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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
Their choice of "French" is easily understandable
In French, the device is called "capote anglaise"...
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Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Whitman, one quibble springs to mind: "physician and courtesan" an interesting combination, they were more progressive back then than I would have thought. Or did you mean courtier?
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Suppose the "letter" in "French letter" has nothing to do with written correspondence at all? There was a time when the word "let" was a synonym of hinderance in English -- a few years back -- and one wonders if the hinderance which the condom posed both to sperm getting out and infection getting in might have led to its being called a "letter". I have NO evidence for this whatsoever; it was only a wild-eyed etymoligical guess.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
My, my, my. Just THINK of all the things a "physician and courtesan" could do for the patient, while making a house call.
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Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
I remember reading that in the 14th century "dentists" used to distract their "patients" from the pain of their clumsy attentions by providing naked dancing girls for their delectation. So I guess it might be a kind of precendent.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Was that sort of thing covered by most 14th Century dental plans?
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
now that's something I could sink my teeth into... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Yes, although since I posted that I remembered where I read it. It was in an article in a dental journal (not sure where from, but probably the Zild) which took a sweep through the history of dentistry. Just the kind of thing a dentist's patient wants to be reading while he waits, I assure you. Not. Anyway, the commentary on the "practice" was written a couple of centuries later, after they'd invented printing. It was part of a Church pamphlet (I think) written to attack the ungodly practices of the Jews (who were the dentists in some German town or state), and it was accompanied by a rather lurid woodcut of the practice. Pure propaganda, and I bet it backfired something awful!
Schedule of Charges, Dentist, Lower Saxony, 1425
Extraction: Quarter of a thaler
Extraction with demurely dressed female smiling nicely: Half a thaler
Extraction with half-dressed female: Not smiling, Three quarters of a thaler. Smiling, seven-eighths of a thaler.
Extraction with a naked female drinking coffee: One thaler.
Extraction with multiple naked dancing females: 40 gold pieces.
Ah, these dentists. Every post a winning post ...
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Nice one, Pfranz, if you ignore the fact that coffee didn't even hit Europe (Italy, at that) until some 200 years later. 
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
"All I ever wanted to do was run a dance school and marry a Jewish dentist" - Goldie Hawn.
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