Stone-age laboratory

[Green Baron]

You don't need to look at northern America for early medical advances. Romans and medieval Islam are examples for earlier advances.

[wumpus]

21 hours ago, Scotius said:

Yeah, you are not going to build useful medical laboratory in a cave. Best your character can do, is to improve hygiene, quarantine victims of disease, eventually introduce natural medicine - like willow bark which contains useful amounts of good old aspirine. Convincing your cavemen to not dump rotting remains of food and excrements just beyond entrance to their dwelling would go a long way, i'd think

I have to question the advantage of quarantine.  In hunter/gatherer society, their just isn't a sufficiently large population for human-to-human infection to be a primary disease vector.  Any communicable diseases came directly from animals.  It might work in a neolithic farming society, but you would need a pretty big village and nearby villages (with plenty of contact) before diseases could spread at all.

Hygine should be critical, but don't be surprised if "the old ways" work better for reasons that aren't obvious to a modern type.  Good luck identifying natural medicine, the shaman probably knows more than than most professors specializing in the field (especially since he can concentrate on local plants)*.  In an agricultural neo-lithic society, human-to-human diseases may be possible, but you should be able to culture some penicillin (remember: it is the brown mold, not any others.  And don't be surprised if you first few brown molds don't work).

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Imho the Yankee's adventures in Camelot would finish after the first spoken word.
Because he speaks in Sassenach language.

 

Spoiler

The language barrier might be wildly less for Chinese (presumably Mandarin would be helpful across the ages, but you'd probably need to learn the local dialect of any village you met).  I'd assume anyone who spoke Italian/ Spanish/French (I'm told Spanish is particularly close to Italian) shouldn't have to much trouble picking up Church Latin (preferably before leaving).  This might help greatly in dealing with the local lingo.

Also I'm reading the Icelandic sagas.  Avoid Norse areas at all costs, especially if you don't want to be casually murdered because the local warriors were feeling grumpy.

 

* Jared Diamond mentioned as an aside that modern hunter gathers appear to have PhD level botany skills when it comes to edible plants (and these were the guys/hunters knowing what anthropologists would list as "women's work"), you don't last long in the bush while passing up food.

Edited August 4, 2018 by wumpus

[Green Baron]

... just a side node that always makes a modern day paleo-guy grin when reading "women's work"

It was the result of a faux pas to foolishly name a symposium "Man the Hunter". It right away triggered a counter statement "Woman, the Gatherer" and the stereotypes were complete. Guess were ;-)

 

Gender roles were, of course, never as strictly assigned as some limited "modern day" notion might make one believe ;-) Women went hunting and men went gathering.

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

21 minutes ago, wumpus said:

The language barrier

would be the least of Yankee's troubles.
Vice versa, his trouble was its absence.

King Arthur was famous for stopping the Sassenachs' invasion.
And iirc Yankee never told that he was speaking Gaelic or Latin.

_{(I'll split the post in two)}

Edited August 4, 2018 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

would be the least of Yankee's troubles.
Vice versa, his trouble was its absence.

King Arthur was famous for stopping the Sassenachs' invasion.
And iirc Yankee never told that he was speaking Gaelic or Latin.

_{(I'll split the post in two)}

 

Spoiler

Reality check: Alfred the Great stopped the Norse invasion (winning is so dreadfully un-English).  England is called England because the Angles (and the Saxons) won.  Even in most telling of the myths, Camelot falls.

But it would be a really bad idea for someone speaking English to show up in Arthur's court.  The real question is if anyone would identify the language Hank Morgan spoke as "English", as modern Dutch is much closer to what the Saxons were speaking at the time.  It wouldn't take long for to realize that whatever Latin a schoolboy was supposed to learn in Mark Twain's time would be more useful than "English" (provided of course that they haven't sacrificed him to Drudic gods [unlikely, Romans strongly objected to that type of thing.  The Saxons are another story.] or thrown him in the gladatorial pit).  I think he'd have a better chance of communicating with King Arthur's court than anywhere else, but that he'd probably just be enslaved by either side (Romans were certainly used to having slaves from just about anywhere).

And as mentioned above, I'd really want to avoid the Norse (Saxons tended to be even nastier pre-Norse).  Romans might have been brutal, but Christianity took plenty of their edge off (regardless of how brutal other Christians were in history), and Hank might even manage to talk to them (but almost certainly would be made a slave.  In those times you had to be able to prove your freedom and fight off anybody who might claim you are their slave.  Hank would be unlikely to be able to do either).

