Oh dear, that is a problem. Well, I can give you a general anesthetic while we extricate the bullet. Your choice, ether, chloroform, or nitrous oxide? After the bullet’s been removed, some disinfectant should be applied. How about formaldehyde?
For your enteric fever, or typhoid fever, as some call it, there are several options. We can give you alum for the diarrhea, opium for the delerium, and digitalis to lower your temperature and pulse rate, but we should do this with care, for death during its use has been known to occur suddenly.
Doctor, I am troubled by frequent episodes of carnal desires…the result of which I have sought out entertainment of a gentlemanly sort…in addition, I have a compulsion to frequent certain houses of ill-repute! I have also indulged in bouts of self-abuse…can you reco,mmend a remedy for this affliction?
For dyspepsia, I would recommend absinthin, or perhaps dilute hydrochloric acid. If you’re suffering from nervous dyspepsia, try cocaine 1/4 grn. two or three times a day.
Is your rheumatism of the acute, chronic, gonorrheal, or muscular variety? In any case, opium and mustard plasters should prove helpful. Leeches may help as well, or even a Turkish bath.
As for your advanced age, I would recommend yet more arsenic, which is good for the swelled feet of old or weakly persons with weak heart.
I love to drink but my husband says he will put me in the sanitarium if I don’t stop. Yet when I try to stop I hear voices and then there are bugs running on my arms, so I have to start again. What should I do, seeing as AA won’t be around for another 35 years?
There are several excellent anaphrodesiacs available. Johnny Bravo, please take note as well. I can offer you belladonna, cocaine, camphor, opium, or various purgatives.
Fear not! Overcoming alcoholism is easy. All you need to do is slowly suck an orange whenever the craving arises. You may also try drinking ammonia as a substitute for the alcohol. Also, water, one pint drunk as hot as possible an hour before meals will remove your cravings. Strychnine nitrate may also be given, as well as the usual, cocaine, opium, arsenic.
For the psychological problems (depression, and O.C.D.), I’d probably either be a) a drunk, b) chained to a bed in a nuthouse, or c) have gone to a nice meeting with a .38 bullet by now. (Unless I was rich…in which case “b)” would be changed to “private sanitarium.” Which probably would involve fewer beatings, and a nice garden.)
And…were there any treatments for Hayfever in 1899, besides “move to Arizona”?
I’ve been working in the factories for the last twenty years, and lately I’ve started coughing up large, bloody black globs of mucous. At least, I hope it’s mucous. Should I be concerned?
There were, actually. Quite a few, so I won’t list them all, but highlights include ammonia, arsenic as a cigarette, cocaine, strong coffee, formaldehyde, morphine, opium, strychnine, and tobacco. Fun, fun.
That’s a difficult problem. I cannot find hives or urticaria in my reference, or anything that even sounds like it, and I can’t find swollen tongue either. Thus, I am going to wing it. You’re obviously hysterical, so sure, have some opium. Want some leeches for your tongue?
