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A Political History
of Big Science
The Other Europe
Katharina C. Cramer
Palgrave Studies in the History of Science
and Technology
Series Editors
James Rodger Fleming
Colby College
Waterville, ME, USA
Roger D. Launius
Auburn, AL, USA
Designed to bridge the gap between the history of science and the history
of technology, this series publishes the best new work by promising and
accomplished authors in both areas. In particular, it offers historical per-
spectives on issues of current and ongoing concern, provides international
and global perspectives on scientific issues, and encourages productive
communication between historians and practicing scientists.
A Political History
of Big Science
The Other Europe
Katharina C. Cramer
University of Konstanz
Konstanz, Germany
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
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the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to Justus and Cornelius, who have grown alongside
this project.
Preface
This book is about light. It explores the history and science of the brilliant
light, synchrotron radiation, that is produced at two collaborative light
sources in Europe, namely, the ESRF as a circular-shaped synchrotron
radiation source and the European XFEL as a linear free-electron laser. In
the early decades after the first experimental observation of synchrotron
radiation in the late 1940s, research with synchrotron radiation was a mar-
ginal phenomenon in the scientific landscapes in Europe and the United
States that were largely dominated by particle physics research. Probably
nobody would have guessed at that time that synchrotron radiation would
become one of the most crucial experimental resources for multidisci-
plinary research in the twenty-first century and a kind of mainstream activ-
ity for the investigation of materials or living matter. But this book also
sheds new light on the history and politics of Big Science, Europe and the
European Union. One of its core aims is to enlighten the ways we see,
write and think about Europe and the European Union, as well as about
European politics and history. It introduces the other Europe as an alterna-
tive perspective to politics and integration in Europe besides the main-
stream political integration processes, arguing that Big Science
collaborations, such as the ESRF and the European XFEL, have played
crucial roles in both European politics and science.
This book is based on a doctoral dissertation that was carried out
between 2014 and 2018 at the Leibniz Prize Research Group “Global
Processes” at the University of Konstanz, Germany (date of oral examina-
tion: 30 August 2018, examiners: Jürgen Osterhammel, Olof Hallonsten
vii
viii PREFACE
ix
x Contents
Bibliography203
Index233
Abbreviations
xi
xii Abbreviations
The following names of projects, accelerators and/or light sources that are used in
this thesis do not constitute acronyms and/or abbreviations: Alba, Diamond,
Elettra, ISIS, Tantalus and Aladdin.
List of Figures
xvii
List of Tables
xix
CHAPTER 1
The ESRF and the European XFEL produce intense and brilliant light:
synchrotron radiation. This is a specific kind of electromagnetic radiation
that was first discovered in the late 1940s at a synchrotron, a circular-
shaped particle accelerator, from which this name derives.3 Synchrotron
radiation became an increasingly demanded experimental resource for
multidisciplinary investigations into materials and living matter, as well as
the development of drugs or smart materials. Today, nearly all research
with synchrotron radiation is done at storage rings (another kind of
circular-shaped particle accelerator) and free-electron lasers, which are
based on a linear accelerator complex (see Chap. 3). Nevertheless, the
(misleading) notion of synchrotron radiation has stuck among scientists,
administrators, as well as in the public mind, and is also used throughout
this book. An alternative way of framing research with synchrotron radia-
tion is to consider it as a part of the field of photon science, which is, very
simply speaking, science with light. The ESRF and the European XFEL
are so-called user facilities or service facilities that provide synchrotron
radiation as an experimental resource to external users. The facilities are
publicly funded, and access for fundamental, non-proprietary research
groups to the ESRF and the European XFEL is granted on the basis of a
scientific peer-review process. Both facilities also offer the possibility to
buy experimental time by commercial companies and similar industry-
related organisations to carry out proprietary research.
The main motivation of this book is to explore the founding histories
of the ESRF and the European XFEL, and to understand how these two
Big Science collaborations came into being in the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries. What were the main motivations to initiate and join
these two collaborative Big Science projects? How were national research
policy strategies and scientific needs set and negotiated? How did one
compromise on site, financial share and legal framework? These questions
are fundamental not only to understand the history and politics of the
ESRF and the European XFEL but also to gain a nuanced understanding
of how their founding histories relate and connect to the broader patterns
and dynamics of European politics, European integration and interna-
tional relations.