One thing I should point out in defense of Mark Twain: a 19th century Yankee has a much higher chance of being familiar with all the steps from at least renaissance tech to Victorian tech.  So if Hank is dealing with knights jousting in shining armor, he has a good chance of whipping up most Victorian tech (provided a similar infinite pool of labor like the Victorians: better know how to produce fertilizer first).  Trying to produce 21st century tech without the full 20th century supply chain would take much more than a lifetime of work.

 

[sevenperforce]

16 minutes ago, wumpus said:

One thing I should point out in defense of Mark Twain: a 19th century Yankee has a much higher chance of being familiar with all the steps from at least renaissance tech to Victorian tech.  So if Hank is dealing with knights jousting in shining armor, he has a good chance of whipping up most Victorian tech (provided a similar infinite pool of labor like the Victorians: better know how to produce fertilizer first).  Trying to produce 21st century tech without the full 20th century supply chain would take much more than a lifetime of work.

Just like Gabaldon's Claire is much better-suited to provide medical assistance thanks to WWII experience than her fully-modern counterparts would.

[Green Baron]

There are a thousand years between late Roman/early medieval Arthur and late medieval/early modern Renaissance ...

iirc ?

if that arthur guy ever existed

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by Green Baron

[KG3]

6 hours ago, wumpus said:

Hygine should be critical, but don't be surprised if "the old ways" work better for reasons that aren't obvious to a modern type.  

At one point in the Connecticut Yankee tale he tries to introduce the concept of hygiene.  He demonstrates by kidnapping the local hermit and washing him with soap and water in front of a bunch of villagers.  The hermit dies as a result.

Traveling back to a stone age civilization would probably have would have a much more profound effect on the traveler than the civilization.       

[wumpus]

4 hours ago, Green Baron said:

There are a thousand years between late Roman/early medieval Arthur and late medieval/early modern Renaissance ...

iirc ?

if that arthur guy ever existed

Pretty much.  But thanks to Morte de Arthur the tale is pretty much locked into tales including full jousting on horseback complete with the expected armor (heavy plate, presumably with articulated joints).  Romanized britons might have had lorica segmentata (mostly metal strips), which might look similar to modern eyes but that is vastly different and never used for jousting.

The  "Arthur" according  to Geoffrey of Monmouth (one of the earliest records) could hardly be recognised as Arthur today, and his Merlin appears a raving lunatic.  Just the names and possibly a round table remain, certainly not a King that switches between "protect the weak" and "might makes right" due to whichever is in his interests.  He's at least provably non-historical, as we know the English didn't sack Rome.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

7 hours ago, wumpus said:

Reality check: Alfred the Great stopped the Norse invasion (winning is so dreadfully un-English).  England is called England because the Angles (and the Saxons) won.  Even in most telling of the myths, Camelot falls.

Yes, this happened even in the Camelot myth.
Iirc irl Saxons&Co paused their invasion and were not crossing a frontier river for about a century after some events attributed to  King Arthur's prototype(s).

7 hours ago, wumpus said:

The real question is if anyone would identify the language Hank Morgan spoke as "English", as modern Dutch is much closer to what the Saxons were speaking at the time. 

Irl that would be hard, of course. But otherwise the whole Hank's adventure could not happen.
So, in this book reality we can presume that Arthur's people more or less talk to him. And they recognize his language as some weird anglosaxojutefrizian dialect.
Together with his magic tricks enough to recognize him as a Saxon warlock and spy sent to them to revenge for the yesterday defeat.

Btw, a revolver. "God created man: Col. Colt made them equal".
They would kindly and friendly ask Hank: "So, your inventions allow to any peasant be equal to a lord?..."

 

Better medicine in ancient times would probably cause a rapid overpopulation and dreadful wars and epidemies, significantly increasing total body count.

Also their socienty was based on a balance between their low tech level and cheap and insignificant human life (2 survived and grown children of 8 per woman, average life span ~20..35 years, afaik).
With better medicine they would be expecting more, while their tools and abilities would be staying the same, and they can't import them from anywhere.

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Also their socienty was based on a balance between their low tech level and cheap and insignificant human life (2 survived and grown children of 8 per woman, average life span ~20..35 years, afaik).

We are straying far, but its fun :-)

It is hard to generalize life expectancy. Climate wasn't bad (reaching an optimum around 700-1000 iirc). Times weren't as bad as the misleading word "dark middle ages" might suggest.

At birth, a girls or boys life expectancy might have been in the range you're suggesting (20 to 40), because of a high infant mortality. But once people were out of infancy they could (and did) well reach an age of 50+. Early medieval graveyards i heard of (most in Germany, France, Switzerland) held many bones of really old people.

