Medical Histories Found in Memoirs of Queen Mary of Romania
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HISTORY OF MEDICINE MEDICAL HISTORIES FOUND IN MEMOIRS OF QUEEN MARY OF ROMANIA Călin Bumbuluţ1, Andrei Bumbuluţ2, Alina Daniela Negru1, Rumelia Koren3 1SCM dr Bumbuluţ–dr Balaj, Satu Mare, România, 2Faculty of Medicine, Iuliu Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj Napoca, România, 3Department of Pathology, Hasharon Hospital, Petah Tikva, and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel Address for correspondence: Bumbuluţ Călin, MD, FP Satu Mare, UK 30 Bobocului St, PO 440258 Email: [email protected] Received: 27.08.2013 Accepted: 10.03.2014 Med Con June 2014 Vol 9, No 2, 49-54 Abstract was the second son of Queen Victoria and Prince- consort Albert. Mary, Queen of Romania, born as Maria Alexandra On 10 January 1893, at Sigmaringen in Germany, Victoria of Saxa-Coburg and Gotha (October 29, 1875, the marriage of His Royal Highness Marie of Edinburgh Eastwell Park, Kent, England, July 18, 1938, Sinaia with His Royal Highness Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Pelişor, Kingdom of Romania), was princess of Great Romania was celebrated. Britain and Ireland and the consort of King Ferdinand. Her memoirs in three volumes, are an important Her memoirs are an important source of informations source for information about life in the royal and including medical ones, but also a surprising literature, princely courts of Europe by the end of the nineteenth which proves a writerly talent. Our approach aims at an century, as well as medical information, but also a incursion into the medical informations contained in surprising literature, the descriptions of people which the memoirs of Queen Marie of Romania, to our she encounters are full of flavor, seeing them with knowledge being the first attempt of its kind. complete naturalness, which proves a writerly talent, Keywords: Queen Mary, medicine, drugs, hygiene, cultivated to maturity. chloroform To our knowledge, the present approach is the first one of its kind with the aim to make an incursion into the medical information contained in the memoirs of Maria Alexandra Victoria of Saxa-Coburg and Queen Marie of Romania. Gotha (Figure 1) was born on October 29, 1875 at Eastwell Park, Kent, England, as the eldest daughter of About medicine and medical education, her parents, Alfred Ernest Albert of Saxa-Coburg and in 1880-1890 Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh and Maria Alexandrovna Romanov, Grand Duchess of Russia (Figure 2), the only “As to the code promulgated by mother, the man should living daughter from the marriage of Tsar Alexander II never moaned. He should never confess to someone a of Russia with Maria Alexandrovna of Hessa. His father headache or leave defeated by that; for a cold you should Medical Histories Found in Memoirs of Queen Mary of Romania 49 HISTORY OF MEDICINE MEDICAL CONNECTIONS • NUMBER 2 (34) • JUNE 2014 A B Figure 1. A. Maria Alexandra Victoria of Saxa-Coburg and Gotha, as teenager, B. Mary, Queen of Romania, at maturity Figure 2. Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (later Duchess of Edinburgh and Duchess of Saxa-Coburg and Gotha 17th October 1853–24th October 1920) not stay locked at home, for a fever access you do not have to “In our house we were not talking about medicine, and stay in bed” [1, p 38]. we walked in the way of life totally ignorant of the simplest “One of her quirks (our note – mother) was the lessons of it” [1, p 183]. contempt for medical science and for all in touch by “We had an innate fear of any description of the hospitals, doctors or professional nurses. She had a internal organs; it seemed like something slaughter and not constitution of iron and was never sick, so she considered too decorous; we almost got sick in a day when full of every descovery of medicine as a modern fiction; “I could enthusiasm, Dr. Heim (our note – professor of natural live very well without all these in my time.” (...) She simply history and botany) brought us a bull’s eye to show us the had mocked those who measured theirs temperature, blood wonders of optical composition. I, of course, was not from pressure, or had undergone an examination or a medical the modern school which boldly examines every detail of the regime.” human mechanism” [1, p 193]. 