More than three decades after the convention of the ESRF was signed
in 1988, and more than one decade after the signing of the convention of
the European XFEL in 2009, the political processes that preceded both
events remain largely unexplored events in the history of science and tech-
nology and the history of Europe.4 Based on largely unexplored material
4 K. C. CRAMER
in the second half of the twentieth century, these were, first and foremost,
established as national projects, such as KEK (High Energy Accelerator
Research Organisation) in Japan or SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center) in the United States.33 Intergovernmental scientific collaboration
in Big Science was rare, although not completely absent, for these three
countries.34 In other words, to the extent that Big Science in Europe since
the end of the Second World War was considerably marked by collabora-
tive efforts, Big Science in the United States, Japan and the former Soviet
Union/Russia remained dominated by solo efforts.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, many Big Science proj-
ects in Europe came into existence as a result of multilateral negotiations
and collaboration based on intergovernmental agreement among a varied
number of countries.35 They are formally independent in the sense of being
neither a body or institution of the EEC/EU nor confined to common
policymaking. This was mainly due to a lack of a common research policy
agenda, which only slowly changed at the end of the 1980s. Since the early
2000s, the EU began to expand its common competences in research pol-
icy. The European Commission did not only start to implement common
measures it also initiated common policy agendas around Research
Infrastructures (RIs). The European Commission introduced and began to
use the concept of RIs in its policy documents since the early 2000s, which,
however, lacks a clear and coherent definition.36 There are good reasons to
argue that the term RIs partly overlaps with that of Big Science because the
European Commission also counts particularly large and complex instru-
ments as well as user facilities among its RIs. But RIs, as defined by the
European Commission, also encompass, for instance, data collections for
the social sciences and humanities, computing grids or mobile air crafts.37
These kinds of infrastructures neither are particularly big in a physical sense
nor fit within a traditional understanding of Big Science (see above). But
their founding histories probably also relate to big politics.
Summarising this current situation, the existence of collaborative Big
Science projects in Europe in the twenty-first century is paralleled by
increasing political expectations that the European Commission, as well as
national European governments, put on the performances of RIs.
However, the creation, construction and operation of Big Science projects
in Europe remain to be based on intergovernmental agreement and thus
formally disentangled from common EU policymaking, bodies and insti-
tutions. The history and politics of Europe and the EEC/EU38 have nev-
ertheless meant a lot for these intergovernmental Big Science projects to
1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORY AND POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE IN EUROPE 9
be established and realised. In other words, and this is one of the core
messages of this book, patterns of diplomatic and political relations among
countries in and around Europe, moments of deepening European inte-
gration, times of European political crisis and upheavals are nevertheless
well resonated by the politics played out during the founding phases of
Big Science collaborations.
The book pays attention to this particular situation in Europe through
introducing the conceptual stance of the other Europe by exploring how
Europe and the EEC/EU were framed, performed and established
through the creation, construction and operation of Big Science collabo-
rations in Europe. This perspective thus promotes a fresh look on the his-
tory and politics of Europe and the European integration process, and
challenges the widely foregrounded research focus of European studies on
treaty reforms and amendments, institution-building and common policy
coordination.39
Reconciling from above, the founding histories of the ESRF and the
European XFEL can thus be characterised as embedded into broader
political contexts through their characteristics as costly and complex scien-
tific collaborations based on intergovernmental agreement. But the inter-
faces between these political aspects and the manifold scientific contexts
that shaped and impacted the early history of the ESRF and the European
XFEL are equally important. For instance, the historical development of
research with synchrotron radiation cannot be traced without dwelling
into the history of particle physics because, originally, synchrotron radia-
tion was an unwanted by-product of accelerator-based particle physics
experiments. This side-note is important because the history of research
with synchrotron radiation has been shaped by an uneasy relationship with
particle physics research. While early research with synchrotron radiation
needed to share accelerators and experimental time with particle physi-
cists, this only changed when dedicated synchrotron radiation sources
were established around the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, the growth
of synchrotron radiation sources certainly benefited from a gradual and
relative decline of large particle physics projects, most notably in the
United States but also in Europe (see Chap. 3). In other words, reflections
on the history of research with synchrotron radiation also need to consider
paralleling historical developments in related disciplines and scientific
fields. This highlights two aspects: first, that the historical developments of
research with synchrotron radiation are embedded into both competitive
and collaborative structures and networks among scientists, governments
10 K. C. CRAMER
and national funding agencies.40 And second, that these developments also
point to longer historical trajectories of technological, scientific, political
and cultural change in Europe (and the United States) since the 1950s
and 1960s.
