What does Queen Victoria's sex life have to do with anaesthesia?

Pop culture has created an image of Queen Victoria as a sour-faced, prudish old widow in a massive black frock with a sagging frown. And also, more obscurely, as a werewolf. She was definitely fiery, brutal and ready with the cut-downs in the masses of letters and diaries she wrote throughout her long life, but she wasn't always a grumpy hag.

She had a dirty sense of humour and a quick wit, and loved sex and laughing at silly things. She was barely 18 when she became Queen in 1837, and her advisors tried to discourage her light-hearted interests out of fear that the public wouldn’t take her seriously. She was stubborn, playful and youthful, and these traits ensured that she was open to new ideas that were exploding around her in science and art - an interest encouraged by her husband Prince Albert.

A brief history of anaesthesia that won't send you to sleep
Early medical experts had two responses to basically any illness presented to them: draining blood or amputation. It’s not surprising, therefore, that they’d long been after a way to relieve a patient’s pain while they operated.

Unfortunately they didn’t yet appreciate the astounding facts being uncovered by clever science brains as anything more than amusing reads. Scientists had been mucking around with different chemicals that worked as anaesthetics – as well as other things – for hundreds of years, because that’s their job.

Laughing gas

For example, in 1772 Joseph Priestley discovered nitrous oxide, which lead seven years later to fellow scientist Humphry Davy apparently having tremendous fun trying it out on himself and animals, eventually noting that it could be used therapeutically.

(Scientists having tremendous fun or dying while trying out new things is a bit of a theme in history.) However, it was mostly used in comedy shows, including one launched by a man who named himself ‘Professor’ Samuel Colt, who used his show to raise money to build the prototype of a revolver...

Think about it as we see weed today. At the moment, it’s mostly a recreational drug to get you high, but it does have medicinal properties. Similarly, no one was interested in this party trick's potential for medical use until a man/dentist named Horace Wells attended one of these laughing shows in 1844.

Wells realised, as Davy had, that nitrous oxide could be an anaesthetic. He found this out in the only sensible way: he had the travelling circus performer administer it to him, realised he felt nothing, and then a few months later got his colleague Dr Riggs to remove his tooth while he was under its influence. Unfortunately for Wells, when he tried to demonstrate it on someone else, the patient cried out in pain and everyone jeered loudly and obnoxiously.

Ether is a gas
A few years before Wells saw more than the funny side of nitrous oxide, scientists were getting interested in ether. Again, they had been aware of how to produce this for a couple of hundred years, but it was a laughing stock among the public. Fortunately, doctors started trying it out and found that - phew - it worked.

The first public demonstration was in Massachusetts General Hospital, where John Collins Warren was scheduled to remove a tumour from a man's jaw. Apparently the man in charge of the ether, William Morton, showed up late but just in time to give the patient a 3 minute dose of ether gas that meant he didn't feel a thing.

From then on, Boston surgeons were all over the ether, willing to try it in other operations as it proved successful at keeping the patient sedated and therefore less likely to panic and end up dead. All of this dabbling with different methods and sharing of ideas means there’s still a massive debate over who anaesthetised who first and how well and who deserves the credit.

Back in Britain
In any case, the first public demonstration of ether as an anaesthetic in the UK was carried out on 19 December 1846 by dentist James Robinson in London. It does seem that some dentists are out to prevent pain. After this was deemed a success, diagnostic whiz-kid Dr John Snow worked out the best way to administer ether so that it wouldn’t kill the patients.

Dr John Snow is a bit of a hero

Not played by Kit Harington

John Snow is one of those people whose contributions to science have completely changed the world but no one has really heard of him, unless you’re talking about the guy in Game of Thrones, or you happen to work and/or drink on London’s Broadwick Street. One of his major contributions was proving that cholera is not airborne and found in bad smells, as everyone believed in the 1800s, but is transmitted by consuming germs transported in water. Sadly it took four outbreaks for the government to believe him.

