Today's Document
Game Changer & Make Some Noise
Kiana Khansmith
bliss lane
PR's Tumblrdome
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let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
taylor price
todays bird
tannertan36
pixel skylines
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
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Xuebing Du
No title available
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Jar Jar Binks Fan Club
YOU ARE THE REASON
Game of Thrones Daily
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@bookshelfdreams
God made all man in his image Honey, I'm, I'm no man I'm what's left when children go to war
Never in human history has there been a society where 13 was a regular age for girls to get married, but keep telling on yourself, you goddamn pervert
People on Ravelry need to stop publishing designs specifically catered to me, I have a full to-do-list and too many shawls
Zumbrella by Ursa Major Knits
oh dear god this woman is amazing
every once in a while you will come across a designer who really runs with it, makes it their mission to showcase exactly what one can do with knitting
Scalindra
Sun King
Fairly Squarely
Thrills with Frills
Da Vinci Wings
Tassel Dazzle
Helix Felicis
Batman & Robin
Wizard Lizard
Lindworm
That's not even all of them. I'm not a huge fan of the term fibre art but this really is it. Wearable art. Look at the geometry of it all! The structure, the chaos, the whimsy! God I love modular knitting
She has lots of very fun socks as well, and even a couple of cowls and fingerless gloves. Go look at her page immediately.
"Trans people were invented by doctors in the 1950s"
@thatlittleegyptologist Something about this "hot take" seems sus to me, but I don't know enough to say what
okay, so I'm gonna tread lightly here because, well, this site doesn't take well to discussions of nuance, especially on topics such as this. I'm of the very firm belief that trans people have existed for all of history, but the way we approach things like this has to be considerate of the entire context.
So, the individual we're dealing with here is a Roman period mummy that was CT scanned in 2014 as part of the Ancient Lives and the skeleton was determined to be a male, but was originally brough to the British Museum in a coffin that was named and styled as female. The mummy is accession number EA 6704 and the coffin is EA 6703. (Concurrent accession numbers mean they were brought in together and EA stands for 'Egyptian Antiquities' and please be aware that the link for EA 6704 contains images of the mummy for those of you wish to avoid more images of the deceased)
Now a lot of people, in both the comments, the OP, and the book this is taken from are...assuming a lot of things. First of all the tweet and the book it's taken from (no idea which one) say 1960s, and the tumblr comment says 1950s. If we check the museum catalogue entry in the 'Bibliographic References' section it says 'Dawson and Grey, 1968' and is their survey and research of mummies in the collection. It was then further CT scanned in 2014 which confirmed the 1968 analysis. The skeleton, at least, is male.
So why is the above a hot take, and, unfortunately, deeply incorrect?
This mummy, and the coffin it was in, were bought by Henry Salt in the 1820s from an Egyptian seller, which he later sold to the museum in 1835. Given the nature of its arrival, and the complete lack of x-ray ability or Egyptological knowledge (the field of study really only got going in the 1820s when we deciphered hieroglyphs) it was assumed that the coffin, belonging to a woman named Mutemmenu, and the mummy were the same burial.
That's not accurate.
The coffin, styled female and lists her occupation as 'Chantress of Amun' dates to the New Kingdom (c.1200 BCE) and the mummy found within it dates to the Roman Period (anywhere from 30 BCE to 646 CE). This makes the mummy *at least* 1200 years younger than the coffin they were brought in with and therefore doesn't not belong to the mummy. Occurrences like this are relatively common. This is mostly because when these coffins were excavated antiquities dealers just shoved random mummies into random decent looking coffins so they could be sold as one lot. The other option is for the Romans to have reused (again not uncommon) a coffin from an older period and since Hieroglyphs had fallen out of use...no one could read it to say 'hey that coffin belongs to a woman.'
So that's the coffin issue sorted.