Moreover, the histories of the ESRF and the European XFEL particu-
larly link to four different political settings that need to be briefly intro-
duced at this point because they provide crucial backgrounds and points
of reference. These contexts include, first, developments in science and
technology in the United States after the end of the Second World War
and the tension-laden relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold
War; second, the historical development of the bilateral relations between
France and Germany from the 1960s to the mid-1980s; third, the emer-
gence of Russia as a new player in European science and politics after the
end of the Cold War; and fourth, the rocky relationship with the United
Kingdom in both European politics and Big Science collaborations.
Additional spotlight needs to be set on the national context of Germany,
which derives from the decisive and crucial contributions of the country to
the establishment of the ESRF and the European XFEL, as well as its over-
all powerful role in both European politics and science in recent decades.
Historians John Krige and Luca Guzzetti argued that the historical
developments in the United States after the end of the Second World War
constituted “a crucial point of reference to understand European big sci-
ence.”41 The post-war period not only gave rise to the United States as a
global military and economic power but also made it the spearhead of
science and technology efforts.42 The Manhattan Project in the 1940s rep-
resented a unique political and scientific effort on the development of
nuclear weapons in the United States; born out of the fear that Germany
might be able to surpass the United States by building an atomic bomb.
This project paved the way for a specific relationship between science,
military and the state, and demonstrated the power of science and its abil-
ity to contribute to national interests.43 It is also widely considered to
stand at the very origin of post-war Big Science.44 This period has also
been fundamental in bringing governmental patronage for basic science
and Big Science, most notably related to nuclear physics, mainly because
“public funding still tended to be framed in terms of arguments relating
to basic research conceived as a cultural good in a free society.”45
These developments are important to consider because they paved the
way towards increasing political commitment to ever-larger high-energy/
particle physics projects, and because the support of basic science in
1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORY AND POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE IN EUROPE 11
(see Chaps. 4 and 5).60 The United Kingdom often withdrew from proj-
ects in the midst of negotiation processes, either because of budget con-
straints and/or because national interests had turned to other priorities.
To the extent that the end of the Cold War as a historical turning point
changed balances of power on the European continent and in the interna-
tional system, it also translated into new forms of political alliances and
multilateral settings. This period saw both the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and the emergence of fourteen
independent countries, as well as the re-unification of Germany as “a
unique case of fusion in a decade of fission,” as historian Tony Judt points
out.61 The integration of Russia as an important actor into the political
and diplomatic agendas of both the individual European member coun-
tries and the EU certainly was a crucial response to this new situation in
the post-Cold War. Full and formal membership of Russia in Western alli-
ances such as the EU or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was
never seriously put on the agenda. But diplomatic relations with Russia
gained new weight when the external borders of the EU were pushed
closer to Russia with the enlargement round in 2004 because to “imagine
a stable European political order without the inclusion of Russia in some
sense would be nonsensical. Its size alone dictates a degree of inclusion.”62
This development not only shaped post-Cold War European politics
but also had an impact on Big Science in Europe. For instance, after the
end of the Cold War, former member countries of the Soviet Union joined
several Big Science projects in Europe, such as CERN, ILL or ESRF.63
Russia acquired observer status at CERN in 1991, applied for associate
member status in 2010 and currently negotiates a new kind of member-
ship that “will have a much higher status and will contribute to coopera-
tion more than associated membership.”64 The country also became a full
member of the ESRF in 2014 and participates with exceptionally large
financial shares in the FAIR (International Accelerator Facility for Beams
of Ions and Antiprotons) and European XFEL projects (see Chap. 5).
