Author Archives: Eleanor Kuhns

About Eleanor Kuhns

Librarian and Writer Published A Simple Murder, May 2012

Medical care in 1802 – Pain management

Posted on by

To modern eyes, health care 200 years ago was primitive at best, lethal at worse. A recent knee replacement inspired me to consider medical care and pain management. (A friend of mine told me that a knee replacement is essentially an amputation of one’s leg.) However, it is described, it is a painful procedure.

The choices for treating pain were limited. I think we have all heard the story of the wounded man being treated with a glass of whiskey and a stick clamped between the teeth. Alcohol was used to help the patient into insensibility as well as a disinfectant.

Another choice was salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin. Of course, it wasn’t aspirin. yet; the distilling of salicylic acid did not take place until late in the nineteenth center. No, it had to be used in its natural state. The leaves of the willow tree was steeped into a tea which was given to the patient as an analgesic. As a blood thinner and an anti-inflammatory, it is given to surgical patients and heart attack patients alike. It is still one of the most widely used medications in the world.

Finally, there were the opiates. The sap of the opium poppy has been used for millennia to treat pain. Of course, none of the stronger extracts had been distilled from the poppy until 1820 (morphine) and beyond.

One of the early methods of gaining the analgesic effects of the opium was to steep the straw into a tea. (I allude to this in Death in Salem with a character addicted to ‘straw tea’.) But the most common method of ingesting opium was as laudanum, a tincture of opium and alcohol. A reddish brown liquid, it was extremely bitter. By the early eighteen hundreds, laudanum was common and during the eighteen hundreds it became an ingredient in many patent medicines. It was frequently prescribed to women for menstrual cramps and various aches and pains. As might be expected, addiction was prevalent. Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s wife, was an addict. Another fun fact: nurses would spoon feed laudanum to the infants in their care to help them sleep. And if that doesn’t make your hair curl, I don’t know what will.

Laudanum is still available by prescription.

Our world of Tylenol and Ibuprofen seems almost like paradise in comparison.

Currently Reading – Jan 1, 2022

Posted on by

A knee replacement slowed me down but as I improve, I gradually take up the reins of my life once again.

While I was in the hospital, I read With Our Blessing, by Jo Spain. This is another in her Irish Garda series, with DCI Tom Reynolds.

The body of an elderly woman, crucified upside down and with ‘Satan’s whore’ carved into her chest, is found near Reynold’s police station. A preliminary investigation reveals the victim to be a nun, from a convent about an hour’s drive away. Reynolds and his team drive down to the convent, where they are offered rooms, and they begin questioning the other nuns. They have barely gotten started when the priest who ministers to the convent disappears and is subsequently found dead. What’s going on?

A involved investigation that centers on the Magdalene Laundries, and pulls in on of their own, is further complicated by a winter storm that dumps feet of snow on the village.

A dark police procedural that does not leave one’s mind quickly.

Death at Greenway by Lori Rader Day. During World War II, thousands of children were evacuated to the countryside to spare them from the bombing in London. Bridget Kelly is a nurse in training who entire family has been wiped out in a strike. Accused of injuring a patient, she is offered a chance to accompany ten children to Greenway, the home owned by Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie (who makes a few cameos through out the novel.)

Accompanying Bridey and the children is another woman, who claims to be a nurse and another Bridget Kelly. She is called Gigi. The group also includes a married couple, the Arbuthnots. They are not at Greenway for very long before some petty thefts occur and then, more seriously, a murder victim.

As historical fiction, this is first rate. The characters are interesting and fully fleshed out and the historical setting is gripping. The undertone of fear and loss is harrowing. But this is not really a mystery, certainly not a whodunit.

Finally, after the seriousness of the previous two volumes, I needed a break and read Crimes and Covers by Amanda Flower.

I am a big fan of the magical book shop mysteries and this one did not disappoint. On the eve of Violet’s wedding to David Rainwater, a woman bursts into he book shop and tries to sell her a first edition Walden signed by Thoreau. When Violet refuses to buy the book (with no provenance or other proofs), the woman storms out only to turn up dead a few hours later. The newlyweds delay their honeymoon to investigate..