Lets move onto the 'breasts', tattoos, and jewellery. I fully understand why people think they're breasts. They look like them, I won't lie to you. Unfortunately, that's not what they are. The 2014 CT scans showed that this individual had a lot of excess skin that before mummification would have meant that the individual was fat. They also had significant tooth decay on one side of their face. Where do you think the embamlers packed out the mummy with extra padding to make them seem more like they did while they were alive? The face, the stomach, and the chest. They're not 'breasts' they're fat rolls. In Ancient Egypt, being fat was a sign of wealth and good fortune. It meant that you had an abundance of food, so officials would often depict themselves with fat rolls and the men with what look like breasts to indicate to people that they were well off. It does not indicate an individual's gender. As the book says, this practice stems right from the Old Kingdom through to the Roman period. It's more common in the Roman period, but I would also state that this is likely a bias in the record as we have more Roman mummies survive than most other periods. It cannot be taken as absolute fact because we're missing data.
Tattoos and jewellery? Well, those, it appears, were taken by the 1830s museum staff, the 1960s scan, and apparently most people in the notes of this post as being exclusively female. Even the OP of the tweet this is taken from seems to take this as a given. Which is deeply strange, because in what world are you guys expecting gender progressiveness from academics in the 1960s? Seriously. You're not even praticing it yourselves because you've defaulted 'male sexed body with jewellery and flower tattoos cannot be male because those things are for girls.' Can you hear yourselves? You rag on archeologists and museums for 'omg they were roommates' and here you are defaulting to 'jewellery and flowers are for girls.' Please.
The 1830s academics did the same thing. They saw the jewellery, 'breasts', 'tattoos' and female coffin and presumed (not being able to read the coffin which said 'Chantress') that the person inside was a woman, and a dancer. In the 1960s, when they x-rayed the body and determined the skeleton was sexed male, they didn't really update any other information so the 'dancer' part was left in. Truth is, we simply don't know who this person was or their occupation. The strapping has been found on some dancers, but it's not exclusive to dancers since it's found on other mummies too. Dancer has simply been assigned to this person based on that and the 'tattoos'. This individual is also covered in gold leaf, marking them out as a high status individual. Dancers were not high status individuals and were certainly not buried with their skin covered in gold leaf. It is important to understand that while the strapping may appear to match dancers from earlier periods, we're talking about 1200 years between those depictions and this mummy. That's like saying someone today wearing something similar to someone from 825 CE have the same occupation despite the fact that there is a huge amount of cultural and societal change between the two. It's not enough to identify anything other than 'might be the fashion of this period', and certainly not enough to pinpoint someone's gender identity. They may have been a dancer, but we cannot prove this and dancing is not a female only occupation.
Tattoos and jewellery were not a female only items. Men wore jewellery in Ancient Egypt and this practice didn't end with Roman occupation. Tattoos were also for both genders (Egyptian definion of gender not modern) and the lotus flower is a symbol of rebirth, it's not consigned to one gender but an extremely important symbol connected with Egyptian mythology. A lot of early research, I won't lie, was extremely biased. It labelled tattoos as for dancers and sex workers only, which reflected the views of tattoos in wider society. A lot of people even today believe that tattoos mean you should be shunned. Thus it was assumed that only women had tattoos. In fact, I can find a paper from 2003 that boldly claims that no male mummies have tattoos (citing a 1988 paper)...then cites several examples of male mummies having tattoos. That's a level of head/desk someone should have caught, because the paper I link for 'tattoos for both genders' shows them from the Pre-Dynastic period (c.6210 BCE - 3100 BCE) on both genders. We also have very few mummies from the Old Kingdom through to the New Kingdom because mummification was still developing, so we don't exactly have a wide data set to say 'men don't have tattoos' thus, I'd take this claim with an extreme pinch of salt since we have examples. I would also state that the caveat is that most tattoos are found on Nubian dancers in one Meroitic cemetery. Something something, sample size.
