Research of less-than-desirable topics (wounds, wound complications, etc.)
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@urwen-starial, @deeprun Gladly! I know exactly what you mean – there’s a certain cathartic fascination that comes with understanding revolting things (like the human body inside out).
I love studying the medieval world, so I’m happy to continue being an Encyclopedia pro bono – that said, I might take you up on them character sketches….
Here’s the link below; I tried to put a hyperlink in but Story Embers spat that right back out. The gore factor should be no greater than the content of this thread; in terms of darkness, there’s quite a bit of it, and the protagonists don’t always have good intentions – they’re flawed human beings struggling deeply with sin.
Drop me the link for your stuff; I’ll be glad to read!
Hearts and Minds
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aVKViV2lesGGNSYi5S5UQkjBg4Naxha-3f80Y0zP5z0/edit?usp=sharing
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
@the-inkspiller Yay! I just pasted them in this doc here… https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wHvu-Pego35e3sgiH1yG2qky2co0qOHCgNtuIqfel10/edit?usp=sharing
And I’d love to read yours! I may not can get around to it very quickly, cause I have another one with a deadline that I’m supposed to beta-read, but I’ll definitely try to read it soon (ish)! Do peeps have commenting power in the doc, or, if not, how would you like me to do comments?
“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
@deeprun
I do the same! On the character memes page, I’ll copy what I’m typing about every other paragraph, just in case.
XD
@the-inkspiller And yo, I’ll trade you some fresh eggs (duck or chicken, possibly turkey [if Butters laid enough]) for your encyclopedia-ness! We have an over-abundance of eggs right now XD I wish I could just send everybody a couple dozen over the internet…“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
@the-inkspiller – WOW. That information on infections was so helpful. I’m one of those people who don’t really get grossed out about those things (not sure if that’s good or bad xD) and found it really cool and fascinating. Thank you! I’m taking A&P right now, so whenever we discuss things about injuries and whatnot, I get so excited (the same can probably not be said about my poor characters, lol.)
Also, I’d love to read your story! It sounds so interesting. No promises on when I’ll be able to finish it though (because of the aforementioned A&P class.)
"Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
@the-inkspiller *star eyes mixed with green face* Thank you so much! Okay, I might as well give some details of what’s going on. I can change things to make it more realistic as needed. 😉
So one character slips the juice of a poisonous berry into another’s water, which results in him having a reaction within a matter of hours. Right now, he ends up getting sudden excruciating pain in his heart and collapsing, quickly going unconscious. Since the process is somewhat advanced at this point, the healer feeds the antidote directly into a vein. He survives, but the way I’ve got it right now he ends up with angina when activities or stress induces it.
So! I’d planned on the poison attacking his heart, but I’m not sure how plant poisons usually work. And I need this kid to survive. . . XD Any reality checks/ideas?
***thank you so much I think I speak for everyone here when I say you’re one of our favorite people XD. . .***
Oh, and I’d love to beta-read your story at some point! I just can’t promise when I could. . . I have a long list of things to beta right now. . . XD
Hearts are like matter--they can be beaten down, torn, and burned, but they cannot be destroyed.
@naiya-dyani There are plenty of poisonous plants with toxins which affect the heart, some more swiftly than others. Wolfsbane, Doll’s Eyes, and Belladonna all produce substances which attack the heart in one way or another, and death of any heart muscle will cause shooting chest pain (angina) in the event of inducing cardiac arrest.
Wolf’s bane will induce arrhythmia (irregular, ineffective heart beat), bradycardia (reduced heart rate), diarrhea, and hypotension (reduced blood pressure) together with other symptoms like dizziness, sweating, and loss of consciousness (from the above symptoms).
Doll’s Eyes will induce sedation of heart muscles, quickly leading to cardiac arrest and death as your heart just decides not to beat anymore.
Belladonna paralyzes the parasympathetic nervous system, resulting in complete disregulation of involuntary activity like breathing, sweating, and heart rate. HOWEVER, belladonna has a specific antidote, called physostigmine or eserine, a chemical which directly counteracts the action of Belladonna’s poisonous chemicals; it may be naturally derived from the Calabar bean (native to West Africa) and the Machineel Tree (native to the Americas). This solution would best be administered through injection.