Suspects abound, not least a woman who, convinced she is Thoreau’s direct heir, has changed her name to Thoreau. Charming, as usual.

According to the website, this series is planned for five books. I hope Flower writes another; there are several hanging threads.

Currently Reading

Posted on by

Week of December 26 – January 2, 2022

The holidays slowed down my reading. Besides, I was reading Two Graves by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Their books are usually quite long.

In the Prendergast thriller, He discovers that his wife Helen is alive. She had faked her death to throw the villains off her trail. Now her brother has arranged a meeting with Prendergast, a meeting that goes horribly wrong. Helen’s brother is killed, and she is abducted. Despite being injured, Prendergast follows them to Mexico where she unfortunately is shot dead.

After a spell of self-destructive grieving, Prendergast is tempted into a new case involving a serial killer. He takes no trouble to avoid cameras and Prendergast realizes the serial killer is designing his murders for Prendergast himself.

Prendergast goes on the hunt, following the trail to a Nazi compound deep within Brazil.

The writing is merely pedestrian. But the story, and the sheer creativity, hooks a reader in and keeps them reading until the end.

I also read the new Elly Griffith, The Midnight Hour. I’ve been a fan since the beginning of the Ruth Gallagher series but I really enjoy the newer Magic Men mysteries as well. In the latest, it is the fifties. Emma and Edgar are married with three children. Emma has set up a detective agency with her friend, reporter Sam and they are asked to investigate a murder also being investigated by the police. Impressario Bert Billington has been poisoned. Suspicion immediately falls on his wife: Verity Malone, but there are a slew of other suspects from the entertainment world.

Besides the mystery, which I did not guess, the novel touches on the struggle of women to be taken seriously, no matter how bright and talented. All of the usual characters make and appearance and there are several life changes. Highly recommended.

Finally, I read A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow. It is more than a reworking of The Sleeping Beauty fairy tale and it is wonderful. The main character, she calls herself the dying girl, has been severely damaged by environmental factors. She is transported into the fairy tale – and it is very different from what she expected. Yes, the Princess is cursed and there is a bad fairy. Except not so much. The Prince is not charming and the Princess is fighting against her fate with every ounce of her being.

In a relatively short book, the author touches on environmental issues and expectations of gender. A wonderful tale and highly recommended.

Families

Posted on by

As I looked around the table at Christmas dinner, and saw people who had not spoken to one another for years, I thought of how complicated families could be.

In Murder, Sweet Murder, I set the mystery against Lydia’s family, but Will Rees’s is no less difficult.

Lydia, estranged from her father and step-mother, left her family years ago. Her father is a wealthy Boston merchant engaged in the Triangle Trade. He owns a distillery that distills molasses into rum as well a fleet of ships that run slaves from Africa.

Lydia cannot accept her father’s profession and after some problems in her personal live, runs away. She lands at Zion, a Shaker community in Maine. In Murder, Sweet Murder I bring her back to Boston, and her family. She is no more tolerant of her father’s profession now than she was then.

Rees’s father was an abusive alcoholic who died by falling off a wagon in a drunken stupor. Rees is not an alcoholic but he makes other mistakes with his children. Before the action begins in A Simple Murder, David, Rees’s oldest son runs away from home, and takes refuge in Zion with the Shakers. Rees had left David (he would say his father abandoned him) with Caroline and her husband. When Rees returns home and recovers the farm, sending Caroline’s family packing, she never forgives him.

In A Devil’s Cold Dish, Caroline does her very best to destroy her brother and his family.

As the stories go on, and Rees’s history unfolds, his family expands. But it also changes. By the time of Murder, Sweet Murder, Jerusha, Rees’s oldest daughter, wants to leave home for school. David and Simon have already left for a farm in a distant town.

Families are complicated, even in fiction.

Sugar, Molasses and Rum

Posted on by

Before rum, there was sugar – from sugarcane. Sugar is present in many fruits and vegetables. Sugar beets, for example, have more sugar than an apple. There are also many types of sugar: glucose, fructose, lactose, with slight differences in their chemical structures. 

The sweetest of all is sugarcane.