Snow's main areas of interest were respiration and asphyxia, and the effect gases could have on people, especially in midwifery. After Robinson’s demonstration and his own previous dabbling, Snow developed an inhaler that would administer ether carefully. Like, not lethally. Unlike the Americans, Snow never tried to patent any of the equipment he built, and actually made sure each had clear instructions so anyone could copy it. He was also working with chloroform, which had been introduced to the UK in 1947 by Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson.

At this point, 34-year-old Snow was the go-to anaesthesia man for London surgeons - a nice step up for a young physician. The non-scientific public was aware of this magical new invention, thanks to both science journals and humorous publications like Punch magazine, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Queen Victoria's kids

That's a lot of labour

Throughout her life, Victoria had enough children to make up a baseball team (that’s 9 btw) but she actually hated being pregnant and although she loved her children, she wasn’t super maternal. She extended her honest evaluations to them, once describing her five-year-old son as having 'a most strange face', and they were terrified of her temper like everyone else.

Let's keep in mind where she came from: she was an only child brought up by a mother who was more interested in wresting her daughter’s regal powers off her with the help of her manipulative boyfriend than in reading her bedtime stories and playing Barbie.

However, Victoria did like sex. She wrote lots of letters about what she and Albert got up to, including to her Prime Minister, and even got her husband to put a lock on his bedroom door so that all those children weren't eternally interrupting them in the act.

For the first five years of their marriage she was only not pregnant or recovering from labour for 16 months. In 1848 she was pregnant for the sixth time. Prince Albert was a science nerd and had read up about anaesthesia, so he approached her personal physicians about the possibility of using this new-fangled stuff to help his wife during the delivery.

Unfortunately, since it was still so new, they were a bit uneasy about administering it, especially since the only women who had used it so far were not royals, and a girl called Hannah Greener had recently died from the effects of chloroform during surgery. It also didn’t help that a lot of the clergy were against using pain relief in labour, believing women were meant to suffer through it as part of some divine plan. Of course, they were all men.

Drugging the Queen
So poor Victoria had to go through two more births before chloroform’s reputation had improved to the point that it was considered safe and appropriate. It helped that Simpson was a pretty big deal in the medical profession, and Prince Albert had started advocating for chloroform as President of the Royal College of Chemistry. Dr John Snow was called to the birth of her eighth child Leopold on 7 April 1853 to administer chloroform, which must have been a fairly terrifying job. He decided not to use his mask device but a drip and a bit of cloth. Going back to basics seems strange, but in the same way that some people prefer driving a manual car to an automatic, it probably required more work but made you feel like you had more control over the system.

Luckily it was a straightforward birth, if that's a thing, and Victoria described herself as 'satisfied', which is as much as you can hope to be when it comes to labour I suppose. Although medical journal The Lancet was critical of this decision, Victoria called Snow again to the birth of Princess Beatrice four years later.

Snow, in turn, refused to comment on his experiences with her, other than describing her as ‘a model patient’. Of course, one does not slag off the Queen if one wishes to avoid prison and/or a miserable life. One woman even tried to get him to talk by refusing to take the drug during labour until he told her what had happened at Queen Victoria's deliveries. Wily Snow said that he would tell her when she woke up and then scarpered while she was KOed.

Although we'll probably never know the gossip on Queen Victoria's experiences, her Royal stamp of approval was a big deal, and meant that other women could request chloroform in labour. Thanks Vic.

America vs. Britain by a Brit who loves the States

I’m something of an America geek. A lot of Brits below the age of 35 have a vague daydream about being Californian or living in New York, thanks to imports like Taylor Swift, Friends and M&Ms. But while most limit their interest to wearing t-shirts that say ‘BRKLYN’ or talking like they’re in The O.C., I learned all the state capitals and have a first class degree in English and American literature. I even had an America themed party. OK, I’m also just a regular geek.