That said, ingesting the cure on its own will ALSO kill you. They neutralize each other, but each will kill you if taken by itself.Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
Okay, just finished reading it through once. I’m planning to go back through and look for things now. Idk how intense it’ll be, because it’s really good!
I really enjoyed it. Medieval isn’t necessarily my favorite kind of thing to read, but that was seriously so amazing!
Also, I’m wondering about the church Myrrha is in, is it supposed to be Catholic? Cuz I’m under the impression that most of the churches in that time period were.
I love Mitts so much! Great job.
“Tears sparkle like fallen stars, the world at our fingertips, We didn’t know, It wasn't happiness.
@urwen-starial Thank you! I’m glad that you liked it even outside your normal genre, and I eagerly await your analysis in the second reading!
As for the church, yes, it’s Catholic, more or less. Things are a bit nutty at this time in Bohemia, and I need to do more research on the year-by-year timeline and locations to make sure the right areas are described correctly with the correct allegiances.
As of this writing, this village (Jedlka) is under Hussite control – reformers, rebels, and designated ‘heretics’ who insist that communion must be administered in both parts – the bread and the wine (sub utraque) – while the default Roman Catholic practice was for the laity to have the bread only, while the priest took both the bread and the wine. The Hussites believed the Roman practice was nothing short of blasphemy condemning to Hell those who took the communion in that manner, and so were understandably rather vehement about being allowed to take communion in both parts.
If you want to know more about the history of Bohemia and the Hussite Wars I can write more. This stuff however is very much background at the moment; Myrrha and Erhard’s adventures, while they tangle with history, are much more personal in nature. Lady Kyreleis is the one for whom I have to worry about history. 😛
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
@the-inkspiller (I’m gonna assume that you and Jonathan are the same person 😛 )
I went and read back over all your comments and, like I said on the doc, found them all very helpful!
So… is it realistic for a person to be able to set her own arm? (The break is about halfway up the radius [just fyi for perspective purposes]) Also, I assume that either the radius or ulna can be broken without the other one also being broken?
“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
@the-inkspiller Also, the break was caused by strong pressure (so think someone grabbing your forearm tight enough to break it. Not twisting it or anything, just squeezing), if that matters any as far as symptoms, treatment, recovery, etc.
“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
Oog. It’s a good thing that I seem to be able to stomach most graphic descriptions of gore/violence. XD
(Researching types of puncture wounds. Very interesting.)
“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
@anne_the_noob14 Indeed, I am Jonathan, one of many. 🙂
It is possible to set your own arm and make a sling one-handed; setting your arm depends on your tolerance for pain (it’s similar to setting a dislocated joint, with added potential damage to your squishy inner tissues), your knowledge of anatomy, and most importantly, the kind of fracture. Making a sling will depend on one’s creativity and flexibility in using your other limbs or improvised tools to make up for not being able to use the broken arm. Depending on the break, you may still be able to pinch-grip things (somewhat) if you can bear with the extreme pain, but no supporting any weight of more than a few ounces.
Yes, the radius and ulna can be broken separately.
Hmm. A squeeze break? That’s quite a strong grip, to put it lightly (in terms of compression strength, bone is actually superior to solid steel – but much weaker on the tension side); however, that kind of force seems like it would be exerted over a relatively long period of time (compared to say whacking the arm with a hammer; we’re talking seconds vs an instant.) That sort of ‘squeeze until it gives’ seems like it would be more likely to break the thinner ulna, assuming the grip was of human hand size or larger, versus a short but powerful crab claw sort of thing.
Whether or not it also breaks the ulna, a fracture caused by the bone simply being squeezed like a lemon would not be a clean break, but would almost certainly result in what’s called a “comminuted fracture” or a break which results in the bone breaking into three or more pieces; in this case, that would look like a jagged main line break (or two) with several to a dozen micro-fractures, loose chunks of bone of tooth size or smaller, as well as bone particles.