50 Bumbuluţ et al MEDICAL CONNECTIONS • NUMBER 2 (34) • JUNE 2014 HISTORY OF MEDICINE A B Figure 3. A. Tincture of opium, with indications for use in neonates from five days of life, B. Drops containing heroin, for the symptomatic treatment of cough in children A B Figure 4. A. Drops containing cocaine, a trademark from 1885, B. Dragees of cocaine for neck pain with a dose of 8-10 per day About drugs these ricin dragees often dried it in their boxes, for that Russian health of the Mother do not justify such quantities Medication from those times, rather empirical and of supplies. But since the supplies had to walk a long way based on folklore and legend, contained a reduced and from Russia to us, it was more practical to send out once a limited pharmacological arsenal products and natural significant amount. (...) What we seem delightful (...) were extracts, many of them potential or downright the various pills for smoking-man: some tiny and in dangerous, as were opium tincture (Figure 3); the rainbow colours, others seems like roses and crescent-shaped, tincture Doveri was used for decades, representing a placed in small and flat boxes wearing an oriental name on thoroughfare known recipe prepared in pharmacies even cap and a gazelle. There were some heart-shaped violin until the mid twentieth century, and the situation was pills, taste of violets; I liked them more (...)” [1, p 39-40]. similar for the cocaine tablets, (Figure 4) so the Adverse drug reactions were less or not at all known. statement of Queen Mother that “medicines from Methamphetamine in combination with Phenobarbital England are much stronger than those on the continent had to be advertised to be sold, being used in overweight and called them “medicines good for horses” [1, p 38] was to “control the diet and the mood throughout the day” probably not exaggerated. (Figure 5). “However, no one had eyesight like Mother: she guessed Phenacetin, drug introduced in use in 1887, was the easiest ailment and was always ready to give you dragees antipyretic and analgesic, being the first non-opiate or potions” [1,p 38]. analgesic. It was withdrawn by the FDA only in 1983 “There were tremendous supplys of dragees, particularly because of the carcinogenic and renal damage caused by ricin, resembling with flimsy grapes in which were shaking him: “However, my mother liked very much to praise some liquid yellow. They were, by not known reasons, ordered to medicines such as phenacetin, aspirin, salipirine, and she was Petersburg, maybe for the fear that if they were prepared in bothered if someone tried to show that they are harmful when England, being not somehow “horse medicines”. I think they are not taken with measure” [1, p 183-184]. Medical Histories Found in Memoirs of Queen Mary of Romania 51 HISTORY OF MEDICINE MEDICAL CONNECTIONS • NUMBER 2 (34) • JUNE 2014 Florence, where they made it” [1, p 40]. Queen Mother, at the residence of Rosenau introduces bathrooms, after her husband takes the Duchy of Saxa-Coburg and Gotha, but refuses to introduce the electric power “thinking that would be something wrong with the features of the old and strange castle.” “With closets full of Russian samurs, silks and atlases, priceless laces, lovely linen, she wore more gladly burlap hand woven and cheap furs, because all the treasures kept in camphor and lavender were part of Russian greatness, deserted now, and wich no longer took place in the life what she chose” [1, p 184]. About surgeries “About surgeries, those were in her eyes (our note – mother) no more than a guilt resistance against nature as God had made it” [1, p 183]. Short medical histories The memoirs were written, according to claims made on two occasions, 36 years after the Queen’s Figure 5. Advertise at Ambar, one drug of that time containing engagement, which was held at 17, so probably in 1928, methamphetamine and phenobarbital because their wording does not explicitly mention the dates of events. We will illustrate the importance of temporal location of medical histories that we investigate About contagious diseases and asepsia in this paper, by describing Princess of Saxa-Meiningen, sister of Kaiser Wilhelm: “passionate smoker, always It was known or suspected that you can not get sick spreading around her a too pleasant aroma of fine cigarettes twice by measles, i.e. that measles causes immunity and delightful fragrance” [1, p246] and who “...died a throughout life. There was minimal knowledges on year before her, (our note – Queen Mother, so, in 1919), contagiousness: “A scene more clearly remained in my died in ordeals from cancer, a disease which killed with so mind from that night when my grandfather came (our many years before, her father and mother” [1, p 249]. The note – Russian Tsar Alexander II ) in our bedroom (this laconic description given by the Queen for the cause of was also in Tsarskoe-Selo), where all of us were lying in beds death of the Princess, we can attribute by the trauma from measles. I caught the disease after the others (our caused by the disappearance of King Ferdinand on 20 note- sisters) so that Grandpa could kiss me” [1, p 99]. July 1927, due to a cancer, the memoirs being written as “Thus, she didn’t approve the microbes’ theory our( note we said earlier, probably in 1928.