Sugarcane is a picky plant, requiring heat, sunshine and water. It must be grown in a frost free environment. Discovered millennia ago, it grew first in New Guinea and from there spread to India and the Indian subcontinent. It did not reach Europe until many centuries later, during the Middle Ages, and it was rare and expensive. A description of a banquet in 1457 mentions sugar sculptures. As sugar was planted in Madeira and the Canary Islands, the demand for sugar increased tenfold.

Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World and the first sugar plantation was set up in Hispaniola. Slaves were imported to work the plantations and the desire for sugar continued to increase. With the plantations in the West Indies, sugar became cheap enough for most households to afford. From a few pounds consumed per capita in the colonies in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the amount rose to eighty pounds by the end.

Sugarcane is a grass. The crop is chopped into lengths, crushed and boiled. (Now much of this is done by machines but during the time of Will Rees, it was all done by hand.) The sugar we know and love is the crystallized result from the sugarcane syrup. Raw sugar is brown and has a higher molasses content. Slave accounts allude to the difficult and dangerous work connected to the production of sugar, from the chopping of cane to the boiling of the syrup. Slaves in the more northern states did not want to be sold down south: to the cotton or cane fields.

Molasses is a byproduct of this process. Once, it was discarded but the demand for molasses grew exponentially when it was discovered it could be fermented into an alcoholic drink. The fermentation of sugarcane juice is mentioned in Sanskrit texts. By the time of the sugar plantations in the West Indies, the enslaved were fermenting the molasses into ‘Rumbullion”, ‘kill-devil,’ and ‘screech’ – all forms of (probably undrinkable) rum. It rapidly gained in popularity, however, and was used as currency in Africa and was exported to Great Britain.

Sugarcane is a heavy feeder and requires about 660 gallons of water for every 2.2 pounds of sugar. So, not great for the environment as well as its role in obesity, tooth decay, diabetes, and other health risks.

Currently Reading – week of Dec 7

Posted on by

Last March, after the Sinsters in Crime Chapter the Mavens of Mayhem hosted their third annual Murderous March Conference, I picked up several of the books written by participants.

A Darker Shade by Laura K. Curtis, and the Curse of the Braddock Brides by Erica Obey were romantic suspense. Throwbacks to an earlier era when that was practically all I read. Both were charming and fun although the Curtis book had more of the gothic vibe.

A Darker Shade is a ghost story. Molly Allworth has been in service since leaving college. Now, her finances are precarious. When the agency offers her a post in Maine, she jumps at it. Soon she is in a remote house in Maine, caring for a little girl who claims she saw her mother’s ghost before she stops speaking all together. And Molly soon realizes something terrible is going on. The master of the house, Nathaniel Prescott, dismisses any belief in the supernatural. As for Molly, as winter closes in the the events grow more dangerous and frightening, even her attraction to Nathaniel may not make her stay.

The Curse of the Braddock Brides was instantly appealing since it takes place in the Hudson Valley, not to far from where I live. Libba Wadsworth is outspoken and knows her own mind, a bluestocking in the vernacular of the times. He4r family has already been dogged by scandal and now Libba, with her cutting remarks, pushes away all the vacuous suitors who apply for her hand. Then she meets two men, Lord Hardcastle, in want of a wealthy wife, and the far more appealing, but rakish, Will Ransome. Are either who they claim to be?

Great fun!

Rum

Posted on by

Rum was the lubricant and the fuel for the engine of commerce leading up to the American Revolution and a bit beyond. It was a favorite drink of the slavers, the slaves, and pretty much everyone else. Called Nelson’s blood (as well as a number of less flattering names), rum made up part of the British sailors’ pay.

What is rum? Rum is distilled from the molasses left over from sugarcane. The cane has particular requirement and cannot be grown in the temperate lands. It must be grown with lots of sun and water. It also needs intensive labor to cut, cart and process the cane under the tropical sun. A clear and distinct link between the growing demand for sugar and slavery can be drawn because, as plantations were turned over to cane, the needs of a large work force demanded more workers – Slaves.

The slaves needed to be fed. New England ships brought dried cod, picked up the molasses for transport to the distilleries in New England. The resulting drink (called among other things, screech, kill-devil, demon water) was put in casks and sent to Africa to purchase more slaves and also to Great Britain. This was the previously discussed Triangle Trade.