This sort of break would be impossible to fix cleanly without the most skillful surgeon and most cutting edge technology in the world to cut into the arm and literally staple your bones back together and apply traction treatments over the course of months to hopefully grow your arm-bone back into a normal shape. With medieval medicine, if the bone is set like a normal clean transverse / oblique break, the bone is going to grow back either bent out of shape or with a fat lump of scar tissue and in-grown bone where the break is.
Ironically, a twisting or snapping motion is more likely to generate an oblique or transverse fracture of one or both (most likely both) bones, which, while horrifying to watch, will actually be easier to set and is more likely to heal cleanly. The sort of force that can literally just squeeze a bone until it cracks is comparable to being hit by a car.
A sling you could assemble might consist of two to three sticks of about forearm length tied together with bandages, torn cloth, string, or vines, then two long loops made, one at the wrist and one at the elbow, to suspend the sling from the shoulder opposite the fractured arm (so, if you broke your right arm, you’d hang it from the left). As for doing that one-handed: you can single-hand tie a basic loop with just your fingers, even with your non-dominant hand (like half a shoelace knot), then use your teeth to grip one end while you pull it tight on the other end over one end of the stick; loop the free-hanging string several times around that stick, leaving the last loop a little loose; thread the string through that loop and pull it tight. Repeat for each stick, then again at the other end. To keep the sticks at a working height, you could clutch them between your thighs. You will need an extra long loop for each of the shoulder straps, at least a yard, and possibly 2 – 5 times that if you have very thin and/or weak string / vines to work with; however, the tying process will be about the same.
The radius is unfortunately the more critical of your two forearm bones (though both are important); with the fracture of your radius, stability and grip strength in your thumb and pointer & middle fingers is going to be gone; the muscles which pull on your fingers are actually in your wrist, not your fingers, so a fractured radius means it’s going to be excruciatingly painful to hold anything, and nothing short of an adrenaline rush or a lot of morphine is going to dull the pain enough to try and get any use out of that hand.
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
*nods* Alrighty. Gwen probably has a high enough tolerance for pain to be able to do it, and definitely knowledge and creativity enough, so I’ll say that’s taken care of…
Yeah, relatively human hand, but of a creature strong enough that breaking the bone isn’t a problem. But I’ll change that to the ulna. Not that it really matters as far as the plot goes, and not that I’ll ever mention which one it was, but… XD
Whether or not it also breaks the ulna, a fracture caused by the bone simply being squeezed like a lemon would not be a clean break, but would almost certainly result in what’s called a “comminuted fracture” or a break which results in the bone breaking into three or more pieces; in this case, that would look like a jagged main line break (or two) with several to a dozen micro-fractures, loose chunks of bone of tooth size or smaller, as well as bone particles. This sort of break would be impossible to fix cleanly without the most skillful surgeon and most cutting edge technology in the world to cut into the arm and literally staple your bones back together and apply traction treatments over the course of months to hopefully grow your arm-bone back into a normal shape. With medieval medicine, if the bone is set like a normal clean transverse / oblique break, the bone is going to grow back either bent out of shape or with a fat lump of scar tissue and in-grown bone where the break is. Ironically, a twisting or snapping motion is more likely to generate an oblique or transverse fracture of one or both (most likely both) bones, which, while horrifying to watch, will actually be easier to set and is more likely to heal cleanly. The sort of force that can literally just squeeze a bone until it cracks is comparable to being hit by a car.
Gee, amputation is really sounding like the better option here in my opinion! XD If I was Gwen… I’d have Dana amputate.
Another question, not related to this at all except for that I’m still talking about broken bones: When I was about… 8 or 10, probably 8, I fell on a concrete floor and chipped (?) my elbow. The reason I put a question mark there is I’m not sure if that’s the right word. I fell with my arm kinda out beside me, bent at the elbow, so the force came from pretty much right underneath it. I vaguely remember seeing the x-rays and I think there was a chocolate-chip-sized piece of bone that wasn’t attached anymore. Am I right in telling people, when they ask if I’ve broken any bones, that I chipped my elbow?
“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
Technically, the elbow is a joint, not a bone. You more than likely chipped either your ulna or radius in the fall. For practical purposes though, “I chipped my elbow” paints a clearer picture for your average lay person than a “micro-fracture of the olecranon process of my ulna” or whichever part of your bone you broke. 🙂
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
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