Fun thing, after that little segue, the mummy doesn't have tattoos. The 'tattoos' are the painted lotus flowers on the linen above the knees that's covering the mummy. Which, at this point, if they're solely on the mummy coverings (we can't check the physical body without unwrapping and we're not doing that) they're more likely to be rebirth symbols and not literal tattoos. Thus taking us even further away from the 'only dancers have tattoos' assumption. The face is painted on too, including side burns and a beard which are what those dark marks are along the side of the cheeks.
That's a beard. It's not the best beard, but it's a very artistic interpretation of side burns.
Likely immitating something like this, which is backed up by the CT scan showing the mummy has short hair on the head and face. It also shows one of their teeth has fallen out and is resting at the front of their mouth, which is pretty cool.
The final thing I want to address is the 'pink' skirt or kilt that was found on the mummy at the time it was accessioned into the BM catalogue. It's not mentioned above, I know that, but it is mentioned in other articles about this mummy. This hasn't survived, so I can't look at it and say what type of garment it was. I don't even want to take 'pink' as the definite colour as we're talking about a c.2000 year old piece of clothing that absolutely will have faded with that amount of time having passed. I would also discourage 'oh they're wearing pink they must be...' because no we're not doing that c'mon people.
So, in summary: this mummy is likely male. I won't say for definite because, we genuinely can never say for certain how someone's gender was presented and new information could become apparrent in the future that changes this, but as of right now there is nothing to say this person had changed their gender presentation. As far as I'm aware with current research, we have no clear way of identifying individuals who transgressed Egyptian gender roles. Their gender roles are much different to ours, and we simply don't have the language or understanding to find them yet. We will, I'm sure of it, but as of right now we just don't have enough information on what the Egyptians classed as 'going against gender roles' to make these calls. In the case of this individual, they have facial hair painted on the mummy and seemingly still on the face of the mummy itself that is in the style men wore at the time. They have fat rolls that have been formed after death that are culturally like those depicted on high status male individuals, and since the mummy has gold leaf on the skin we know this individual is high status. Jewellery is gender neutral in the ancient world, so I'm absolutely not assigning a female gender just because this person has faux bangles. Tattoos? Well the mummy doesn't have them, they're merely painted on the knees and are a known symbol of rebirth not a female only thing. In all, there is nothing to suggest that this individual wanted to be presented as having a different gender. Assuming so based on your modern understanding of what constitutes markers of gender is damaging, and you could be assigning a lived experience to this person without ever understanding how gender was constructed in the time they lived. Based on my knowledge of Egyptian gender presentation, and the evidence I've presented above, this person didn't do anything out of the ordinary for 'male' presentation, thus the skeleton sex identification does not contradict this.
I think by now Hudson and Connor have repeated enough times that they do not want pictures to be taken that we are all aware, yet the stalking continues.
I don't think any of it is ok. The public street pictures help identify their neighbourhood - where they are staying, which gym they go to and lead to increasingly intrusive, dangerous and disturbing stalking like Connor being touched without consent and followed to his private residence or Hudson being photographed inside the private gym clearly without his knowledge or consent.
If you call yourself a fan of either or both of them, please don't spread these non-consensual photos and videos and call out the stalkers instead of encouraging their behaviour.
They will be working in Toronto for months, and the situation is already spiralling badly with stalkers reportedly flying in to harass them. They will be forced into lockdown, it will impact their mental health being hunted for pics, and it will burden the production to have to increase security.
There are no upsides. We should not engage with this kind of content, and wait until they share what they are comfortable sharing.
every day people will come on here with the most batshit insane takes imaginable, make that their whole personality and when inevitably someone takes the bait & replies Well I Think It Might Be More Nuanced Than That, they fall to the ground wailing as if their entire family just got murdered in front of their eyes
one of the more bizarre forms of digital self harm
I have a pot of leftover blurple _and_ some black in quantities I’ve not measured at all so sounds like its time for another unrepeatable dye experiment
this is a trust the process dyejob I see 😅
I think/hope it will come out super dramatic and moody with tons of depth but it might also just be grey
People on Ravelry need to stop publishing designs specifically catered to me, I have a full to-do-list and too many shawls
Zumbrella by Ursa Major Knits
It’s funny that, in old stories,
When you’re looking for a nymph or nereid to have a nice little fuck, you look to the water.
