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Matron's patent doses.
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5273
Author:  MJKB [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:01 am ]
Post subject:  Matron's patent doses.
What do people think about matron giving children sedatives? In fact, do people approve of matron being allowed to dispense dangerous drugs to anyone at all? What level of medical training has she?
The scene I love is when Kathie returns from her ill fated trip to the glacier and matron slips a little something into her hot milk. She sleeps for over twelve hours and wakes up feeling very nearly as fresh as a daisy. I think Mary Lou and Vi were slipped something as well. How many other pupils did matron dose?
Nowadays in schools you're not permitted to give a rennie to a student.
Author:  JayB [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I'm not sure it's ever stated, but I always assumed Matey was a trained nurse. She's always sent for, not Nurse, whenever anyone is ill or injured. And she often assists Jem or Jack when they're called to treat someone in the school.
Author:  Caroline [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I've always rather thought that most of the time, these so-called sedative doses are nothing more than a couple of aspirin - that's the only drug I've noticed being mentionned by name, anyway.

So, not exactly knock out drops, but more something that might reduce a fever and ease some pain, allowing a restorative natural sleep...

And, yes, I agree with the trained Nurse thing for Matey, at least (perhaps not the other matrons) - she does seem to be first port of call in an emergency.
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I feel very sorry for Nurse - she hardly gets to do anything, no-one except Matron and (when Julie was ill) Bride ever speaks to her, and we're never even told what her name is :( .
Author:  Kate [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Caroline wrote:
I've always rather thought that most of the time, these so-called sedative doses are nothing more than a couple of aspirin - that's the only drug I've noticed being mentionned by name, anyway.

So, not exactly knock out drops, but more something that might reduce a fever and ease some pain, allowing a restorative natural sleep...

I've always thought the same. There's certainly a reference to aspirin helping someone sleep (perhaps Kathy in New Mistress?) so I assumed EBD thought it had more sedative properties than it actually does. I know now that we take stronger medication in general than they did then, so it's not surprising really.
Author:  Tor [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I remember discussing this before, and people definitely split down the lines of sedative/vs aspirin.

I'm on the sedative side - EBD obviously has no medical knowledge at all, but the effects she describes tend to be the falling into practical unconsciousness within moments.

But I also think she had absolute faith in such medications as a force for good - hence they don't have the scary overtone we associate with a number of drugs
Author:  LizzieC [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Tor wrote:
I'm on the sedative side - EBD obviously has no medical knowledge at all, but the effects she describes tend to be the falling into practical unconsciousness within moments.

But I also think she had absolute faith in such medications as a force for good - hence they don't have the scary overtone we associate with a number of drugs


I'm on the sedative side as well, and often envied her characters being able to sleep so easily when I was at my worst and unable to sleep at night for ages and then woke up in the early hours anyway. Now I'm on some pills with sedative properties and find myself envying the characters for waking up fresh as a daisy - I often find I'm terribly groggy (and spaced - like I'm lagged by half a second or so to the rest of the world) in the morning and it takes me a while to wake up properly! I suppose I can't really win :roll: :lol: ;)

I can only assume EBD didn't really know what she was talking about, but intended the drugs to be sedative in nature. I was surprised when she mentions names - asprin, disprin, etc, but I think this is a sign of her lack of knowledge - she doesn't know what drugs would produce the effect she wanted so plucked names out of thin air which might do. To be fair, few of her target audience would question it :). I don't suppose she ever imagined something like the cbb would exist to pick up on the tiniest things! :D
Author:  Cel [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
LizzieC wrote:

I can only assume EBD didn't really know what she was talking about, but intended the drugs to be sedative in nature. I was surprised when she mentions names - asprin, disprin, etc, but I think this is a sign of her lack of knowledge - she doesn't know what drugs would produce the effect she wanted so plucked names out of thin air which might do.


I think the idea of Aspirin being a sedative was more widely-held than just EBD, though. I was reading a Doris Lessing book recently ("The Diary of a Good Neighbour", first published 1983), which has the following exchange:

[Two women are in a pharmacy]
"'The prescription is for a sedative,' I said.
She said 'I know that,' and jabbed her fingers down on to the paper where I had spread it against my handbag. 'But it's not aspirin, is it?'
I said, 'It's something called Valium.'
'That's what I thought. It's not a pain-killer, it's a stupefier,' she said."