[kerbiloid]

53 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

It is hard to generalize life expectancy. Climate wasn't bad (reaching an optimum around 700-1000 iirc). Times weren't as bad as the misleading word "dark middle ages" might suggest.

At birth, a girls or boys life expectancy might have been in the range you're suggesting (20 to 40), because of a high infant mortality. But once people were out of infancy they could (and did) well reach an age of 50+. Early medieval graveyards i heard of (most in Germany, France, Switzerland) held many bones of really old people.

I never said there were no old persons.
Neither stone age, nor medieval people were equipped with a self destruction device bursting at age of 35.
Of course if you presume that in happy medieval or paleolitic times life was as long as now, that's your right.
Then probably you can easily refuse modern medicine, hygiene, etc. Why bother with them if it's enough to get out of infancy.

When the last epidemy has happened at your place? Not necessary plague, but trivial dysentery. Do you include victims of epidemies in your statistics? Also died for different reasons and never found to be buried? Wild animals, mass hunger, wars, criminality, bogs and so on.
How long does a body exist to be found? And how many times new bodies were buried at the same place or bones were removed and relocated?
How many wives had typically changed a medieval king? Let's read their biographies. What to say about less rich people?

Edited August 5, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Green Baron]

 

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

I never said there were no old persons.
Neither stone age, nor medieval people were equipped with a self destruction device bursting at age of 35.
Of course if you presume that in happy medieval or paleolitic times life was as long as now, that's your right.
Then probably you can easily refuse modern medicine, hygiene, etc. Why bother with them if it's enough to get out of infancy.

Oh, i was not implying that people grew as old as today or claiming anything of the above. I would have written so ;-)

Quote

When the last epidemy has happened at your place?

Were i am from ? That's southern Germany. So probably early modern times (plague).

Quote

Do you include victims of epidemies in your statistics?

I don't have statistics at hand. Graveyrads usually are biased towards older people due to taphonomy. Edit: there are no epidemics in the early middle ages that i am aware of ...

Quote

Also died for different reasons and never found to be buried? Wild animal, wars, criminality, bogs and so on.

Accident victims are usually buried @home.

Quote

How long does a body exist to be found?

Depends. Between days and millennia.

Quote

And how many times new bodies were buried at the same place or bones were removed and relocated?

Often, especially in narrow situations near churches and so on. But that is usually found out about.

Quote

How many wives had typically changed a medieval king?

I have no idea. Between 0 and .... ? But less than modern day leaders i would guess ... :-))

Quote

What to say about less rich people?

I have no tax declarations of anybody :-) Christian burials usually are just burials without much knick-knack :-)

 

If you feel criticized, i didn't mean to do so, i am sorry. I just wanted to say that once people were out of infancy they grew pretty old in the early middle ages.

Edited August 5, 2018 by Green Baron

[Scotius]

Good thing time travel is either A: impossible, or B: possible but very strictly regulated in sufficiently advanced sociaties. Or else we would create a mind-boggling mess out of timeline

[Green Baron]

I shortly heard that, according to the Vulcan Academy of Science, A is the case.

But that is just a rumor ...

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

time travel is either A: impossible, or B: possible but very strictly regulated in sufficiently advanced sociaties. Or else we would create a mind-boggling mess out of timeline

C: Effects/creates a parallel branch of multiverse.

[wumpus]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They would kindly and friendly ask Hank: "So, your inventions allow to any peasant be equal to a lord?..."

That and allegedly a papal ban didn't stop Richard the Lionhearted from equipping his peasants with crossbows.  Henry V loved bringing longbowmen along, and after Agincourt (which proved that peasants could sometime slaughter fully armored knights) most of the rest of the armies demanded them as well (although I think the French stayed with crossbows).  Laws were made to ban everything but praying and practicing archery (presumably the fact that this shows up enough in historical documentation shows that it was widely ignored and kings and others interested in maintaining large armies kept trying to enforce it).

New weapons tend to be enthusiastically used whenever they show up (if they aren't, then those who don't are "selected against" and all remaining fighters are using the new, improved weapons/tactics/whatever).  The only exception seems to prove the rule, as once feudal Japan was unified (and a later invasion of Korea turned unsuccessful), guns were effectively (if gradually) banned.  The Shogun felt that neither Korea nor China could invade, and his only rivals were various great lords.  So he was more than happy to level the playing field (and his samurai were equally happy to not face guns).  By the time Commodore Perry showed up, guns were museum curiosities (even though they were making more and better guns in Japan than Europe during those wars of unification.