When you want an obedient wife with no parents, siblings or friends on earth to protect her, who’ll put up with whatever you do to her because you’ve hidden her skin, you look to the water.
When you’re tired of your sweetheart, or don’t care to take responsibility for your bastard child, don’t fret; look to the water. It’ll take care of her.
When you want to live forever, and plan to catch a ningyo to increase your years with each bite of flesh, look to the water.
When there’s a need for a woeful prophecy, a foretelling of doom, a curse laid upon a boat, you look to that lady in the water.
When you want a sign to scrawl on the walls, to call an earthbound woman a whore, look to the water.
When you think of demons and witches crouching in submerged caves, hording treasures and gnawing on bones, pretty faces with no souls behind the eyes, look to the water.
When the storm rages and the winds howl and the mast is groaning and you think that there might just be female voices in that gale, look to the water.
When you’re tempted into leaning forward or swimming out, foolish enough to let hands grab your throat, drag you under and down down down, to drown you sweetly at their ease
look to the water and the water and the water.
Tour de Fleece Wrap-Up (a day late because I fell asleep writing this last night)
My goal was just to spin every day of the Tour de Fleece and I (basically) did it! I took one of the rest days to spend in the pool. And our squirrel Shadow passed away Thursday afternoon so no spinning happened that day.
But otherwise I spun at least *something* every day the whole tour, whether it was 5 minutes on a spindle project or a couple of hours on my electric eel wheel (or somewhere in between because I would absolutely be like "I'll spin for 5 or 10 minutes" and then suddenly it would be midnight).
What I finished:
Most of the Skinny Dipping colorway from the fiberimp.ca. There's still a tiny bit of this to wind into a center pull and ply.
A tiny bit from some purple/pink/blue/teal merino (I think, it's been a WIP for years) that needed plying.
What I started:
I actually started spinning the blue blend on the left on the last day. I have never spun from a rolag before, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I only have 2oz of this so we'll see where that leads.
I am also spinning my first ever attempt at a handspun sock yarn! (Bottom photo) It's last year's Tour de Fleece colorway from Three Waters Farm called "Slipstream's Pull", and I plan to ply it with "Pulling Purple", its complimentary purple semisolid.
The project that never ends:
See the two little whitish cream turtles above/partially hidden by the blue rolag? That's Gulf Coast Native wool. It's wonderful stuff. I have a lot of it, and I am spinning it thin. This was basically what I would grab on the days to get in a little bit of spinning.
I am ABSOLUTELY calling this a Tour de Fleece win! I really enjoyed this and I'm going to miss Tour de Fleece and seeing everyone else's spinning too.
My thumbs do hurt though (and CBD Massage oil and sleeping in splints are still a girl's best friend).
the thing about mothers in fiction is that a lot of fandoms seem to be under the impression that the worst thing a woman can possibly do is be a bad mother. like they can forgive deadbeat dads easily but the moment a woman is a bad or even mediocre mother she's the devil incarnate to them. and then you're like "i like her and i think she's interesting" and they immediately go "oh so you think it's okay to be a bad mother (which is the most evil thing a woman can be)". and don't even get me started on how they react to female characters who are bad stepmothers
The end of my TdF spin! 2838yds of 2ply light dk/sport weight Corriedale. Picking out a cardigan pattern currently.
Fiber was from Apothefaery Fibers
ich habe meine e-mails seit gut einem monat nicht mehr gecheckt, daher habe ich auch nicht mitbekommen, dass der für meinen wahlkreis zuständige (cdu-) abgeordnete mir tatsächlich auf meine anfrage zum afd-verbotsverfahren geantwortet hat.
seine e-mail ist voll von fadenscheinigen gegenargumenten, aber dieser absatz macht mich echt richtig fertig.