The book is structured as follows. Chapter 2 introduces the other Europe
as a conceptual perspective that promotes a fresh look on the development
of Big Science in Europe since the second half of the twentieth century. It
argues that these projects can be regarded as crucial aspects of political and
scientific activities in the recent history of Europe; aspects that are, how-
ever, different from those so far foregrounded by historians, sociologists
or political scientists studying European history and integration. Chapter 3
introduces and contextualises the history and science of research with
14 K. C. CRAMER
Notes
1. See, for example, European Commission, Developing World-Class Research
Infrastructures for the European Research Area (ERA): Report of the ERA
Expert Group (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the
European Communities, 2008), 15; O. Hallonsten, “Research
Infrastructures in Europe: The Hype and the Field.” European Review 28,
no. 4 (2020); K. C. Cramer et al. “Big Science and Research Infrastructures
in Europe: History and Current Trends.” In Big Science and Research
1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORY AND POLITICS OF BIG SCIENCE IN EUROPE 15
57. T. Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York et al.: Penguin
Press, 2005), 292.
58. Judt, Postwar, 307–308, 526.
59. Judt, Postwar, 93.
60. See, for example, B. Jacrot, Des Neutrons pour la Science: Histoire de
l’Institut Laue-Langevin, une Coopération Internationale Particulièrement
Réussie (Les Ulis: EDP Sciences, 2006); Hallonsten, “Continuity and
Change”; Cramer, “The Role of European Big Science”.
61. Judt, Postwar, 638.
62. G. Timmins and J. Gower, “Introduction: Russia and Europe: What Kind
of Partnership?” In Russia and Europe in the Twenty-First Century: An
Uneasy Partnership, eds. J. Gower and G. Timmins (London: Anthem
Press, 2009), xxii; L. Kühnhardt, European Union - The Second Founding:
The Changing Rationale of European Integration (Baden-Baden: Nomos,
2008), 191–195.
63. For instance, after the end of Cold War, CERN was joint by Poland in
1991, the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic in 1992 and Bulgaria in
1999. The ILL was joined by the Czech Republic in 1999, by Hungary in
2005, by Poland in 2006 and by Slovakia in 2009.
64. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, “Russia and CERN are Working Out
a New Format of Cooperation,” News Release (14 March 2018).
Bibliography
Bush, V. Science: The Endless Frontier. Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1945.
Capshew, J. and Rader, K. “Big Science: Price to the Present.” Osiris 7, Science
after ’40 (1992): 2–25.
Castells, M. and Cardoso, G., eds. The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy.
Washington DC: Johns Hopkins Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2005.
Cramer, K. C. “The Role of European Big Science in the (Geo)Political Challenges
of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” In Big Science and Research
Infrastructures in Europe, edited by K. C. Cramer and O. Hallonsten, 56–75.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2020.
Cramer, K. C. “Lightening Europe: Establishing the European Synchrotron
Radiation Facility (ESRF).” History and Technology 33, no. 4 (2017): 396–427.
Cramer, K. C. and Hallonsten, O. “Big Science and Research Infrastructures in
Europe: Conclusions and Outlook.” In Big Science and Research Infrastructures
in Europe, edited by K. C. Cramer and O. Hallonsten, 251–257. Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2020.
Cramer, K. C., Hallonsten, O., Bolliger, I., and Griffiths, A. “Big Science and
Research Infrastructures in Europe: History and Current Trends.” In Big
22 K. C. CRAMER
CLOTHING.
ABLUTION.
242. A young wife, in her first pregnancy, usually takes too long
walks. This is a common cause of flooding, of miscarriage, and of
bearing down of the womb. As soon, therefore, as a lady has the
slightest suspicion that she is enceinte, she must be careful in the
taking of exercise.
243. Although long walks are injurious, she ought not to run into
an opposite extreme; short, gentle, and frequent walks during the
whole period of pregnancy cannot be too strongly recommended;
indeed, a lady who is enceinte ought to live half her time in the open
air. Fresh air and exercise prevent many of the unpleasant symptoms
attendant on that state; they keep her in health; they tend to open
her bowels; and they relieve that sensation of faintness and
depression so common and distressing in early pregnancy.
244. Exercise, fresh air, and occupation are then essentially
necessary in pregnancy. If they be neglected, hard and tedious labors
are likely to ensue. One, and an important, reason of the easy and
quick labors and rapid “gettings about” of poor women, is the
abundance of exercise and of occupation which they are both daily
and hourly obliged to get through. Why, many a poor woman thinks
but little of a confinement, while a rich one is full of anxiety about
the result. Let the rich lady adopt the poor woman’s industrious and
abstemious habits, and labor need not then be looked forward to, as
it frequently now is, either with dread or with apprehension.