Just to be clear, getting engaged to an American was not a weird extension of this. (I would not, in fact, recommend falling in love with someone who lives thousands of miles away, unless you’re a millionaire or teleporter.) However, it does mean I’ve visited the States more times than I would otherwise have cause too. I've been to Minneapolis (Minnesota), El Paso (Texas), Alamogordo (New Mexico), Las Vegas (Nevada), Chicago (Illinois) and through a bit of Wisconsin in the last year.

Despite all those hours studying and essay writing and movie watching, it wasn’t until I started going to different parts of this enormous country that I learned the true disparities between our cultures, lives, manners and languages. Here's my report from the field.

Customer service staff in the USA are ridiculously nice
In London, you are treated with a resigned politeness and disciplined if thought appropriate, like a friend’s child. In America, you are treated like the friend of a friend everyone is making an extra effort with. They do actually sometimes say, ‘Hi I’m Becky and I’ll be your server today’, possibly while holding a coffee pot. Most are warm, friendly and so helpful it would be suspicious if it didn’t make you want to hug them and set up permanent residence at the booth. (Just kidding, Immigration.)

The food is limited only by imagination
Americans are very much into self-determination – the right of the individual – and this extends to food. While we’re worrying about getting our five-a-day, this belief that you should be able to have whatever you want without some nosy government or First Lady wagging a finger at you means that American food outlets focus on taste and sheer delight over silly things like health and cholesterol.

Sweet, sweet heart attack.

Foods we would consider to be a meal – mac and cheese, pancakes – are served as side dishes. The portion sizes are huge, although this is partly because they are much more used to the concept of taking home leftovers (another way of putting you in charge of your own meal).

This can all be incredibly overwhelming. But it also means you have things like Dorito salad, chocolate brownie sundaes and bacon French toast. You can’t fight it. Just bring clothes with elastic and avoid mirrors and scales.

British accents are exotic and confusing
The first time I tried to order coffee in an American Starbucks, the guy stared at me as though I was speaking Elvish and turned to my fiancé for translation (he also got it wrong). To be fair, that was El Paso, where you’re more likely to get shot by a man in a Stetson than to hear a British accent, but this confusion was not uncommon.

You don’t realise you have an accent until you’re around people who don’t sound like you. This makes you horribly aware of your own voice, like when you hear Emily speak in Friends and think, ‘Wow, we sound like a bunch of stuck-up twats.’ Luckily Americans are very polite, so people might look surprised but the only actual comments you get are lovely, admiring ones. Having someone who sounds like the most glamorous LA movie star telling you they love your accent is like getting a wink from Chris Pratt.

British humour is sick and dark and brilliant

It seems like most American sit coms centre on families doing silly things to each other which result in minor misunderstandings and, vitally, Essential Life Lessons. It’s as though they’ve been sent through a sanitising spray that cleans out the gritty unpleasantness lurking in all families, workplaces and friendship groups.

British comedies, meanwhile, hone in on those dark and twisted aspects and poke, prod and manipulate them for our gruesome pleasure. We like sex in all its weird, messy, awkward glory. We like losers and angry misfits and we don’t want them to learn anything. Try explaining Four Lions, Blackadder, The Inbetweeners or Black Mirror to an American if you don’t believe me.

Americans refer to Europe as though it’s one country

Regardless of your views on the EU, it’s fair to say that Brits see the Channel as a dividing line between us and the rest of Europe. They sunbathe topless, eat dinner at midnight on pavement cafes and think that cheese and ham is an acceptable breakfast, while we’re tucking into the full fry up, slathering After Sun on bright red t-shirt lines and driving on the left. We also recognise borders between countries: Germany is not France, France is not Spain, and Spain is not Poland. 

Quite upsettingly, Americans don’t acknowledge any of these distinctions, cheerfully ignoring centuries of wars, tensions and treaties to lump us all in together. When someone says, ‘I think you can in Europe’ they could be talking about France, Germany or Wales (don’t even try and explain that this is not part of England). They also don’t appreciate it when you politely point out that this is a bit like calling Canada ‘America’ or Utah ‘California’.

