Tonight you step back into the time machine, and find yourself, in the 1700's. The haze of black smoke parts, and you open your eyes. Everything looks weird, you feel intense pain, a warm, sticky substance leaks from you abdomen. You dont remember what happened, but there is blood everywhere. A nice young maiden sees you, and calls for help. Several gentlemen put you in the back of their wagon, and rush to get you to help. You see blackness, and when you come to...you see a wooden barber pole.You wonder why you are at the Barber shop, you need medical care! You protest, and the men tell you, you are in the right place. What you dont realize is the barber, not only shaves you, and gives you a haircut.
He also performs surgery, does amputations, pulls teeth, and performs a procedure called blood letting.When the men help get you on the table, you look across the room.The barber, is busy doing a blood letting procedure, on a older man, who is suffering from an unknown illness. He stops, when he sees your need, for medical attention immediately. The barber who already smells like whiskey, pulls out a silver flask. He takes a big sip, offers you one, and then spills some of the whiskey over your injury. It burns, the pain is so intense you feel like you are in a nightmare, and you beg someone to wake you. The barber uses his teeth to cut the thread, and begins to sew you back together. You feel each poke, and the thread being pulled through your skin. You try to scream, but you have no voice, you are to weak. When you are done, he leaves you on the table, and walks back over to finish the blood letting procedure. You watch as the doctor instructs the man to grasp, and squeeze a red wooden pole, wrapped with white gauze.The doctor uses a sharpened wooden lancet to "breathe the vein". The squeezing of the pole, helps the blood flow.The pole sits in a white basin, filled with leaches. The doctor uses this procedure to restore the sick body's internal equilibrium. The leaches are used to suck the blood, from the body, after the blood stops flowing easily. Unfortunately, the procedure doesn't go well, like most blood lettings, dont. The old man dies, but he dies in the right place. The barber prepares the mans body for a haircut,and a shave for his funeral. Next time you see a Barber pole spinning, you will know the meaning, and you will be glad you are born in a luckier time. The red stripe represents the blood, and the white that spins represents the bloody bandages drying in the wind. The blue is said to have been added later, to include Americana. Yet some claim the blue represents the blood still in the vein. Anyone need a haircut?
One of the topics that have fascinated me for many years, is Victorian Death Customs. Victorians viewed death differently, then people of our times. Maybe because it was an excepted part of life, since medicines didn't exist, and what did, was scarce. Death lurked, in every drop of drinking water, in bottles of tonics, that was said to cure, death over shadowed every childbirth. Mourning was almost an art form, and many books were written on the subject. I am going to take you back through my time machine. ((Creepy music plays, and we fade to black.)) We find ourselves in the early 1900. We are at the bed of young Aunt Gertrude,19 years old. She has been very ill, not in the hospital, but at home, in her own bed. Family surrounds our beloved aunt Trudy, her sister Victoria holds one hand, and her husband James, whispers into her ear, trying not to weep. Trudy sees a bright light, and the angels beckon her to come with them. Trudy smiles and lets out, the gargled last breath. She slips from this world, to the next. Trudy looks down, from the ceiling and sees her loved ones, next to the shell.. her soul once called home.When her family realizes, Gertrude has left her body they weep, and then begin to move quickly. All the mirrors in the house have to be covered quick, so her soul does not get stuck in one. They use a dark, cloth, black velvet. All drapes are pulled tightly closed. Next all clocks must be stopped at the time of Trudy's death, if this isn't done, bad luck will come to the family. When Trudy's body has to be taken out of the house,
she will have to be taken feet first. If she is taken out head first, she could look back, and beckon others to follow her, to the other side. All family photographs, will be turned upside down, in case Trudy's spirit tries to posses, other family members to follow her. Mildred the maid, hangs a black wreath on the family door, and the family slips into the mourning attire, which even includes black undergarments. These items will be worn, for a specific time. Trudy's spouse James will wear mourning clothes for a minimum of a year, then half morning clothes for 3 months. This will include a black suit, and a black arm band. The length the other family members, and the help will wear these mourning garments, depends on the relationship they had with Trudy. Sister Victoria, dressed in a black crepe dress, cuts a piece of hair from Trudy's head, to make mourning jewelry, so that Gertrude's memory will live on. Mildred calls the photographer, so one last picture can be taken, so her image will not be forgotten. It is undecided at this point, if the family will take the picture with her. This will be a difficult task, considering they will pose Trudy, to make her look lifelike, maybe the photographer will use a stand, for her stiff body. The picture, requires the family to be very still, and with the intense grief, because Trudy was so young, they decide against it. Trudy will be posed, as if she is sleeping. After the picture is taken, the casket is made, and Trudy is placed in it, for her waking period. If she needed to be autopsied, it would be done on the family, dinning room table. This will not be necessary, due to Trudy's illness. The Living room was cleared of furniture, to make room for flowers, and visitors. Flowers were not used, just for the tribute of Trudy's young life, but as a disguise for the death smell. embalming is not widely used, just yet. For the next 3-4 days, Trudy will have someone watching her every minute,until burial to see if she will wake. hence the name "wake." It's the early nineteen hundreds, the practice of medicine is not that advanced, and Doctor John's stethoscope is not that dependable. Doc, tells the family." heartbeats can be so faint, it might not be audible. she could be in a coma. Keep an eye on her, call me, straight away..if she stirs." As the next few days pass, visitors arrive to say their goodbyes. The family loses hope, and burial is planned. Yet, with so many fears, of being buried alive the family still prepares a safeguard. A telescope looking device will be threaded through the casket, and left to stick out of the ground. A bell will be assembled through this tube, in case Trudy wakes up. if she does, she can ring it.The caretaker will check the grave often, Putting his ear to the tube for the next few weeks, to make sure...Dear Trudy is indeed on the other side.After a certain time passes, the tube will be removed. The grave will be either bricked, or a tree will be planted over top of Trudy's grave, to deter grave robbers. RIP Sweet Gertrude.