245. Stooping, lifting of heavy weights, and overreaching ought to
be carefully avoided. Running, horse exercise, and dancing are
likewise dangerous—they frequently induce a miscarriage.
246. Indolence is most injurious in pregnancy. A lady who, during
the greater part of the day, lolls either on the sofa or on an easy-
chair, and who seldom walks out, has a much more lingering and
painful labor than one who takes moderate and regular open-air
exercise, and who attends to her household duties.
247. An active life is, then, the principal reason why the wives of
the poor have such quick and easy labors, and such good recoveries;
why their babies are so rosy, healthy, and strong; notwithstanding
the privations and hardships and poverty of the parents.
248. Bear in mind, then, that a lively, active woman has an easier
and quicker labor, and a finer race of children, than one who is
lethargic and indolent. Idleness brings misery, anguish, and suffering
in its train, and particularly affects pregnant ladies. Oh, that these
words would have due weight, then this book will not have been
written in vain. The hardest work in the world is having nothing to
do! “Idle people have the most labor;” this is particularly true in
pregnancy; a lady will, when labor actually sets in, find to her cost
that idleness has given her most labor. “Idleness is the badge of
gentry, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of Naughtiness, the
step-mother of Discipline, the chief author of all Mischief, one of the
seven deadly sins, the cushion upon which the Devil chiefly reposes,
and a great cause not only of Melancholy, but of many other diseases,
for the mind is naturally active; and, if it be not occupied about some
honest business, it rushes into Mischief or sinks into Melancholy.”[57]
249. A lady sometimes looks upon pregnancy more as a disease
than as a natural process; hence she treats herself as though she was
a regular invalid, and, unfortunately, she too often makes herself
really one by improper and by foolish indulgences.
VENTILATION—DRAINAGE.
250. Let a lady look well to the ventilation of her house; let her
take care that every chimney be unstopped, and during the daytime
that every window in every unoccupied room be thrown open.
251. Where there is a skylight at the top of the house, it is well to
have it made to open and to shut, so that in the daytime it may,
winter and summer, be always open; and in the summer time it may,
day and night, be left unclosed. Nothing so thoroughly ventilates and
purifies a house as an open skylight.
252. If a lady did but know the importance—the vital importance—
of ventilation, she would see that the above directions were carried
out to the very letter. My firm belief is that if more attention were
paid to ventilation—to thorough ventilation—child-bed fever would
be an almost unknown disease.
253. The cooping-up system is abominable; it engenders all
manner of infectious and of loathsome diseases, and not only
engenders them, but feeds them, and thus keeps them alive. There is
nothing wonderful in all this, if we consider but for one moment that
the exhalations from the lungs are poisonous! That is to say, that the
lungs give off carbonic acid gas (a deadly poison), which, if it be not
allowed to escape out of the room, must over and over again be
breathed. That if the perspiration of the body (which in twenty-four
hours amounts to two or three pounds) be not permitted to escape
out of the apartment, must become fetid—repugnant to the nose,
sickening to the stomach, and injurious to the health. Oh, how often
the nose is a sentinel, and warns its owner of approaching danger!
254. Truly the nose is a sentinel! The Almighty has sent bad smells
for our benefit to warn us of danger. If it were not for an unpleasant
smell, we should be constantly running into destruction. How often
we hear of an ignorant person using disinfectants and fumigations to
deprive drains and other horrid places of their odors, as though, if
the place could be robbed of its smell, it could be robbed of its
danger! Strange infatuation! No; the frequent flushings of drains, the
removal of nuisances, cleanliness, a good scrubbing of soap and
water, sunshine, and the air and winds of heaven, are the best
disinfectants in the world. A celebrated and eccentric lecturer on
surgery,[58] in addressing his class, made the following quaint and
sensible remark: “Fumigations, gentlemen, are of essential
importance; they make so abominable a stink that they compel you
to open the windows and admit fresh air.”
255. It is doubtless, then, admirably appointed that, we are able to
detect “the well-defined and several stinks;” for the danger is not in
them,—to destroy the smell is not to destroy the danger; certainly
not! The right way to do away with the danger is to remove the cause,
and the effect will cease; flushing a sewer is far more efficacious than
disinfecting one; soap and water and the scrubbing-brush, and
sunshine and thorough ventilation, each and all are far more
beneficial than either permanganate of potash, or chloride of zinc, or
chloride of lime. People nowadays think too much of disinfectants
and too little of removal of causes; they think too much of artificial,
and too little of natural means. It is a sad mistake to lean so much
on, and to trust so much to, man’s inventions!