Which seems to imply that 'sedatives' used to be taken to include a broad range of generally calming drugs including ordinary painkillers as well as what we now refer to as sedatives, which usually means benzodiazepines or similar drugs.
Author:  Pado [ Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Since most "patent medicine" appears to have been some sort of alcohol, perhaps Matey was slipping a Mickey Finn into people's warm milk.
Author:  MJKB [ Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I'm fairly certain too that it was sedatives because she mentions giving a disprin to, I think, Ruey, when she injured her finger, and the disprin was just to help the pain and 'soothe the nerves.' Also, it's not likely that she would slip a tablet of asprin or disprin into a drink in case she choked the poor patient and I don't think they had soluable asprin etc then.
I must say, I quite like the idea of being launched into oblivion having been tucked into a nice, warm bed after a steaming hot bath and soothing hot drink! It's this cosy quality of the CS that most appeals to me.
Author:  JayB [ Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Quote:
Also, it's not likely that she would slip a tablet of asprin or disprin into a drink in case she choked the poor patient and I don't think they had soluable asprin etc then.

Disprin *is* soluble aspirin - it dissolves in water - so if EBD refers to it specifically, it must have been available in her day. (I certainly remember having it in the late '60s.)
Author:  LizzieC [ Mon Nov 24, 2008 11:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
JayB wrote:
Quote:
Also, it's not likely that she would slip a tablet of asprin or disprin into a drink in case she choked the poor patient and I don't think they had soluable asprin etc then.

Disprin *is* soluble aspirin - it dissolves in water - so if EBD refers to it specifically, it must have been available in her day. (I certainly remember having it in the late '60s.)


According to the internet, Disprin was developed during the 1940s as a way of mitigating the stomach irritation that some experienced after taking Asprin by Reckitt & Sons (in Hull, UK), and it was launched in 1948. It apparently became successful very quickly and it was launched internationally in the 1950s.

Hope this helps clear up that area anyway :) .

A History of Disprin
Author:  Róisín [ Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
So, if Matron was a qualified nurse, what was Nurse? Was she also qualified? Or was she some kind of helper to Matron, who sort of had Nurse as a nickname?

Also, about the alcohol being regarded as medicine thing. I am always incredulous when, I think it's in Joey and Co., beer is used to bring someone around. :lol:
Author:  Cat C [ Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Quote:
Also, about the alcohol being regarded as medicine thing.


Oh, well, fainting people were given brandy until fairly recently, and Guiness used to be available for blood donors.

The reason Europeans can drink alcohol at all, really is because beer was developed as a way of making water safer to drink (they managed it differently in China, for example, which is why people from China can't cope with alcoholic drinks).

I vaguely assumed Nurse was matron's assistant, maybe drafted in from the San? Any nurses here can elaborate on the role of (say) old-fashioned hospital matrons?
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
The idea of spirits being used for shock or to bring people round is familiar enough, but I've never heard of beer being used to bring people round anywhere else :roll: - although I remember someone telling me about the Guinness for blood donors (I've only ever been offered tea, coffee or orange juice, though :( !).

(When Gottfried asks Miss Browne for spirits to give to Joey and Maureen after they are rescued from the lake, she claims that there's no alcohol in the building ... a likely story!)
Author:  MJKB [ Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:00 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Guinness was given for a number of conditions including pregnancy. The slogan 'Guinness is good for you' was meant to be taken literally. A cousin of my mother was prescribed a glass of guinness a day because she was lacking iron during her third pregnancy in 1965. Around the same time I was made to drink guinness as a cure for worms! Yuck!!!
Giving brandy to people suffering from exposure is entirely debunked now. Apparently it lowers body heat after the initial raising of temperature. Not quite sure of the details.
As for nurse, I thought matron was more a housekeeping role in schools and that nurse was a trained hospital nurse. Isn't matron called the 'doyenne' of the domestic staff?
Author:  janetbrown23 [ Fri Nov 28, 2008 11:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
When I was pregnant with my three (no not triplets) from around 1968 to 1971 people in Colchester fought to go to the Military Hospital for their confinements instead of the NHS Maternity Hospital. The reason, I hear you ask? The pint of Guiness that was given every day. I have to say I fought not to go there as the thought was quite disgusting. There must have been other reasons but that is the only one I ever heard of.
Author:  JS [ Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
There was a hospital which got some press coverage a few years back for giving heart patients a glass of red wine with their evening meal.