Ironically, the long trips over the ocean, stored in casks, made the rum more drinkable.

Although rum was still consumed after the War for Independence, as mentioned in Murder, Sweet Murder, it was falling out of favor as the new country’s beverage. Whiskey, from rye grown in Western Pennsylvania, and distilled in the country, was considered more patriotic and as such became the drink of choice.

Currently Reading – Week of November 29

Posted on by

Searcher for the Dead, by Nancy Herriman, is a historical mystery that takes place during the Elizabethan era. After the tragic death of her husband Martin, Bess relocates to the small town where she was born and moves in with her mother. Bess’s brother in law, Fulke, is found hanged and at first the murder is deemed a suicide. Since suicide was a crime, all of his assets are to be taken by the Crown. But Bess does not believe it was suicide and with the help of Kit, the constable, she investigates further.

This was captivating and enjoyable. Since it ended on a cliffhanger, and the possibility of some romance between Bess and Kit, I expect there will be another in this series. It is already on my list to read.

The second book I read was far different. In The Bone Cay, by Eliza Nellums, it is unclear whether there is a mystery. Magda Trudell is the current caretaker of the home of a famous poet, Isobel Reyes. A cat four hurricane is bearing down on Key West and is forecasted to be a direct hit. Magda chooses to stay in the house and when the storm damages the gift shop, it reveals a steamer trunk with the remains of a young woman. This does not occur until page 102. Shortly thereafter, the handy man and his daughter arrive seeking refuge but Magda soon discovers they are not what they seem. I am not sure how I feel about this book. It is not a whodunit and the mystery really does not begin until quite late. But it is beautiful written and I did finish it. The descriptions of the storms were especially riveting.

Taverns Part I

Posted on by

averns and coffeehouses were an important part of Colonial and Federalist life. They served as meeting places, inns, restaurants and more. Before post offices were built, taverns and coffeehouses also handled letters. In the early days of the colonies, taverns were built at ferry landings. Later on, when coaches began running, the taverns became handy stops and, in fact, Rouge’s tavern frequently sees an influx of passengers either going to or from Boston.

As one might expect, there was a wide range of comfort and amenities provided, ranging from a grand inn like the Raleigh in Williamsburg to the ordinary that served the ferrymen or waggoneers. In the last, the beds were likely to be hard wooden pallets, the mattresses filled with cornhusks or straw as well as fleas and other critters. Food offered was usually cornmeal mush.

All of the taverns mentioned in Murder, Sweet Murder, with the exception of the Painted Pig, which is my own creation, existed in 1801 in Boston. The Warren Tavern is still in use as a bar and restaurant. The Green Dragon, which was the Headquarters of the Sons of Liberty (and where much of the planning for the War of Independence occurred), was demolished in 1822.

Currently Reading week of November 21.

Posted on by

With the holidays, I had less time than usual to read. Still, I managed to finish 2 books and part of a third.

Staging is Murder by Grace Topping is a charming cozy. The amateur detective is a home stager whose assistant is accused of the murder. A lovely old Victorian provided the setting – and don’t we all wish we lived in such a magnificent place. This is a series and I plan to read the rest of it.

I regularly read fantasy and science fiction. One of the suggestions that came up on my Amazon feed was The Witches of Dark Root by April Aasheim. Dark Root, a small town in the Pacific Northwest, is one of the last places on earth that keeps the darkness at bay. But now the circle had cracked. Sasha, coven leader, is ill. Her four daughters have scattered. running away from home and the control of their mother. But when news of Sasha’s illness reaches the daughters, they return; first Merry, the eldest, then Maggie, the daughter with the most power, and finally the other two. I really enjoyed this supernatural suspense novel. Since several problems remain to be resolved, I plan to read the rest of the series.

Finally, I am enjoying the latest David Rosenfelt: Best in Snow. When Andy Carpenter’s golden retriever digs up a pile of snow in the park, she discovers the body of the mayor. Andy’s friend Vince persuades him to take the case (Carpenter is a lawyer) and he becomes convinced the suspect the police have in custody has been set up. Rosenfelt’s mysteries are always fun. The characters are interesting and Carpenter is amusing. This one is also appropriate to the season since it is set just before Christmas.