256. What is wanted, nowadays, is a little less theory and a great
deal more common sense. A rat, for instance, is, in theory, grossly
maligned; he is considered to be very destructive, an enemy to man,
and one that ought to be destroyed—every man’s hand being against
him. Now, a rat is, by common sense, well known to be, in its proper
place—that is to say, in sewers and in drains—destructive only to
man’s enemies—to the organic matter that breeds fevers, cholera,
diphtheria, etc.; the rat eats the pabulum or food which would
otherwise convert towns into hot-beds of terrible diseases. That
which is a rat’s food is often a man’s poison; hence a rat is one of the
best friends that a man has, and ought, in his proper place, to be in
every way protected; the rat, in drains, is the very best of scavengers;
in a sewer he is invaluable; in a house he is most injurious; a rat in a
sewer is worth gallons of disinfectants, and will, in purifying a sewer,
beat all man’s inventions hollow; the maligned rat, therefore, turns
out, if weighed by common sense, to be not only one of the most
useful of animals, but of public benefactors! The rat’s element, then,
is the sewer; he is the king of the sewer, and should there reign
supreme, and ought not to be poisoned by horrid disinfectants.
257. If a lady, while on an errand of mercy, should in the morning
go into a poor person’s bedroom after he, she, or they (for oftentimes
the room is crowded to suffocation) have during the night been
sleeping, and where a breath of air is not allowed to enter—the
chimney and every crevice having been stopped up—and where too
much attention has not been paid to personal cleanliness, she will
experience a faintness, an oppression, a sickness, a headache, a
terribly fetid smell; indeed, she is in a poisoned chamber! It is an
odor sui generis, which must be smelt to be remembered, and will
then never be forgotten! Pity the poor who live in such styes—not fit
for pigs! For pigs, styes are ventilated. But take warning, ye well-to-
do in the world, and look well to your ventilation, or beware of the
consequences. “If,” says an able writer on fever in the last century,
“any person will take the trouble to stand in the sun and look at his
own shadow on a white plastered wall, he will easily perceive that his
whole body is a smoking dunghill, with a vapor exhaling from every
part of it. This vapor is subtle, acrid, and offensive to the smell; if
retained in the body it becomes morbid, but if reabsorbed, highly
deleterious. If a number of persons, therefore, are long confined in
any close place not properly ventilated, so as to inspire and swallow
with their spittle the vapors of each other, they must soon feel its bad
effects.”[59]
258. Not only should a lady look well to the ventilation of her
house, but either she or her husband ought to ascertain that the
drains are in good and perfect order, and that the privies are
frequently emptied of their contents. Bad drainage and overflowing
privies are fruitful sources of child-bed fever, of gastric fever, of
scarlatina, of diphtheria, of cholera, and of a host of other infections
and contagious and dangerous diseases. It is an abominable practice
to allow dirt to fester near human habitations; more especially as
dirt, when mixed with earth, is really so valuable in fertilizing the
soil. Lord Palmerston wisely says that “dirt is only matter in the
wrong place.”
259. A lady ought to look well to the purity of her pump-water,
and to ascertain that no drain either enters or percolates, or
contaminates in any way whatever, the spring; if it should do so,
disease, such as either cholera, or diarrhœa, or dysentery, or
diphtheria, or scarlet fever, or gastric fever, will, one or the other, as
a matter of course, ensue. If there be the slightest danger or risk of
drain contamination, whenever it be practicable, let the drain be
taken up and be examined, and let the defect be carefully rectified.
When it be impracticable to have the drain taken up and examined,
then let the pump-water, before drinking it, be always previously
boiled. The boiling of the water, as experience teaches, has the power
either of destroying or of making innocuous the specific organic fecal
life poison, which propagates in drain contamination the diseases
above enumerated.
260. A lady who is pregnant ought, for half an hour each time, to
lie one or two hours every day on the sofa. This, if there be either a
bearing down of the womb, or if there be a predisposition to a
miscarriage, will be particularly necessary. I should recommend this
plan to be adopted throughout the whole period of the pregnancy: in
the early months, to prevent a miscarriage, and, in the latter months,
on account of the increased weight and size of the womb.