The only way guns wouldn't take off in Britain would be if there weren't a Saxon invasion going on at the time, they weren't remotely worried about the Welsh and Scottish border (obviously there wouldn't really be a Welsh border for King Arthur), Ireland nor the Vikings weren't a concern, and England and France didn't want each others' territory.

[James Kerman]

@vger I would look for naturally occurring  analogues for basic modern equivalents and see what you might be able to "cook up".

I think it might be possible to craft a rudimentary thermometer using the hollow shaft of a feather (the calamus),  alcohol (from natural sources) and sealed with bone and resin.  This could be a first step for a stone age medical lab (a timing system would also be necessary).  Complex molecules would be impossible but your protagonist may be able to refine active ingredients (as used by the locals) into more potent medicine.  The limited ability to assay these concoctions could also become an interesting plot point.

[StrandedonEarth]

How hard would it be to type blood in a primitive setting? Of course, the materials for transfusions would be pretty tough.

Then there's fermenting and distilling alcohol as a disinfectant. Not sure how the locals would regard you if they started drinking it though...

 

Edited August 6, 2018 by StrandedonEarth

[Zeiss Ikon]

Wow, lots of stuff since I was last on, and I didn't read every word of every post, but I'll pick one thing from way back up near the beginning, and then one from the end:

First, a microscope.  Anton van Leeuwenhooke (various vesions of the spelling of that Dutch name) made the first microscope,. without any glass at all, in the 17th century.  You can replicate it easily enough -- use a needle (even a bone one made by a caveman will work) to poke a hole in a flat plate of some kind, then get a drop of water to lodge in the hole.  The smaller the hole/drop the better for this.  Make an attached stage to hold your specimen, stand in direct sunlight (it'll be the brightest light you can find) and get your eye as close as possible to the water droplet.  After a couple years of improvements, van Leeuwenhooke apparently (based on his drawings of "animalcules" seen in drops of pond water) got magnification as high as a couple hundred diameters.  He was able to see blood cells, and if he'd known about staining he could have seen chromosomes in cheek cells with these simple microscopes that anyone could make.

And with that technology, you could bootstrap blood typing.  Take blood samples from two people, mix them, and look at them with the microscope.  If you see the blood cells stacking up like little disk magnets, the two samples are different types; if you don't, they're the same (ABO) type.  You wouldn't be able to tell only from this which was A, B, or O (though if you knew what ethnic group your cavemen were ancestors to, you could make a pretty good guess), but this is essentially the "cross-match" step that is always done during a transfusion if you have two minutes before the patient bleeds to death.  Rhesus factor typing and the other factors that are recognized today are much more complicated to detect -- but transfusions within a small population of cavemen would be simplified by the strong likelihood they're all the same (ABO and Rhesus) type anyway, because all are close relatives with little long-range interbreeding.

Transfusion of whole blood, regardless of typing ability, probably not going to happen.  Stainless steel and good quality glass are required to handle blood without clotting, as are anticoagulants (the simplest of these is sodium salicylate, theoretically possible to refine from willow bark).  Centrifuging blood to produce plasma is realistically possible, however, and plasma could be transfused using materials like snake fangs for needles and animal bladders for pumps.

[K^2]

27 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

First, a microscope.

I would argue that you are describing a loupe, not a microscope. But distinction isn't relevant to the discussion beyond the name.

[magnemoe]

19 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

How hard would it be to type blood in a primitive setting? Of course, the materials for transfusions would be pretty tough.

Then there's fermenting and distilling alcohol as a disinfectant. Not sure how the locals would regard you if they started drinking it though...

Pretty strong evidence they had wine in the old stone age. 
Beer is neolithic but wine is easier and stronger, destining is easy to but a bit overkill. Still an very flammable liquid makes starting fires way easier. 
Yes kerosene is way better because its burn hotter but moonshine works well enough. 

[magnemoe]

On 8/5/2018 at 5:13 PM, wumpus said:

That and allegedly a papal ban didn't stop Richard the Lionhearted from equipping his peasants with crossbows.  Henry V loved bringing longbowmen along, and after Agincourt (which proved that peasants could sometime slaughter fully armored knights) most of the rest of the armies demanded them as well (although I think the French stayed with crossbows).  Laws were made to ban everything but praying and practicing archery (presumably the fact that this shows up enough in historical documentation shows that it was widely ignored and kings and others interested in maintaining large armies kept trying to enforce it).

New weapons tend to be enthusiastically used whenever they show up (if they aren't, then those who don't are "selected against" and all remaining fighters are using the new, improved weapons/tactics/whatever).  The only exception seems to prove the rule, as once feudal Japan was unified (and a later invasion of Korea turned unsuccessful), guns were effectively (if gradually) banned.  The Shogun felt that neither Korea nor China could invade, and his only rivals were various great lords.  So he was more than happy to level the playing field (and his samurai were equally happy to not face guns).  By the time Commodore Perry showed up, guns were museum curiosities (even though they were making more and better guns in Japan than Europe during those wars of unification.