JUNGE?????????????? WAS IST, WENN WIR SCHEITERN?????? UND DESWEGEN LASSEN WIR ES EINFACH GANZ SEIN UND GEBEN WEHRLOS AUF ODER WAS???????????
IHR SCHEIß PSEUDOCHRISTLICHEN WICHSER, DIE SIND DOCH EH PERMANENT IN DER OPFERROLLE. NA UND??? TUT DOCH WENIGSTENS MAL SO, ALS WOLLTET IHR DEN KAMPF GEGEN DEN FASCHISMUS AUFNEHMEN UND KEINE STEIGBÜGELHALTER SEIN. MANN!!!!!
Dieses Argument ist mMn aus mehreren Gründen fadenscheinig und ein Narrativ, von dem wir uns endlich verabschieden müssen:
Die AfD mag nach außen eine starke Front präsentieren, im Inneren sieht das aber anders aus. Die Partei ist gespalten und von Machtkämpfen geprägt, und das war sie schon immer. Ein Verbotsverfahren wäre ein starker zusätzlicher Stressfaktor, der Kräfte binden und die Partei als Ganzes belasten würde. Gerichtsprozesse sind lang und zermürbend. Zu behaupten, dass ein Verfahren der AfD mehr nutzen als schaden würde, hört sich schon ein wenig absurd an.
Natürlich würde die Partei versuchen, so etwas für sich auszuschlachten. Sie wäre dumm, wenn sie es nicht täte. Und natürlich hat sie genug Anhänger, die das noch als Qualitätsmerkmal sehen würden. Nur: Ja und? Schon jetzt stilisiert die AfD jedes bisschen Gegenwind zur politischen Verfolgung hoch. Kein Mensch kann sich der Strafverfolgung entziehen, indem er in der Öffentlichkeit herumjammert, warum sollte das bei Parteien anders sein? Soll Bernd Höcke nicht mehr strafrechtlich belangt werden, wenn er mal wieder zu nah an §130 gegirlbosst hat, nur weil er sich als ewiges Opfer inszeniert? Bitte.
Wenn ein Verbotsverfahren nicht mit einem Verbot endet, wäre das eigentlich keine Niederlage. Es würde bedeuten, dass die AfD keine Gefahr für unsere Demokratie darstellt. Für den, der an den Rechtsstaat glaubt, müsste das beruhigend sein.
Das ist nur, was ich so alles denke und finde, und sicher auch vereinfacht, aber es gibt mMn kein gutes Argument gegen ein Verbotsverfahren. Schon gar nicht dieses.
( @cakeeatingwingedcat wenn du noch was hinzuzufügen hast, würde ich mich sehr freuen, weil du dich im Gegensatz zu mir wirklich auskennst 💚)
Ein paar Gedanken vorab:
Ein zulässiger Verbotsantrag und keine dauerhaften Verfahrenshindernisse vorausgesetzt, gibt es vier Szenarien:
1. Der Antrag wird gestellt und ist begründet.
Folge: PR/Selbstdarstellung als "verfolgte Oppositionspartei", dann Parteiverbot.
2. Der Antrag wird gestellt und ist nicht begründet.
Folge: PR/Selbstdarstellung wie 1., später mit "Gütesiegel"; Zusammenarbeit mit der Union für die AfD wegen des Verbotsantrags - wenn mit Unionsbeteiligung gestellt - wegen der PR schwierig zu begründen.
3. Der Antrag wird nicht gestellt und wäre auch nicht begründet.
Folge: PR/Selbstdarstellung als nicht verbotene und damit "normale demokratische Oppositionspartei"; Zusammenarbeit mit der Union denkbar, endet aber entweder im Chaos oder damit dass die AfD einigen Wählern nicht mehr rechtsextrem genug oder nicht mehr Protestpartei genug ist.
4. Der Antrag wird nicht gestellt, wäre aber begründet.
Folge: PR/Selbstdarstellung zunächst wie unter 3. bis zum Wahlerfolg; danach Chaos/Inkompetenz und/oder Maßnahmen zum Untergraben demokratischer Strukturen, Grundrechtseingriffe, Vorgehen gegen politische Gegner etc.