261. There is, occasionally, during the latter months, a difficulty in
lying down; the patient feeling as though, every time she makes the
attempt, she should be suffocated. When such be the case, she ought
to rest herself upon the sofa, and be propped up with cushions, as I
consider rest at different periods of the day necessary and beneficial.
If there be any difficulty in lying down at night, a bed-rest, well
covered with pillows, will be found a great comfort.
DIETARY.
SLEEP.
MEDICINE.
277. A young wife is usually averse to consult a medical man
concerning several trifling ailments, which are nevertheless, in many
cases, both annoying and distressing. I have therefore deemed it well
to give a brief account of such slight ailments, and to prescribe a few
safe and simple remedies for them. I say safe and simple, for active
medicines require skillful handling, and therefore ought not—unless
in certain emergencies—to be used except by a doctor himself.
278. I wish it, then, to be distinctly understood that in all serious
attacks, and in slight ailments if not quickly relieved, a medical man
ought to be called in.
279. A costive state of the bowels is common in pregnancy; a mild
aperient is therefore occasionally necessary. The mildest must be
selected, as a strong purgative is highly improper, and even
dangerous. Calomel and all other preparations of mercury are to be
especially avoided, as a mercurial medicine is apt to weaken the
system and sometimes even to produce a miscarriage.
280. An abstemious diet, where the bowels are costive, is more
than usually desirable, for if the bowels be torpid, a quantity of food
will only clog and make them more sluggish. Besides, when labor
comes on, a loaded state of the bowels will add much to a lady’s
sufferings as well as to her annoyance.
281. The best aperients are castor oil, salad oil, compound rhubarb
pills, honey, stewed prunes, stewed rhubarb, Muscatel raisins, figs,
grapes, roasted apples, Normandy pippins, oatmeal and milk gruel,
coffee, brown bread and treacle, raw sugar (as a sweetener of the
food), Du Barry’s Arabica Revalenta.
282. Castor oil, in pregnancy, is a valuable aperient. Frequent and
small are preferable to occasional and large doses. If the bowels be
constipated (but certainly not otherwise), castor oil ought to be
taken regularly twice a week. The best time for administering it is
early in the morning. The dose is from a teaspoonful to a
dessertspoonful.
283. The best ways of administering it are the following: Let a
wineglass be well rinsed out with water, so that the sides may be well
wetted; then, let the wineglass be half filled with cold water, fresh
from the pump. Let the necessary quantity of oil be now carefully
poured into the center of the wineglass, taking care that it does not
touch the sides; and if the patient will, thus prepared, drink it off at
one draught, she will scarcely taste it. Another way of taking it is,
swimming on warm new milk. A third and a good method is, floating
on warm coffee; the coffee ought, in the usual way, to be previously
sweetened and mixed with cream. There are two advantages in giving
castor oil on coffee: (1) it is a pleasant way of giving it—the oil is
scarcely tasted; and (2) the coffee itself, more especially if it be
sweetened with raw sugar, acts as an aperient; less castor oil, in
consequence, being required; indeed, with many patients the coffee,
sweetened with raw sugar, alone is a sufficient aperient. A fourth
and an agreeable way of administering it is on orange-juice—
swimming on the juice of one orange.
284. Some ladies are in the habit of taking it on brandy and water;
but the spirit is apt to dissolve a portion of the oil, which afterwards
rises in the throat.
285. If salad oil be preferred, the dose ought to be as much again
as of castor oil; and the patient should, during the day she takes it,
eat either a fig or two, or a dozen or fifteen of stewed prunes, or of
stewed French plums, as salad oil is much milder in its effects than
castor oil.
286. Where a lady cannot take oil, one or two compound rhubarb
pills may be taken at bedtime; or a Seidlitz powder early in the
morning, occasionally; or a quarter of an ounce of tasteless salts—
phosphate of soda—may be dissolved in lieu of table salt, in a cupful
either of soup, or of broth, or of beef-tea, and be occasionally taken
at luncheon.
287. When the motions are hard, and when the bowels are easily
acted upon, two, or three, or four pills made of Castile soap will
frequently answer the purpose; and if they will, are far better than
any ordinary aperient. The following is a good form:
Take of—Castile Soap, five scruples;
Oil of Caraway, six drops: