so bizarre....

On another note, burning people's possessions after the end of quarantine for an infectious illness was perfectly normal at that time - you come across it in loads of GO type books from the 1920s to 1940s.

I don't think EBD was that badly informed for a non-medical person, actually. It's more that most of her knowledge came from the 1920s and earlier, and the accepted 'treatments' of the time seem so very odd to us now, particularly when she doesn't explain the reasoning behind them. I don't think she just makes stuff up....

Caroline.

#12: Author: alicat, Location: Wiltshire

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 12:47 pm
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Having had a child who has had 'proper' measles I think the point about Joey preferring the german sort is that then people were v worried about their kids getting real measles because it was then - and still is - such a very serious illness, with lots of fatalities.

yes german measles can cause problems in unborn babies, buit it is not a certainty, you still have a goodish chance your unborn will not be affected if you catch german measles while pregnant and the defects most common are with sight and hearing, which can range from mild to very serious. But real measles is a very serious illness which can leave its own after-effects - deafness, sight problems, brain damage - and even these days has about a 10 per cent mortality rate. That's with modern medicine and antibiotics, so what the mortality rate would have been in the 1930s and 40s I dread to think.

My 2-yr-old got real measles, silly boy, despite having been vaccinated (somehow we forget vaccination is not 100 per cent proof) and proceeded to have every complication going, from pneumonia to collapsed lungs to internal infections, leading to us spending weeks in peadiatric intensive care. It went undiagnosed for some weeks as doctors are not familiar with it, we were told it was 'a virus' and he was at a critical point on more than one occasion - certainly not an experience I want to repeat or would wish on anyone, as you could see how easily you could see your child die.

I thinbk it is really easy to forget these days that in Joey's day it was quite common that children died of what we now see as 'common childhood illnesses': I have always wondered why more children did not die in her books, as when I first read then I was preparing myself from the start for the Robin's demise!

#13: Author: Catrin, Location: Wirral (holidays), Oxford (term)

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 4:25 pm
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alicat wrote:

I have always wondered why more children did not die in her books, as when I first read then I was preparing myself from the start for the Robin's demise!

Have you read "A Head Girl's Difficulties"? This is the only book of hers I can think of where a child actually dies - of diptheria- rather than a vaguely-known adult. It gave me quite a shock when I read it. I was waiting for the miracle recovery.

#14: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 4:27 pm
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I was shocked by that too, Catrin. And also by how quickly everyone got over it! Rosamund is told that she's not allowed be upset about it, as it's "morbid." Shocked

#15: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 5:08 pm
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I too was shocked and I read it as an adult quite recently. And it was a doctor who told Rosamund not to be morbid, showing pity and grief at several children dying. The poor girl was seventeen!

#16: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 6:44 pm
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Yes, it's shocking to us, now, but when the book was published (1923 I think) it would have been quite a common thing for children to die in epidemics like that. It would only have been a few years since millions of people had died in the flu pandemic that swept europe in 1919*, and I suppose they felt that there was little point on brooding on death. Plus there was the whole 'stiff upper lip' mustn't show any emotion attitude left over from Victorian times.

*hoping I've got my dates and figures right here....... Embarassed

#17: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 6:51 pm
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The flu epidemic started in 1917 but reached its peak in 1919. And yes, millions died - estimated that far more died due to the epidemic than were killed in the War.

#18: Author: Rosie, Location: Huntingdonshire/Bangor

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 7:07 pm
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Ok, dredging the very back of my memory here, but I seem to recall a book review in possibly a New Chalet Club journal a few years ago that may have been about epidemics in schools. Anyone recognise this/know what the book is? Sadly most of my journals are in a drawer at home, or I would happily go scour them all (not in the name of procrastination at all, natch!).

#19: Author: Tiffany, Location: madthesispanicargh

Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 3:53 pm
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Vikki wrote:

Yes, it's shocking to us, now, but when the book was published (1923 I think) it would have been quite a common thing for children to die in epidemics like that. It would only have been a few years since millions of people had died in the flu pandemic that swept europe in 1919*, and I suppose they felt that there was little point on brooding on death. Plus there was the whole 'stiff upper lip' mustn't show any emotion attitude left over from Victorian times.

I think I've heard too that there was more widespread matter-of-fact belief in life after death; so there was no need to be sad about the death, because you were guaranteed to meet again in Heaven, sort of thing.

#20: Author: lizarfau, Location: Melbourne

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 12:12 am
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I know this is a daft question, but why is German measles known as German measles? What makes it German?

#21: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 7:09 am
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It's "german" as in "related to"/"brother or sister" (seem to remember that one Latin word for "relative" or something like that is "germanus" - I know that the Spanish for "brother" is "hermano"), not as in "from Germany". Not sure if it's "german" as in German measles being related to measles or "german" as in you're likely to catch it from people nearby, though Rolling Eyes

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