Das Argument des Unionsabgeordneten ist in zweifacher Hinsicht fadenscheinig: Das Risiko eines Verbotsantrags hängt davon ab, wie wahrscheinlich es ist, dass die AfD danach alleine oder zusammen mit der Union regiert und dass sie dabei Pläne umsetzt (politische Kompetenz bei Zusammenarbeit höher, bestimmte Positionen aber inhaltlich nicht durchsetzbar) - das hat die Union teilweise selbst in der Hand. Zusätzlich muss der mögliche Schaden gesehen werden, wenn der Antrag begründet wäre, aber nicht gestellt wird, und die AfD sich voll durchsetzt - dieser ist insgesamt riesig und für einige Menschen lebensbedrohlich.
My Tour comes to an end, for a total of 14 skeins and 917,4m of yarn. Just this month, these hands spun 1834,8m of yarn into being from Cashmere to Mulberry Silk to Merino. A true testament to what a single person can achieve!
sorry, can I ask why willowbark tea is historically inaccurate/irrelevant? my bad if you've already explained, I'm sure you're sick of it
No it's fine to ask, of course! Willowbark is not irrelevant or inaccurate per se. It contains salicin, which gets processed into salicylic acid in the liver, the active ingredient in aspirin. It does have an analgetic and antiinflammatory effect. However, dosage control is difficult, as with all teas, and it's not a miracle cure. It may help bring down a fever or deal with a headache, but it won't clear out an infection, and it won't save the Character from sepsis.
If herbal and folk remedies could reliably treat serious illnesses, we wouldn't have seen such a dramatic decrease in child mortality over the past 100 years, now, would we.
Dear writers of historical/fantasy fiction
Please imagine me gently holding your hands, I am not reprimanding you, I say this with nothing but love and respect, but
If you give a character with no access to antibiotics a wound infection, they are going to die.
If a character is delirious with fever, they are going to die.
If a character sleeps and won't wake up or is unconscious for an extended amount of time, they are going to die.
Things you could do to the Character instead:
Make them lose a substantial amount of blood. For reference: For an adult human, about 8% of their body weight is blood. They can lose around 10% of that without much trouble, 20% will cause serious symptoms, more than 50-60% is generally incompatible with life. These numbers are estimations. The slower this blood loss, the better the body can compensate for it. Losing a significant amount of blood will affect the character's consciousness and take days or weeks to recover from.
Fever and malaise. Injuries are stressful. Inflammation is a natural response to that. Destroyed cells release proteins which can cause moderate fever (too much of that can cause kidney failure which is why excessive beatings can kill people, even when they don't initially sustain any life-threatening injuries). The character will be in pain, they'll feel like shit, they'll need plenty of rest and tender caretaking without their limb rotting off.
If you have to infect them, give them an abscess. That way, the pus and bacteria are walled off and can be drained out (by cutting the abscess open), with lower risk of it getting into the blood stream. It's also risky but much more survivable than phlegmone (diffuse infection of soft tissue).
Drugs. Just drug 'em. Ye Olde Opium/Laudanum will put them in a scarily deep sleep while Love Interest can sit there and hold vigil. Now this might also kill them so use with caution.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS WRITING ADVICE NOT MEDICAL ADVICE
Oh no! The Character has an ouchie! And they can't go to urgent care to have it looked at because that's not invented yet! Whatever shall we do!!!
Keep. It. Clean. Carefully and gently clean out gross stuff and things that do not belong in there, do not introduce foreign matter, and keep that wound covered.
The body will support Caretaker in this. Exudation is a natural defense mechanism to flush out germs and other dirt. Normal exudate is clear, with a slight yellow tinge, and almost odorless (wounds do have a characteristic smell, but they don't stink). Excessive exudate can form crusts around the wound, those should be cleaned away. Boiled water or saline solution is probably the safest bet for wound irrigation. Gentle mechanical cleaning (wiping with wet cloth) is appropriate.
