Early St John's Ambulance Manual

[Katharine]

Not Blyton related, but thought this might be of interest.

I've got a St John's 'First Aid to the Injured' book. Not 100% sure of the date, it's either 1908 or possibly 1913.

It starts by saying that mixed classes of men and women are 'on no account permitted'. There is a section on what to do if a woman's dress catches fire, and another extremely non-pc section entitled 'Hysterical Fits (Hysteria)'.

"The patient, usually a young girl, in consequence of mental excitement, suddenly loses command of her feelings and actions. She subsides on a couch or in some comfortable position, throws herself about, grinding her teeth, clenching her fist,s shaking her hair loose.....'

The treatment lists avoiding sympathy, threatening her with a cold water douche and applying a mustard leaf at the back of the neck!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Sounds like fascinating reading, Katharine!

[Courtenay]

"The patient, usually a young girl, in consequence of mental excitement, suddenly loses command of her feelings and actions. She subsides on a couch or in some comfortable position, throws herself about, grinding her teeth, clenching her fist,s shaking her hair loose.....'

The treatment lists avoiding sympathy, threatening her with a cold water douche and applying a mustard leaf at the back of the neck!!

The mind boggles

It's not quite as old, but my mum still has a handbook from the time when she did six months or so of nursing training in Darwin (northern Australia) in the 1960s. I remember leafing through that once and finding some interesting aspects of how hospitals were run in those days, including this sage advice: "The liberal use of DDT is essential."