4 ms·

...That's a f*king period soap opera... Same idea as Lincoln being a vampire hunter...

thaumasiotes 7y ago
I know it's a period soap opera. Do you really think a period drama set in Napoleonic France would depict then-current medicine as unfailingly effective?
- yorwba 7y ago
  Sure it would if it's necessary to provide some plot armor. Napoleon gets hit by shrapnel and spends an episode with some bandages decoratively draped over the wound while commandeering his army from the front lines, even though the severity of the wounds should confine him to his bed. The next episode he doesn't even need the bandages anymore. Realistic medicine in fiction usually doesn't fit the narrative, same as realistic anything, so you get symbolic medicine instead. I assume the show in question also features unrealistic martial arts combat that only serves to display the protagonist's superiority rather than showing you how to actually win a fight.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > I assume the show in question also features unrealistic martial arts combat that only serves to display the protagonist's superiority rather than showing you how to actually win a fight. That would have really livened things up. It's an overwhelmingly feminine show about inter-concubine intrigue in the imperial harem. But you'd be right if it was a show that featured combat at all. On the medicine issue, though, I feel like we have different things in mind. > Napoleon gets hit by shrapnel and spends an episode with some bandages decoratively draped over the wound while commandeering his army from the front lines, even though the severity of the wounds should confine him to his bed. The next episode he doesn't even need the bandages anymore. To me this just reads as glossing over the issue. He got hurt, the show didn't really talk about how badly he was hurt, he was shown hurt and then he recovered. Maybe he recovered despite whatever medical care he received, rather than because of it. I agree that that could easily happen in an American show set in any time period. But I'd be surprised to see Napoleon get hurt, have a doctor called in, have it pronounced that the Emperor was mortally wounded, and then see his life miraculously saved by the doctor's genius in applying the theory of miasma or the four bodily humours, or by being bled really effectively. (Though in one of Katharine Kerr's fantasy-Celtic novels, there is a genius passage in which a wizard applies the theory of the four humours to prescribe a treatment which -- given modern medical knowledge -- obviously will successfully treat a woman's post-childbirth anemia.)

I know it's a period soap opera. Do you really think a period drama set in Napoleonic France would depict then-current medicine as unfailingly effective?

yorwba 7y ago
Sure it would if it's necessary to provide some plot armor. Napoleon gets hit by shrapnel and spends an episode with some bandages decoratively draped over the wound while commandeering his army from the front lines, even though the severity of the wounds should confine him to his bed. The next episode he doesn't even need the bandages anymore. Realistic medicine in fiction usually doesn't fit the narrative, same as realistic anything, so you get symbolic medicine instead. I assume the show in question also features unrealistic martial arts combat that only serves to display the protagonist's superiority rather than showing you how to actually win a fight.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > I assume the show in question also features unrealistic martial arts combat that only serves to display the protagonist's superiority rather than showing you how to actually win a fight. That would have really livened things up. It's an overwhelmingly feminine show about inter-concubine intrigue in the imperial harem. But you'd be right if it was a show that featured combat at all. On the medicine issue, though, I feel like we have different things in mind. > Napoleon gets hit by shrapnel and spends an episode with some bandages decoratively draped over the wound while commandeering his army from the front lines, even though the severity of the wounds should confine him to his bed. The next episode he doesn't even need the bandages anymore. To me this just reads as glossing over the issue. He got hurt, the show didn't really talk about how badly he was hurt, he was shown hurt and then he recovered. Maybe he recovered despite whatever medical care he received, rather than because of it. I agree that that could easily happen in an American show set in any time period. But I'd be surprised to see Napoleon get hurt, have a doctor called in, have it pronounced that the Emperor was mortally wounded, and then see his life miraculously saved by the doctor's genius in applying the theory of miasma or the four bodily humours, or by being bled really effectively. (Though in one of Katharine Kerr's fantasy-Celtic novels, there is a genius passage in which a wizard applies the theory of the four humours to prescribe a treatment which -- given modern medical knowledge -- obviously will successfully treat a woman's post-childbirth anemia.)