Wounds want to be kept moist. Ointment can help with that, and also prevent the bandage from sticking to the wound. For a premodern setting, lard (rendered pig fat) is probably not a terrible option. It contains almost no water or sugar, so doesn't grow mold, and the grease prevents the tissue from drying out. Still, Caretaker will probably want to soak that bandage before they remove it.
The bandage should be clean linen. Not wool. If Caretaker has to rip up their clothes for bandages, at least use the undergarment, and the parts of it that are less dirty (sleeves).
A cavernous wound (ie from a drained abscess) might need to be tamponaded, that is, lined with a strip of wet cloth, to keep it open and help with drainage.
Various herbs, honey, spices, etc, have historically all been used to promote healing, some more successfully than others. However, everything is potentially contaminated with germs and fungal spores. Putting mashed plant matter that hasn't been otherwise treated into wounds is always a gamble.
Disinfection is a possibility, but an effective disinfectant will also damage healthy tissue. If Character has their wound bathed with wine or spirits every time the bandage is changed, that wound will become necrotic.
Stitches are likewise a double-edged sword. Pulling the edges of a deep wound together will make it heal quicker and more smoothly, but it also retains exudate in a warm, anaerobic environment, which makes an ideal growing environment for nasty bacteria. Balance risk and reward appropriately.
Some additional thoughts:
Medicine has taken unimaginable leaps during the last ~150 years. Things that would have been a death sentence to our ancestors are barely more than a nuisance to us. As a result, we have a fundamentally different attitude towards treatments, especially invasive treatments. We do surgeries as precaution or to restore optimal function, where in the past, surgery was often a last resort. It was very risky, and ran a good chance of killing the patient, so it would only be done if they would die anyway.
That doesn't mean doctors and surgeons of the past were helpless, there are a lot of amazing and very sophisticated treatments, that are older than you'd think. For as long as we have been human we have tried to heal each other, and were often successful.
Just because we know humoral pathology is wrong doesn't mean it's stupid. It's based on very solid observations of health and the human body. It was the accepted theory for a long time. It makes no sense for a doctor in that setting to reject it.
The human body is at once more resilient and more fragile than most people think. Humans can walk off devastating injuries, a lot of things will sort themselves out. However, once a tipping point is reached and the body can no longer compensate for whatever is going wrong, there's no turning that process around. This is why systemic infections are so dangerous: Bacteria/toxins overwhelm the immune system, everything is poisoned, multiple organ failure, death. It's very difficult to come back from that, even today.
THIS IS WRITING ADVICE, NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. In real life, there's no benevolent writer that makes sure you get the best possible outcome. Real illnesses don't care how relevant you are to the plot. Have that looked at by a professional.
If you mention willowbark tea on this post I will appear outside of your window at night and stare at you, unblinking, with blood on my teeth and maggots crawling out of my empty eye socket
Dear writers of historical/fantasy fiction
Please imagine me gently holding your hands, I am not reprimanding you, I say this with nothing but love and respect, but
If you give a character with no access to antibiotics a wound infection, they are going to die.
If a character is delirious with fever, they are going to die.
If a character sleeps and won't wake up or is unconscious for an extended amount of time, they are going to die.
Things you could do to the Character instead:
Make them lose a substantial amount of blood. For reference: For an adult human, about 8% of their body weight is blood. They can lose around 10% of that without much trouble, 20% will cause serious symptoms, more than 50-60% is generally incompatible with life. These numbers are estimations. The slower this blood loss, the better the body can compensate for it. Losing a significant amount of blood will affect the character's consciousness and take days or weeks to recover from.
Fever and malaise. Injuries are stressful. Inflammation is a natural response to that. Destroyed cells release proteins which can cause moderate fever (too much of that can cause kidney failure which is why excessive beatings can kill people, even when they don't initially sustain any life-threatening injuries). The character will be in pain, they'll feel like shit, they'll need plenty of rest and tender caretaking without their limb rotting off.
