Lethal Remedies
Page 39
This book revealed how divided the medical profession was over the appropriate methods of treatment for gynecological problems, including the increased practice of surgical intervention through what was then called an ovariotomy. Dr. Dixon’s frequent use of this operation and her financial success seems to have prompted a degree of jealousy from male physicians who were already worried about competition from the growing number of female doctors in the region.
The second book that helped in developing the plot is A Prescription for Murder: The Victorian Serial Killings of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream (1993) by Angus McLaren. Dr. Cream was a nineteenth-century physician whose occupation made it easy for him to poison people, including his own wife and several patients. His medical profession facilitated his access to poison and shielded him from suspicion.
While these secondary sources helped me begin to sketch out my plot, I needed more information about the Pacific Dispensary itself. An official published report issued by the dispensary in 1876, provided its mission statement, its by-laws, and a listing of some of the early founders and Board members. Reports in the San Francisco Chronicle and Langley’s Directory provided the names of the female attending physicians, the female resident physician, the female nurses, and the male consulting physicians who were connected to the dispensary in 1882, when the book was set.
In doing this research, I discovered that the dispensary had moved several times in its first six years of operation, and I was able to pin down its address for the spring of 1882. Even more exciting, there was a newspaper article about the newly remodeled building on Thirteenth Street. Bless the reporter who literally walked through the building, describing almost every room, the number of beds and cribs, and the locations of the servant and medical staff rooms. As a result, there was very little about the interior of the Pacific Dispensary in 1882 that I had to invent.
Not so with the building’s inhabitants. And this is where, since I am writing fiction, not non-fiction, I had to make some choices about which characters would be real people, which would be highly fictionalized versions of real people, and which characters would be totally fictitious.
I had already briefly introduced a real person, Dr. Charlotte Brown, in Scholarly Pursuits, but now I was going to give her a speaking role, albeit a limited one. She was also the one person for whom I had the most extended biographical detail and a wonderfully detailed scholarly article by her about the first ovariotomy that she performed in the Pacific Dispensary. So the details of her life in the novel are accurate, though, of course, I invented what she said and thought. I also sent her on a fictional trip with Dr. Wanzer, one of her other co-founders of the dispensary, to explain why they weren’t directly involved in most of the events of the novel.
The staff of the dispensary (nurses, matron and her assistant, servants) are a mixture of real and imagined people, depending on how important they are to the story. For example, I let the four nurses in training keep their real names (although I knew nothing about them), but the Matron is pure fiction. There actually was a young disabled boy living in the dispensary during this time, but everything else about Jocko, including his name and his eventual surgery, is my creation.
Dr. Skerry and Dr. Granger and his son are fictional characters but are based on real people (with names changed to protect the innocent) who had a feud described in an entertaining newspaper article. I didn’t change the name of Dr. Allen, the doctor who, at least according to the San Francisco Chronicle, used his position running a local charity to provide a lavish lifestyle for his young mistress and her mother.
Hilda was also inspired by a newspaper article about a young pregnant Swedish servant, her doctor, and an attempt by the reported father of the girl’s baby to get the doctor arrested when she tried to sue him for the cost of her care of the girl. The whole affair ended up in fisticuffs in a dark stairway, in a case where truth was definitely stranger than fiction.
Ella Blair is an entirely fictional character, although the real dispensary resident doctor of 1881-82 did, like Ella, graduate from the Medical College of the Pacific. And, of course, Mitchell is a character I created back in my second novel, Uneasy Spirits. He has shown up occasionally in other stories before now, but I had fun developing his character more fully for this novel, including finally giving him a first name.
Everyone else (Annie, Nate, Laura, the servants and other residents of the boardinghouse, and Caro Sutton) has become completely real to me, despite their being completely fictional.
Final note: I started writing this book before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. I had no idea when writing scenes of doctors obsessively washing their hands that this would foreshadow what we are experiencing right now. As I completed the book, I couldn’t help but be struck by the parallels between the past and the present.
In the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, grinding poverty, bad nutrition, inadequate sanitation, unclean air, and even political divisions and a general disdain of “science” played a role in creating situations where infectious diseases (like tuberculosis and influenza) were the leading cause of death. Very similar factors are having an impact on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic on the populations of the world today. And, as in the nineteenth century, medical professionals are bravely risking their lives, with few protections beyond handwashing and masks, to save their patients. We owe them all an enduring debt of gratitude.
Other Works by Author
Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series
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Maids of Misfortune (Book 1)
Uneasy Spirits (Book 2)
Bloody Lessons (Book 3)
Deadly Proof (Book 4)
Boxed Set (Books 1-4)
Violet Vanquishes a Villain (novella)
Pilfered Promises (Book 5)
Kathleen Catches a Killer (novella)
Dandy Delivers (novella)
Victorian San Francisco Novellas (collection)
Scholarly Pursuits (Book 6)
Lethal Remedies (Book 7)
Victorian San Francisco Stories
* * *
Madam Sybil’s First Client
Dandy Detects
The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage
Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong
Victorian San Francisco Stories (collection)
Beatrice Bests the Burglars (short story)
Dandy’s Discovery (short story)
* * *
Medieval to Modern: An Anthology of Historical Mystery Stories
* * *
Paradisi Chronicles series
* * *
Between Mountain and Sea (Caelestis Series Book 1)
Under Two Moons (Caelestis Series Book 2)
Through Ddaera’s Touch (Caelestis Series Book 3)
Caelestis Series Book 1-3 Plus Aelwyd: Home
“Aelwyd: Home” in Chronicle Worlds: Paradisi
The Stars are Red Tonight (Canistro Series)
Information about all Locke’s works, including her Paradisi Chronicles Science Fiction series, can be found at https://mlouisalocke.com
* * *
To find out how to get a free electronic copy of Victorian San Francisco Stories and to get notifications about promotions or new publications in her historical mystery series, please sign up for her Victorian San Francisco Mystery newsletter.
About the Author
M. Louisa Locke, a retired professor of U.S. and Women’s History, has embarked on a second career as a writer of historical mysteries and science fiction.
Her best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series features Annie Fuller, a boardinghouse keeper who supplements her income as a clairvoyant and business consultant, and Nate Dawson, her lawyer beau. All the novels and short stories in this series explore the experiences of women who worked in San Francisco at the end of the 19th century, based on Dr. Locke's doctoral research.
Locke has recently turned to writing about the future as one of the founders of the Paradis
i Chronicles, an open-source science fiction world created by multiple authors.
Locke is an active member of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, and you can find more about her journey as an indie author and gain a deeper glimpse into the worlds of Victorian San Francisco and New Eden, Paradisi, if you check out her website at http://mlouisalocke.com/
If you enjoyed this story, please let the author know at mlouisalocke@gmail.com. Since positive word of mouth is crucial for any author to succeed, please consider writing a review. To find out how to get free electronic copies of Locke’s short stories and learn about new promotions and publications, subscribe to her newsletter. Your email address will never be shared. Connect with the author @mlouisalocke online at: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my appreciation to all the family and friends who gave their support during the research and writing of this book. I am particularly indebted to the numerous fans of the series whose encouragement was invaluable throughout the long writing process.
My beta readers have made this a better book than I could have achieved on my own, so thanks to Jim Brown, Julie Evans, Micheline Golden, Robin Harsh, Casey Jones, Judy Mahony, Jennifer Matthews, and Joy Sobel.
I want to give special thanks to Michelle Huffaker, who continues to produce such wonderful covers, and my editor, Jessica Meigs, who has the eye for detail I lack.
Finally, this book, as always, wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my loving husband Jim, and my daughter Ashley, who both provide me the motivation to keep on writing.