It’s like they took British nature and went ‘Yeah, well watch this’
Someone decided to double then triple then quadruple the space. In London, no matter where you are, you can see a building. Unless it’s foggy. Even when you (God forbid) leave the Capital, driving along the motorway you’ll probably see rolling hills or some contemplative sheep or the outline of houses in a distant village.

Driving through the Texan desert or a Wisconsin plain, you realise just how vast and flat the world can be, how much sky there is. As someone who freaks out if I’m a car journey from anywhere selling fat free yogurt, the thought of living somewhere so fantastically remote makes me want to rock on my heels and hum. However, it is incredibly humbling to be see land so raw, powerful and untouched (aside from a billboard promoting cheese curds).

You hear about race more
Maybe this is just me talking as a privileged white girl who can’t look at my own society with the same distance that I view others’, but Americans acknowledge race much more openly than Brits. While we might refer to different ‘cultures’ or nationalities, they are much more blunt with labelling people ‘black’ and ‘white’ and ‘Hispanic’ as a primary characteristic. Which can be really jarring.

Public toilets are weird
This is one of the most unexpected differences and the hardest to explain. There’s just something slightly off about American public toilets. After far more thought on this subject than necessary, I’ve worked out that it’s down to the following things:

They rely on suction, not flooding the basin with loads of water, which makes an oddly alarming noise, like someone being sucked through an airplane window.

There is a gap in the cubicle doors, presumably so you can keep an eye on what’s happening outside.

The toilets are really low. And shallow.

The flush system is automatic but hidden, so you’re not quite sure if you can trust it to work or not. This means spending ages looking for a lever or a button or a chain, like the worst game ever, only for the thing to suddenly flush (suck) violently at random, startling the hell out of you. This is even worse when you’re not actually done. Thanks for that coronary, stupid robot toilet.

Also, the hand towel dispensers are automatic, which somehow feels incredibly futuristic. My fuzzy jetlagged brain found this particularly fascinating.

They have different rules about walking
In America, walking is not seen primarily as a means of transport but as an official Leisure Activity. It must be planned in advance and can be boasted about in the same way you might tell people that you’re tired from playing tennis this morning.

Depending on where you are, people who enjoy walking are either seen as eccentric or as potential low level criminals. This is a bit different in urban areas like Chicago, which has a dense city centre that makes it easier to walk from one place to another. If you’re not downtown and fancy a walk, you will probably need some other method of transport, a map and water supplies to actually get somewhere big enough to stretch your legs. Luckily it's worth the ride to wander round an absolutely incredible state park.

People are nice
When strangers encounter you, they say hello. They might even say good morning. They will probably call you ma’am or sir in a non-sarcastic way. And it’s not because they’re trying to sell you something or get you to join a cult and/or gym. They are just nice. Once you get over the initial shock, it’s pretty refreshing.

Americans love sports more than us
America’s love of sport makes British fandom look like the skinny kid who always got picked last in PE standing next to the steroid-pumped giant who can bench lift a car.

Booo....

Here, we get behind the national rugby team when they’re playing (winning), or wear a ‘soccer’ strip or get a horrible tattoo of our club’s shield, and that’s it. In America, roughly speaking, if you’re in the North you can choose from basketball, ice hockey (just called hockey), baseball and football, plus the more obscure stuff like wrestling or track. If you’re in the South, you can choose from football, football or football, with the others served up as an afterthought when the conversation about football runs out (which is apparently never if you’re in Texas and sometime in April everywhere else).

You see a lot of people casually sporting merchandise from their local high school, college and national teams, many of which have names relating to big furry animals or birds. The sports facilities and arenas in suburban schools cover more land than all the buildings in my high school.

However, while in Britain this display of fandom would likely end in daily riots, in America there’s no sense that you’re going to get people brawling in the mall because the Broncos beat the Panthers this Sunday. It’s typically American enthusiasm tempered with typically American niceness.

Tea is served with ice or straight from the microwave
Get used to coffee. Becky's got it ready.