Sleep well... with help

I recently posted at the Poisoned Pen Press blog about headache/migraine cures that were sometimes used "way back when." Someone then commented/asked about "sleep aids" in the 1800s. Well, heck, ask me to investigate something from the past, and...

 Google books makes it easy to dig back into time and uncover such information. Here, for instance, is a bit of advice from DR. CHASE'S FAMILY PHYSICIAN, FARRIER, BEE-KEEPER, AND SECOND RECEIPT BOOK (I have a hardcopy, but image capture is so much easier than all that typing):

Hmm. Being scrubbed vigorously all over doesn't sound very sleep-inducing to me. And what, I wondered, does a flesh brush (circa 1880) look like?

It looks like this:

This, actually, is "Dr. Scott's Electric Flesh Brush," which was widely advertised starting in the early 1880s. According to the website American Artifacts: Scientific Medical & Mechanical Antiques, Dr. Scott (a bit--or perhaps a lot--of a medical quack) embedded slightly magnetized iron rods in his brush handles, claiming that curative powers could be provided by magnetism.

The rest of Dr. Chase's advice sounds like something you'd hear today: Get out and get some exercise during the day to sleep better at night.

I stumbled across another free historical ebook from the past that looks REALLY interesting regarding this subject (although a bit late for me, as it was published in 1891): INSOMNIA AND ITS THERAPEUTICS by Alexander William Macfarlane. The table of contents gives you an idea of the amount of detail you're in for, as it divides the causes (and cures) of insomnia into various categories: insomnia due to nervous system afflictions (overwork, shock, depressing emotions, hysteria, spasmodic neuroses, etc., etc.),  insomnia due to alimentary canal afflictions (gastric dyspepsia, intestinal dyspepsia, constipation, etc., etc.), and insomnia due to afflictions of the respiratory system and urinary system,  was well as (ahem) afflictions peculiar to females.

With Leadville, Colorado, perched at the 10,000-plus-foot mark in the Rocky Mountains, I can well imagine hordes of men and women, paging desperately through pages of books such as these, looking for "causes and cures" of sleeplessness, which might actually be due to altitude sickness.

An ingredient commonly used in tonics or imbibed "straight" to quiet the mind and body for sleep back then would have been in great supply at The Silver Queen Saloon--my ficitional drinking establishment in Leadville:

Alcohol

Sleep well!

Real People in Mercury's Rise

Ann Parker, on the second day of a two-week (plus a bit) virtual tour for Mercury's Rise, the newest book in the Silver Rush series.

Today is a "home stop" at my own blog, which features random musings on writing, history, mystery, or whatever crosses my mind. This time (rubbing hands together gleefully), I'm going to talk about using real people in my latest mystery.

Now, there are several kinds of "real" people. There are the people who existed in that time and place. There are a few of that kind wandering through the pages, including Colorado photographer Anna Galbreaith, who is a source of curiosity and mystery to me (I would *love* to know more about her and her life). I do know she was a landscape photographer in Manitou, Colorado, during the mid-1880s and also ran a boarding house called the Ohio House. Since she signed her photographs "Mrs. Anna Galbreaith," I assume she was a widow... or possibly a divorcée? You can read more about Anna and see an example of her work here in a post I did yesterday to kick off this virtual tour. Other people of the day are mentioned in Mercury's Rise: William Palmer Jackson (founder of Colorado Springs and the Denver & Rio Grande) and Dr. William Bell (founder of Manitou Springs).

The real Robert Calder

But the real people I REALLY had fun with are folks I know in the present day world of 2011, who gave permission for me to use their names. In two cases, these folks "won" the honor of appearing in the story. Robert Calder (an artist who does wonderful watercolors that capture Leadville's past) had his name pulled out of a hat to appear as a character in the book. You can read a little about Bob and his work in this online article from Colorado Magazine. It seemed a natural fit to make Robert a plein-air artist, who is visiting Manitou with more than painting on his agenda. Sharon Crowson is a mystery reader and fan who has "been dying" (so to speak) to appear in a Silver Rush book. A bribe of chocolate did the trick, and she's there in the pages of Mercury's Rise, with a slightly different first name.

The real Dr. Prochazka

Dr. Aurelius Prochazka is a bona fide doctor... but not of medicine. You can get the gist of his claim to the Dr. title from this on his website: "Aure began his career at the California Institute of Technology  analyzing the aerodynamic stability of the F-117A Stealth Fighter and worked on computational fluid dynamics for his PhD thesis." Aure is a scientist, a musician, and an author in his own right. I've worked with Aure, and from those earliest days was just itching to steal his name (and some of his "renaissance man" personality) and plunk him down in 1880. He was a good sport about the whole thing when I asked (hopefully, he still is, now that the book is published!).

Finally, there are the Paces. While I was working with Aure, I also worked with Kirsten Pace and her husband Eric Cummings. I decided it would be fun to put Kirsten and her family (kids and all) in the story. She was fine with that, even after I gave her a much older, cantankerous husband (WHO IS NOT YOU, ERIC. Just want to make that clear. You appear at the end as a nice guy.) Kirsten just finished reading the book the other day and said she enjoyed it (well, she'd better say that! ;-) ) and then added it was odd to see her name crop up page after page after page... Just one of the hazards of being a key character in a novel!

There are shades of other "real people" in some of the continuing characters in my series. My protagonist, Inez Stannert is named after my grandmother. (You can read a bit about her and why she ended up my protagonist in another guest post here on Gayle Gresham's Colorado Reflections blog.) Doctor Cramer embodies elements of my own father, a kindly physician with a real knack for listening to his patients. Susan Carothers has a spirit much like a dear friend of mine from childhood, also named Susan, who like my fictional character forged a life to match her inner passions.

And then... there are those real people whom I shadow in darkness, twist their genders and their names, and gleefully make them murderers or victims and do horrible things to them (in fiction!) because at some point in my life they really ticked me off or hurt someone I loved. But I'm not going to say anything more about them. They will remain a mystery. ;-)
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Feel the Love....

For those who might be interested, here are links to my posts on "The Etiquette of Wooing (1880s-style)" that appeared on The Lady Killers blog last month.

Introductions (or... pleased to make your acquaintance...)

Love Letters (or... how do I love thee? Let me note the ways... Circumspectly, of course.)

Courtship (or... Parents be(a)ware.)

Proposals (or... popping THE question. Properly.)

Enjoy! ... and remember to Mind Your Manners!