StanB

Annotations and comments

StanB has posted 123 annotations/comments since 17 January 2016.

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Third Reading

About Friday 24 February 1659/60

StanB  •  Link

I find it intriging that both MartinVT and Jeremy Buck comment on the Annotators from 20 years ago commentating on Sam from over 350 years ago
Phil you have created a monster
I think forward 100 years and imagine some commenting on me, commenting on, well you get the picture

About Thursday 23 February 1659/60

StanB  •  Link

Happy birthday Sam let's hope that this marvelous site and its wonderful readers have many more to come
I'm feeling distinctly older myself now, but as a 2nd reader going into 3 it is still as engrossing now as ever it was

About Sunday 5 February 1659/60

StanB  •  Link

Morning everyone its been a good while since I last posted but I've never been far away lurking, it's good to see some of the regulars still annotating Terry, SDSarah and others. Its been very apocryphal since my last entry a Worldwide Pandemic and War in Europe, anyhow I'm hoping my fellow Pepysians are well
Loving this new format segregating the readings
Did we ever discover what the drumming was all about?
StanB

Second Reading

About Diary entries by email service changing

StanB  •  Link

Evening Phil, we haven't spoken for a while but hope your fairing well throughout this dreadful pandemic, Don't know about you mate but it's given me a real sense of some of what Sam and his family went through
Thanks for the updates I couldn't be without my 17th century fix every day

Stay safe and Best regards to you and yours
Stan

About Tuesday 4 September 1666

StanB  •  Link

Nefarious business means
What struck me throughout this horrendous time were there any scams attempted post-fire I refer in particular to Tally Sticks I realise that with Split Tallies this would have been difficult but not impossible ie: the Stock and Foil recipients could claim they were lost in the fire or notches could have been added if it was known the matching Tally had been consumed, Are there any records of such deceit, Also were there any reports of looting?

A fantastic week of entries I'm still not convinced that the reported low loss of life was/is accurate

About Sunday 15 July 1666

StanB  •  Link

Beer and Milk
Even in today's modern sanitized world you never ever mix Beer with Milk in such a short time you never do that
The two can work together however and quite effectively
If I'm headed out for a big night out and know a lot of alcohol will be consumed you take a drink of milk and food, but it is taken a good couple of hours before you have a beer it puts a lining on your stomach and it works!!!

You never take them together Sam knows this as he even makes mention of it

Given how 17th Century sanitary methods compared to 21st Century methods are poles apart anyway is it no wonder the adverse effects that Sam felt

Not at all

About Sunday 15 April 1666

StanB  •  Link

Great entry,
It has the feel of a 21st Century Easter Bank Holiday weekend
*The more things change the more they stay the same*

About Sunday 8 April 1666

StanB  •  Link

Tom Cheffin
I think the mistake everyone's making here is assuming Sams 17th century possible explanation of this mans death, Was a postmortem ever done?
Regarding sudden death lets not forget, what can cause it today could cause it back then ,so armed with the benefit of 21st Century insight, it may have had something to do with any part of the body an Aneurysm, or Massive heart attack perhaps, stuff we weren't familiar with then but are now, even to the layman ,

Just an observation

Hoping all annotators and lurkers alike are well

About Friday 30 March 1666

StanB  •  Link

Mmm, Perhaps Sam would be wise to invest his profit in something current or popular Coffee or Tobacco perhaps? Housing development in the West of the City perhaps best hold off on that until later in the year considering what's about to happen, or this new fangled Piped Water thingy or Banking loads of options ,

About Thursday 9 November 1665

StanB  •  Link

Thank you, Sarah
Yes I have it fully protected in an acid-free folder
Just Milton's Eikonoklastes now to balance out Gauden, then Butlers Hudibras

About Thursday 9 November 1665

StanB  •  Link

Sorry I haven't posted for a while but just had to share some news with you and I apologise for it being off topic
After many disappointments over the years last week I finally added to my collection a copy of John Gaudens Eikon Basilike dated 1649 so an early, early edition published not long after the execution of Charles 1st
Needs more investigating I'm hoping its a first edition published just 10 days after the death of the King
So that's one off my bucket list I'm thrilled with it and had to share as i have made mention of my search in here before

About Thursday 14 September 1665

StanB  •  Link

WOW!!!
What an entry I really feel the dismal gloom as Sam walks around London
It is easy to see Art imitating Life
From Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826) to I Am Legend Richard Matheson (1954) and beyond right up to now and in the future
Sam was actually living a dystopian life with these plague entries way before it was coined and of course, temper that with the great news concerning the Dutch and is Plate still secure its a real juxtaposition
Today has to be one of my favourite entries

About Thursday 7 September 1665

StanB  •  Link

Completely off topic but thought you might find interesting, the Tudor, Stuart periods and particularly the ECW I have a passion for and over time have built a little collection I'm quite proud of I have several editions of the London Gazette from the 17th Century along with a few Civil War pamphlets and coins mainly Charles 1st and 2nd and some Elizabethan and Tudor Coins, Today I managed to acquire a London Gazette "Graded Fine" from Aug 6-9th 1683 its main coverage concerns The Rye House Plot I'm very happy with it next on my list London Gazettes covering Mortality Bills and my Holy Grail search continues for original copies of The Oxford Gazette but I'm not holding my breath for that one

