Chapter 36
Balliol:
An Oxford college.
Gray’s Inn:
A London Inn of Court.
Chapter 37
peascods:
The pod of the pea.
nostrum mongers:
Quacks who peddled false remedies for ailments.
furbelows:
A gathered or pleated piece of material, especially as an ornament on a woman’s garment.
guglet:
A bottle.
digitalis purpurea:
Staffordshire doctor William Withering is credited with discovering the powers of the purple foxglove,
digitalis purpurea.
In 1775, one of his patients who was suffering from a heart complaint consulted a local Gypsy, took a secret herbal remedy, and promptly got much better. The active ingredient was
digitalis purpurea
and Withering subsequently wrote a paper on it.
Chapter 38
crossroads burial:
In England until 1823, a suicide’s body was buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart.
Chapter 42
Cherwell:
A tributary of the Thames that runs through Oxford.
bargees:
People employed on or in charge of a barge.
guineas:
A guinea was worth one pound and one shilling.
Magdelene:
An Oxford college on the Cherwell; pronounced “mord-lin.”
Chapter 44
tricorn:
A three-cornered hat fashionable at the time.
Chapter 46
Bedford Lane:
In Covent Garden, an area which by the 1760s had acquired such a dubious reputation that a magistrate dubbed it “the Great Square of Venus.”
St. George’s Hospital:
Founded in 1733.
vinegar:
Used as an antiseptic.
Chapter 50
mortsafe:
An elaborate tomb to foil any attempts by grave robbers.
phaeton:
A carriage drawn by a single horse or a pair, typically with four large wheels.
Chapter 51
lichen:
A plant that grows on the shaded bases and trunks of mature trees, usually beech, in ancient woodland.
Chapter 53
Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus:
A masterwork by the anatomist and obstetrician Dr. William Hunter, published in 1774.
Robert Hooke’s
Micrographia
contained detailed drawings of fungi.
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Copyright © 2012 by Tessa Harris
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7802-9