And breastfeeding women were advised to drink stout until quite recently, weren't they? Bet it made baby sleep.
Author:  Tor [ Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
My swedish friend was very excited at the end of her last pregnancy, as the Swedish Govmt guidelines apparently now state that drinking whilst breast-feeding is ok.

Her summary (I doubt this is the official wording) was: as long as you can hold the baby head up, and feet down, and not drop it, then it's fine to have a drink! :lol: :lol:

She was not one of those women who 'went off' alcohol when pregnant, and she fumed through our lovely holiday in Tuscany over every glass of wine missed, and every unpasteurized cheese that went untasted!!!
Author:  suemac [ Fri Nov 28, 2008 2:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
My eldest daughter was born in Darlington in1968. Every night, each new Mum had a bottle of stout left at her place at the table. My sisters and mothers (southerners like me) were absolutely horrified and of course you had to stay in for ten days then. They were convinced I would become addicted!
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Sun Dec 07, 2008 4:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
My friend and I both had our daughters in 1980; she had rather a nasty haemorrhage afterwards, and was prescribed a daily dose of Guinness as a last resort to avoid a blood transfusion - which she hated, but there you go! I, very tense and miserable the way one gets a few days after having had a baby, was told by the midwife to have a stiff drink - and certainly "recycled" brandy got my daughter to sleep after I'd forgotten that eating curry while nursing was not a good idea and given the poor thing indigestion!

I couldn't drink while I was pregnant - there was no taboo against it then, although you were warned against drinking to excess. But even one drink made me feel sick, so I couldn't.
Author:  Jennie [ Sun Dec 07, 2008 4:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
The RAF didn't give us a bottle of stout each evening, but we did get sherry to help us get well.
Author:  Pat [ Sun Dec 07, 2008 4:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
sherry, yes. Stout would be more likely to make me throw up! Yuk! Like the milk every CS girl gets!
Author:  Lottie [ Sun Dec 07, 2008 6:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
My midwife recommended red wine after my daughter was born. I don't like it very much, so only ever drink it to be polite. When I had some, I couldn't get her to stop feeding because it made her so thirsty! So I stuck to white (which I much prefer) and had no more problems.
Author:  MHE [ Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I came across the following description fin the hb version of 'Mary-Lou of the Chalet School'.

"Matron’s “dose”-which took the form of aspirin, powdered and mixed with water-plus the hot milk calmed down Jessica considerably."
Author:  MJKB [ Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Hope she had a strong stomach lining!
Author:  Mel [ Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I used to love the expression: 'a jorum of matron's patent nostrum.' It sounds like a mad professor's fizzing beaker.
Author:  Luisa [ Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Its something about the word "jorum" - as in "a pretty stiff jorum of tea" from The Sorcerer. I always imagined the vicar lacing it with something.
Author:  andydaly [ Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Was just reading Feud at, and one of Matron's nostrums (nostra??), that she gives to Gillie and Jack after they've been out in the snow is nothing more sinister than hot milk and treacle - very disappointing!
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I'm still convinced that Matey had a cache of narcotics to hand. Laudenaum, perhaps. Pharmacists only started tightening up on what we would classify as prescription drugs in fairly recent years.
Author:  andydaly [ Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
Whatever she gives people does seem to have more soporific powers than plain milk - perhaps "treacle" is some sort of slang... :D
Author:  KJX [ Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Matron's patent doses.
I was always horrified by adults being 'slipped' doses (I think that may be one of the reasons the drabble You Will Marry Your Doctor tickled me so much).

The idea of consent only gets mentioned once that I can recall - when Julie Lucy has her operation. I can't recall it being mentioned at all elsewhere - even for adults.
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