If you have to infect them, give them an abscess. That way, the pus and bacteria are walled off and can be drained out (by cutting the abscess open), with lower risk of it getting into the blood stream. It's also risky but much more survivable than phlegmone (diffuse infection of soft tissue).
Drugs. Just drug 'em. Ye Olde Opium/Laudanum will put them in a scarily deep sleep while Love Interest can sit there and hold vigil. Now this might also kill them so use with caution.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS WRITING ADVICE NOT MEDICAL ADVICE
Oh no! The Character has an ouchie! And they can't go to urgent care to have it looked at because that's not invented yet! Whatever shall we do!!!
Keep. It. Clean. Carefully and gently clean out gross stuff and things that do not belong in there, do not introduce foreign matter, and keep that wound covered.
The body will support Caretaker in this. Exudation is a natural defense mechanism to flush out germs and other dirt. Normal exudate is clear, with a slight yellow tinge, and almost odorless (wounds do have a characteristic smell, but they don't stink). Excessive exudate can form crusts around the wound, those should be cleaned away. Boiled water or saline solution is probably the safest bet for wound irrigation. Gentle mechanical cleaning (wiping with wet cloth) is appropriate.
Wounds want to be kept moist. Ointment can help with that, and also prevent the bandage from sticking to the wound. For a premodern setting, lard (rendered pig fat) is probably not a terrible option. It contains almost no water or sugar, so doesn't grow mold, and the grease prevents the tissue from drying out. Still, Caretaker will probably want to soak that bandage before they remove it.
The bandage should be clean linen. Not wool. If Caretaker has to rip up their clothes for bandages, at least use the undergarment, and the parts of it that are less dirty (sleeves).
A cavernous wound (ie from a drained abscess) might need to be tamponaded, that is, lined with a strip of wet cloth, to keep it open and help with drainage.
Various herbs, honey, spices, etc, have historically all been used to promote healing, some more successfully than others. However, everything is potentially contaminated with germs and fungal spores. Putting mashed plant matter that hasn't been otherwise treated into wounds is always a gamble.
Disinfection is a possibility, but an effective disinfectant will also damage healthy tissue. If Character has their wound bathed with wine or spirits every time the bandage is changed, that wound will become necrotic.
Stitches are likewise a double-edged sword. Pulling the edges of a deep wound together will make it heal quicker and more smoothly, but it also retains exudate in a warm, anaerobic environment, which makes an ideal growing environment for nasty bacteria. Balance risk and reward appropriately.
Some additional thoughts:
Medicine has taken unimaginable leaps during the last ~150 years. Things that would have been a death sentence to our ancestors are barely more than a nuisance to us. As a result, we have a fundamentally different attitude towards treatments, especially invasive treatments. We do surgeries as precaution or to restore optimal function, where in the past, surgery was often a last resort. It was very risky, and ran a good chance of killing the patient, so it would only be done if they would die anyway.
That doesn't mean doctors and surgeons of the past were helpless, there are a lot of amazing and very sophisticated treatments, that are older than you'd think. For as long as we have been human we have tried to heal each other, and were often successful.
Just because we know humoral pathology is wrong doesn't mean it's stupid. It's based on very solid observations of health and the human body. It was the accepted theory for a long time. It makes no sense for a doctor in that setting to reject it.
The human body is at once more resilient and more fragile than most people think. Humans can walk off devastating injuries, a lot of things will sort themselves out. However, once a tipping point is reached and the body can no longer compensate for whatever is going wrong, there's no turning that process around. This is why systemic infections are so dangerous: Bacteria/toxins overwhelm the immune system, everything is poisoned, multiple organ failure, death. It's very difficult to come back from that, even today.
THIS IS WRITING ADVICE, NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. In real life, there's no benevolent writer that makes sure you get the best possible outcome. Real illnesses don't care how relevant you are to the plot. Have that looked at by a professional.
