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Dangerous, even deadly: Teething in Jane Austen’s World — 16 Comments

  1. Awful.

    I was born in 1953. Mom would cut an apple in half, put it cutmside down, and set me on my tummy. I’d have a wonderful time teething on it.

  2. Heavens Maria! Slightly drastic measure! Thank goodness for modern day practices.
    I can sort of see how they thought some things might work but hare’s brains????
    This was a fascinating article though, and obviously where Lady Catherine got the idea to lance Pemberley’s gums!

    • No idea where the idea for hare’s brains came from, but it would be interesting to learn, wouldn’t it? It’s funny how just a simple jump to look for period teething remedies totally made the sequence in the story!

  3. How horrible. I understand the point is that those barbaric treatment attempts might have caused much of the symptoms and mortality – but the symptoms were described by Hippocrates too, and I did not think the ancient Greek people would use the described treatment to otherwise healthy kids.

    Harebrained ideas, indeed!

    Poor mothers of the time. Even if they did feel the treatment just made things worse, it is a terribly difficult decision to resist the medical expert’s opinion if it’s your child at risk.

    My experience wih teething kids of my own, my extended family and friends is that there was a great number of incidents where teething coincided with an attack of infection, in many cases respiratory, but I remember a kid who had repetitive otitis (ear inflammation) when teething. I can see how such coincidences could lead to complications in that era.

    • My eldest would often have an ear infection while teething, but it was a constant problem with him, so it was more likely coincidence than anything else. But, as you said, how would a mother of that era know that? So thankful for today’s medical advances.

  4. Catching up on e-mailed blogs today: your information is just another reason to be so thankful I was born in modern days. We love to read about Regency times but it was not really a romantic time with the lack of hygiene and medical knowledge. Poor babies.

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