About Tuesday 5 September 1665

StanB  •  Link

Can't believe no ones mentioned the Chariot I now have this image of Sam tearing around Londinium Charlton Heston style or am I over-egging it haha

About Sunday 3 September 1665

StanB  •  Link

Thanks for posting the link to that picture Bryan and yes its clear that picture was depicting Sams entry today, Do we know when it was painted and by whom

About Tuesday 15 August 1665

StanB  •  Link

There were a lot of "Plague cures"around
In 1665 the College of Physicians issued a directive that brimstone ‘burnt plentiful’ was recommended for a cure for the bad air that caused the plague.
Those employed in the collection of bodies frequently smoked tobacco to avoid catching the plague.
“For personal disinfection, nothing enjoyed such favour as tobacco; the belief in it was widespread, and even children were made to light up a reaf in pipes. Thomas Hearnes remembers one Tom Rogers telling him that when he was a scholar at Eton in the year that the great plague raged, all the boys smoked in school by order.
Other methods were also used to keep the plague away. When money was used in day-to-day transactions in shops or at market, it was placed in a bowl of vinegar rather than being handed over to the recipient. At markets, meat was not handed over by hand rather but by a joint being attached to a hook.

The wearing of lucky charms was also common – and recommended by doctors. Ambroise Pare, a physician, believed that a lucky charm would keep away the plague. Dr George Thomson wore a dead toad around his neck.

The Church had a more basic way of protecting yourself against the plague. It recommended prayer and then more prayer.

Those who could afford health certificates were allowed to leave London, such as Dr Alston, the President of the College of Physicians. This mainly meant that the rich could leave London while the poor stayed in the city. Leaving the city was an obvious way of protecting yourself against the plague.
Charlatans who stayed in London set themselves up as doctors. They sold plague ‘cures’ at high prices. There were many who were willing to try these quack cures as few had any other alternative. ‘Plague water’ was a popular cure as was powdered unicorn horn and frogs legs. What actually went into powdered unicorn horn is not known. Putting the tail feathers of a live chicken onto buboes (a lymph node that is inflamed and swollen because of plague) drew out the poison allowing the patient to recover – so people were told.

Making a victim of the plague sweat and then applying to buboes a recently killed pigeon was a popular ‘cure’.

It is known that some who caught the plague did survive but the records kept at the time are not at all clear as to whether any ‘cures’ were applied to these people or whether they were extremely lucky. As a fourteen-year-old boy, Sir Dudley North caught the plague and was shut up in his father’s London home. His mother looked after him and his sister who also had the plague. Both survived but nothing is known about the treatment their mother gave to them.

It has to also be remembered that while many thousands did die in London from the plague, many more did not – including the likes of Dr Nathaniel Hodges and the Rev. Thomas Vincent who went on to write about their experiences. Many of these people would have had daily contact with plague victims but survived.

About Saturday 12 August 1665

StanB  •  Link

Some interesting points made above regarding the Plague which is now reaching a critical point, the death toll often referred to is 100,000 however it could be a lot higher than that. The bills recorded 68,594 plague deaths in 1665 but this is likely to be far short of the true total.
The searchers, shunned because of their contact with victims, were suspected even at the time of using catch-all terms like ‘feaver’ and ‘consumption’.
This would have increased with people’s reluctance to admit to plague in their households.
The five next biggest causes of death also spike over the summer so it’s likely many of those were actually plague deaths. Data from the Bills of Mortality illustrates the careless nature in which a lot of deaths were categorised its highly likely a lot of these deaths were in fact plague.
Feaver 4,664

Consumption 3,173
Tuberculosis

Spotted Feaver 1,855
Meningitis or typhus

Teeth 1,931
Death of an infant during teething

French pox, lethargy and the Kings-evil
As this small selection shows, many of the 99 causes of death listed in the bills seem obscure.
A sophisticated understanding of infection was still 200 years away and the searchers lacked even basic medical knowledge held by doctors of the day.
London was hugely unsanitary and people, including terrible numbers of babies, succumbed to ailments now trivial and easily treated.
Surfeit 1,130
Suggested definition: Vomiting from overeating
Rising of the Lights 288
Generally thought to be croup - possibly applied to any death involving shortness of breath
Imposthume 196
Abscess
Scowring 80
Purging of the bowels, probably diarrhoea or dysentery
Kings-evil 62
Scrofula, a swelling caused by tuberculosis of neck and lymph glands
Timpany 23
Swelling or tumour
Overlaid 17
Possibly accidental suffocation of breastfeeding infant by a wet-nurse
Plannet 6
A sudden affliction, paralysis or an aneurysm, thought to be caused by the influence of the planets
Mother 2
Convulsions, suffocation or choking affecting women, possibly epilepsy
Wen 1
Tumour or cyst on the skin, often the scalp. London was nicknamed the Great Wen in the nineteenth century
There is now a theory suggesting that it wasn't the black rat that brought the plague to Europe but the giant gerbil, I'll leave that one with you

About Sunday 9 July 1665

StanB  •  Link

Ahhh thank you Sjoerd I missed that entry, Do we have any diagrams of Sams timepiece?