[Sca-cooks] a grain question- probably OOP

[Volker Bach]

"Laura C. Minnick" schrieb:
>
> Sorghum, huh? That's very interesting! I suppose Grandpa would be using
> the word corn in the Old World sense...
>
> Thanks to everyone who had an answer for kaffircorn or stooking! You can
> find out the darnedest things on this list!
>
> Now- another question- not especially foor-related, but I know there
> oare folks on the list who do Old German stuff. There is a term that
> comes up several times in the books- "Nervenschwaeche"- translated by
> Aunt Esther as 'nervous debility'. I have has some suggest that it was a
> form of depression, but I am just a little dubious, as an ancestress
> DIED of it in 1824, after having been bedridden from it for 8 weeks. I
> thought maybe it could be some sort of seizures or palsy? Any ideas?

Well, 'Nervenschwaeche' in itself means 'weakness
of the nerves' which, by 19th centzury lights,
could apply to a wide range of disorders, not all
of them to do with the nervous system as we
understand it. There's an entry in an old 1873
dictionary I have that notes 'nervous disorder,
nervous fever' which suggests to me that it might
well have been some kind of infectious disease.
I'm not in the medical profession, but I know
there are several diseases that attack the nervous
system and result in things like shaking, loss of
motor control, weakness and paralysis which 19th
century doctors would have equated with 'nerves'.
(Come to think of it, I recently read an 1879
naval review that describes seasickness as an
affliction of the nerves)

Giano