March 2004 - Vol Four, No.4

History Helps, Volume Four, Number 4, March 2004
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SPRING COMETH!

In the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, we think of March as being the start of the spring season. Therefore, the following report under "Delta Notes" would apply today as much as it did in the late 19th century:

" Farmers are preparing for spring work, and the blacksmiths are kept busy putting ploughs and harrows in order. The fine westerly winds and frosty nights are drying up the ground quickly...

The gardens round Ladner’s Landing present a spring-like appearance."

Source: The Daily Columbian, 06 March 1893, page three.

The State of Medicine in 1901

"CANCER IS NOT INCURABLE

An English Authority Scouts Some Beliefs Regarding the Disease

Dr. Herbert Snow, writing on cancer in the Humanitarian (London), takes note of the increased number of deaths from cancer -- from 8,117 in 1864 to 22,945 in 1895 in England -- and in making a plea for a more scientific study of cancer, clears up many popular misconceptions regarding the maladies commonly grouped under this term. The doctor says:

‘It must be borne in mind that the majority of the sufferers are perfectly curable by a surgical operation within certain limits of time. In nine out of every 10 cancer cases the organ attacked is amenable to the resources of the practical surgery applied not merely to palliate, but to eradicate permanently. The bogy of heredity, that is, of a transmitted constitutional taint, has been extinguished by the past 20 years’ research and experience. No one conversant with those investigations now entertains the smallest doubt on the fact that cancer is primarily a purely local malady; that it differs only, say, from a carious tooth in its peculiar properties of emitting cells which carry infection to distant parts of the organism. Hence if it be wisely dealt with by the operating surgeon within the preinfective period, a stage of several weeks, or even months, it is just as easily extirpated as is an offending molar or incisor. The only really ab initio incurable cases of cancer are those wherein an internal organ essential to life is the primary site, and which constitute a very small minority of the whole.

‘Cancerous disease invariably arises in a minute spot, usually a small group of cells, and is thus purely local in its inception. All the subsequent phenomena follow infection, diffused by simple mechanical agencies from that single spot. On this principle no possible doubt exists.

‘But why, then, it will naturally be asked, do so many people continually die from cancer? Why does the disease so generally reappear after an operation which has appeared highly successful?

‘It may be confessed that surgical dealings with cancer are almost always uphill work. Nevertheless the reasons for the ultimate failure of many of these operations are always painfully apparent. Either (a) the infective cell fragments have been allowed to diffuse themselves to other parts before the operating surgeon was called in, or (b) the operator has done his work badly. The first explanation unfortunately accounts for by far the greater number of instances. People hardly ever think of consulting an operating surgeon, or even of applying to a medical practitioner at all until the malady has slowly progressed for many months. But the second also covers no small field."

Source: [Vancouver] Daily World, 21 March 1901, page three.

Adoption in 1891

This ad appeared in the Vancouver Daily World, 11 July 1891, page 4, under "City and Country Items":

"FOR ADOPTION -- A healthy, handsome baby girl, two years of age, can be adopted. Can be seen at 132 Powell street, or particulars can be learned by addressing N. A., Box 576, P.O. Vancouver."

Butter Making

"Butter That Will Keep

Year after year a California dairyman keeps ‘the best and richest butter -- that made in May, June and July’ -- by a simple process which he describes as follows:

‘Thoroughly wash before it is taken out of the churn. Salt to suit the taste -- half an ounce to the pound is about right. Do up in neat, round balls of two or three pounds each; cover each roll with a clean muslin cloth, large enough to go round it twice or more, so it will be completely enveloped, and sink it in a brine as strong as the best salt will make. Stone vessels are the best.

When the rolls are in they may be kept down by means of clean, flat stones. When the vessel is full enough and the butter completely covered with the brine, add more salt to insure the strength of the brine. Keep it in cellar or spring house, and see if it is not worth in winter and spring 100 percent more than any winter made butter.’
He emphasizes the following indispensable requisites: That the butter be good to begin with, have all the buttermilk worked out, and be wrapped and put into the brine the same day it is taken from the churn."

Source: Vancouver Daily World, 11 March 1891, page three.

A Website to Visit Regularly

I tend to get busy and forget to revisit websites that frequently add new databases for the rest of us to find useful. A case in point is the British Columbia GenWeb site at http://www.rootsweb.com/~canbc/bc.htm, which I tripped over on my way to somewhere else. Making sure that I did get back to the site, I discovered stuff that I hadn’t noticed before -- or noticed and didn’t realize their usefulness at the time. Check it out.

Mail Order Brides

"COME TO WED MEN THEY HAVEN’T SEEN

Four Young Women from the Old Land Arrive in British Columbia

KAMLOOPS, Nov. 1 -- Among enforced guests in the city over the week-end, owing to the railway tie-up, were the balance of a party of young women who came out from England under peculiar circumstances.

They were four of eleven who arrived in Canada last week to marry men they had never seen and whose portraits they had not even looked upon. Seven got off at Regina to go to prairie homes and the remainder came to B.C., two of them bound for Vancouver Island.

They said that the arrangements had been made through a reputable marriage bureau and all enquiries regarding the bona fides of the prospective benedicts had been satisfactory.

One of the girls standing on the C. P. R. platform here a rosy-cheeked damsel from the South of England was asked if she were not afraid to come all this distance to marry one she had never seen.

‘If ’e’s a man I’ll like him all right’ she laughingly replied."

Source: The [Vancouver] Daily Province, 01 November 1921, page seven.

Something to Think About

This old German saying, roughly translated, comes from a review of a book on helicopter flying, but has far wider application, in my opinion:

"When an angel pisses on the flintlock of your musket, all skill is in vain."

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Gwen Szychter, M.A.

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