Lassies at the Print Shop **Spoiler Alert - title edited by MNHQ**

[Lessstressedhemum]

New thread for all things Jamie and Claire. But mostly Jamie

In the book Marsali was 15 but they have made her 18 in the series.

Young Ian has been aged up too.

Looking forward to Monday. Can't believe how quickly this season has come through. Fergus looks so mischevious and I love him and Jamie's relationship.

I'm struggling to believe Claire would be accepted as a doctor, let alone a ship's surgeon, when this is long before the first women doctors trained. No one seems to bat an eyelid, or ask where or how she trained. It was all right when she was seen as a wise woman/white witch/healer, but to describe herself as a doctor or surgeon surely there should be all sorts of ructions!

It is a little hard to believe, but I guess you can spin it a bit as Louis the Sun King had a female doctor that served him and his family for many years.

I read up on that after getting really obsessed with Versaille.

That works for me ToniMumsnet - she could have trained in France then. Or, doesn't she tell everyone she was in the colonies? So presumably they have to assume women are allowed to train somewhere over there. I still would have liked to see more questioning of it by the men on the naval ship.

In fact I'm trying to remember - does she have a conversation about it with LJG later in the book?

I think there's something in the book about merchant ships often having the wife of one of the crewmen doubling up as the ship's surgeon. So not quite so unusual, but not trained or qualified. Surgeon just didn't mean the same, I mean barber surgeons shaved and pulled teeth... Wait till you get to the later books and Claire's making ether for anaesthetic and penicillin for antibiotics .

Aye, the gunners wife often acted a ship's surgeon apparently. It's discussed in the book. So not that unusual. But they weren't doctors as we would understand it, just someone to patch up bashes and cuts, I suppose.

Oh crikey. Someone upthread mentioned Jamie, Fergus and roger on screen together.

The thought of that!!!!!!!

That was me silver!!!!!!

Thanks Less I thought it was, but I'm pretty sure it's not mentioned in the show. So Claire being the ship's surgeon would not be outrageous, just overqualified .

Jamie, Fergus and Roger altogether... will be awhile yet. I wonder will we see a little of Roger/Brianna before the end of this season? I think Book 3 ends with Roger...

Thanks quirky and Less, I love having the medical stuff in the series and the books, I just don't understand how she gets away with it

Think I might have come across the penicillin bit already. Aren't they at Fraser's Ridge and someone keeps eating her mouldy bread?

Good old Mrs Bug keeps throwing it away I think.

Love all the Frasers Ridge stuff, well up until DG has Fergus being an arse about his youngest and all the guff about Malva. Lazy writing. Says the poor nobody to the famous multi millionairess.

Yes, Mrs Bug keeps throwing away her experiments in a bit to be the cleanest, tidiest person who ever lived. Did you know that people still do this. I subscribe to a few natural living sites - I make my own "medicines", salves, skincare and the like - and I got a notification not too long ago detailing how to make your own antibiotics. Basically, it involved growing mould on bread and oranges and then using that to make penicillin. Even I wouldn't go that far and my kids think that I am witch!
Re. the doctor thing - when she isn't on the ship, she masquerades as a wise-woman most of the time. She seldom calls herself a doctor.

Less that's brilliant! are you DG or her medical advisor? I keep wondering how authentic the remedies and herbs mentioned in the book actually are. Do you recognise them all as historically accurate and reasonable helpful?

I know CB did some training with a herbalist prior to Season 1, I assume the medicines are well researched as DG was a scientist, but my be somebody else knows. I would be no good as am very allergic to penicillin.

I'm not an expert but most of them seem accurate and many of them would be helpful. I use willow bark for aches and pains and fevers. Also things like mint and bee balm for headaches and temperatures where willow bark isn't really appropriate. I also uses camphorated salve (not goose grease) for snotty noses and sage for sore throats. The blue gentian salve she uses is brilliant. Comfrey/plantain for wounds, elderberry/rosehip syrup made with honey for coughs and colds. Mint/fennel/dill for indigestion and tummy issues. Onions and garlic for infected bits and pieces, honey and lavender for wee burns. I make garlic and willowbark oil for ear infections, calendula oil for making salves for skin, all sorts of tinctures and teas for everything from PMT to restful sleep. All things that Claire uses or would have access to.

I could go on and on, it's no wonder the kids talk about witchery. But yes, the remedies appear accurate and, mostly, effective as far as herbal remedies can be. She would have access to things that grew wild in NC at the time as well as things that she cultivated herself, so she wouldn't have been short of options.

Oh, and I noticed in the last episode she used ginger to treat Jamie's seasickness. That is still the first stop for natural treatment of nausea and puking. You can use it as tea or as wee pills by mixing dried ginger with cocoa powder and a little bit of honey. I also make a roller of ginger, cinnamon and peppermint oil in sweet almond oil for rubbing on tummies and pulse points. Clearly, it's not as effective as Joyrides, but they always made me dizzy.
She used peppermint oil for headache, as well. That works, too. As well as making basil, mint and Melissa tea for headache, |I make a blend of peppermint, lavender and frankincense oil to rub on temples, neck and pulse points which is quite effective.

The thing that I find a bit difficult is that she went back in book one and almost instantly had a working knowledge of herbal remedies and created a brilliant reputation as a healer in next to no time. Now she is a surgeon and, apparently, knows everything there is to know about traditional medicine as well.

That's fascinating, Lessstressed. I do know that honey is still used in wound care in modern medicine.

Had forgotten all that Mrs. Bug bit. That should be some interesting casting.

I do remember that they landed in coastal Georgia at the end of book 3. That's where I grew up so i hope they keep that in.

Isn't willow bark where you get asprin from? Ginger for sickness, definitely, we used to go on the ferry to France as children and we're given lots of ginger drinks and biscuits to nibble. Less your remedies sound great, I know both honey and garlic are good for infections too.I think Geillis is supposed to help her a little in book 1, but it is a little farfetched.

It is funny isn't it. In s1ep1 6 months after the war (think she might have been a tad busy up until then), she says her new thing was botany. And she goes back to the stones looking for what she thinks is forget-me-not (it isn't I think). Falls through, and voilà, full working knowledge!

The books do say she reads Davey Beatons book, and the book from the medical kit Jamie buys her in doa. The more I think about the books, the more cross I get! Her ideas are so good, but with a decent editor (and a co writer who could really tie a twisty story together) they could have been epic. See the doctor was found in the tomb with the gold, the clues written in his medical journal, a really cool twisty plot put in, and solved in a paragraph. Humph.

I think in modern life we've been had by big companies. Take senacot and (is it) nytol, both punted as completely natural, yet presented in a clean packet with clean nice pills = ok to take. Plant in garden, pick, steep in water = dirty, unclean and not safe. Flipping madness.

Victorians preferred to give thier dc "milk" made from flour and water (and god knows what else) from glass bottles with poisonous rubber teats and tubes, as breast milk was "dirty" and it wasn't genteel to nurse your baby. Madness. I watch too many documentaries.

But the conditioning is still there, bf is still seen as "dirty". Natural remedies are "woo" even if it's the same product, just processed, made clean, and mixed with a right load of unknowns and sold on.