The only way guns wouldn't take off in Britain would be if there weren't a Saxon invasion going on at the time, they weren't remotely worried about the Welsh and Scottish border (obviously there wouldn't really be a Welsh border for King Arthur), Ireland nor the Vikings weren't a concern, and England and France didn't want each others' territory.

For a good king well armed peasants was an good thing, yes you got an grand army to kick back invaders but more important, the peasants enemy was the nobles not the king. 
The king of England was also more scared of the nobles than an peasant revolt.

Early guns worked a lot like crossbows, it took an long time to reload but you did not need much skill to use it. They was less accurate but was better at penetrating armor. 
On the other hand you could buy an caseless repeating gun with an 20 round magazine in 1680
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookson_repeater
Yes it would cost you a bit more than an large ship and you better have the service agreement include an gunsmith apprentice to take care of it and that would be an servant you would be very polite with. They was not only very expensive but also unreliable in multiple ways like blowback into the powder magazine. 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Crossbows were well-known even in Ancient Greece, though they were called (can't find an English translation) "gastrafet"

Spoiler

And their further widespread didn't overthrow feudalism or so, as they are just bows on sticks, easier to aim, harder from all other sides.
Only widespread of firearms made the knights useless.

And Hank suggested firearms and explosives.

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

12 hours ago, magnemoe said:

For a good king well armed peasants was an good thing, yes you got an grand army to kick back invaders but more important, the peasants enemy was the nobles not the king. 
The king of England was also more scared of the nobles than an peasant revolt.

Early guns worked a lot like crossbows, it took an long time to reload but you did not need much skill to use it. They was less accurate but was better at penetrating armor. 
On the other hand you could buy an caseless repeating gun with an 20 round magazine in 1680
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookson_repeater
Yes it would cost you a bit more than an large ship and you better have the service agreement include an gunsmith apprentice to take care of it and that would be an servant you would be very polite with. They was not only very expensive but also unreliable in multiple ways like blowback into the powder magazine. 

Yet another example of "technology is infrastructure".  You can invent all the gadgets you want, but it won't be important until the infrastructure can build on a large enough scale.  It might have taken a little longer for pretty much every technology used in guns (ok, not computer controlled aiming) was available roughly that time (not sure about gas based repeaters, they might take awhile).  Similarly cars had pretty much every advance used by the 1920s (there was a hybrid made between 1900-1905, presumably easier to get to work than a clutch.  Once the clutch was good enough you wouldn't see hybrids for 90 years), and everything in computers was "invented" 3 times, for mainframes and supercomputers, in minicomputers, and finally microchips.

The thing about firearms was that they penetrated armor (obviously this wasn't binary, but the point was they were good enough at it).  If a highly trained knight is roughly as likely to be killed as a peasant you could train in a few weeks, it didn't make sense to build your economy around training heavy horsemen as knights.  And of course once the king was less dependent on the nobles, he could cut his support of them (and the nobles would be less dependent on the knights, who they couldn't support as well without the King's support, so the knights were really getting squeezed).  Still, the whole structure really didn't fall apart until WWI (the noble's power was decreasing, but no real discontinuity until the Marne).

Note that as late as the battle of Waterloo the French had cuirassier units wearing breastplates.  These were rare elite units, but the armor was said to be good for a fairly long range (there couldn't have been much time between when you could penetrate the armor and when you had to be more concerned about the cuirassier's "sabre" (quotes because the thing really couldn't cut and was used for stabbing).  One even more topical thing about the breastplate they wore was that if you were wearing one and anything got through it, you died.  Partially because anything that could get through the steel won't be stopped by meat, and partially thanks to all the contaminants bullets and pointy steel things pick up going through the armor and depositing in said meat.

One other topical thing (at least for Stone Age tech): trying to push stone (copper?  Ötzi the Iceman had a copper axehead) into the iron age requires fireproof gloves.  The saying was "God made the first pair" because you needed a pair of gloves to do any ironwork, including making a pair of fireproof gloves.  On the other hand you can use a flat rock as an anvil, this was used by the steel-weapon-making Norse in the Viking age (presumably.  It was mentioned in the Icelandic Sagas, but written long after the events took place and may have been included to give an "old timey" feeling.  I doubt this is the case since I doubt that "technological improvements" was how medieval Icelandic people marked the passage of time).