Stephanie Mittman (38 page)

W
HEN WRITING HISTORICAL NOVELS, ACCURACY IS AS IMPORTANT
as characterization and plot. It
is
in many ways, characters and plot. After all, we are the products of our time, limited by the progress of the day, shaped by the world in which we live.

In addition, an author has the trust of her reader, which is never, at least by this author, taken lightly. I know that it may have been hard to read
A Heart Full of Miracles
without thinking that I must have stretched the truth, played with the dates, made the facts suit my story. I know that, because as I read and researched, I’d gasp, shake my head, read passages from dusty old texts over and over aloud asking if this could really be so. It was. With the help of John Mangiardi, M.D., FACS, neurosurgeon, who pointed me in the right direction to find the documentation I needed; Jennifer Po, R.N., who brought all the sources to me, answered E-mails and cheered me on; and Bruce Wilde, O.D., who suggested a brain tumor in the first place and told me to look up Fedor Krause, I now know more about
brain surgery in the late 1800s than I ever thought I would.

Brain surgery like the kind I described was carried out at Massachusetts General Hospital in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The success rate was poor, but just as I said in the novel, there were those who did survive and go on to live normal lives. In 1891, Philip Coombs Knapp, A.M., M.D. (Harvard), a clinical instructor in diseases of the nervous system at Harvard Medical School, as well as physician for diseases of the nervous system to outpatients, Boston City Hospital, member of the American Neurological Association and fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society, etc., authored a Fiske Fund Prize dissertation entitled
The Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Intra-Cranial Growths
. In his dissertation he not only described the operations in minute (and often stomach-turning) detail but he also recited case studies of patients upon whom he operated—those who died and those who survived. Yes, survived! A twenty-eight-year-old male suffering from headaches, vomiting and vertigo. A thirty-six-year-old female suffering from headache, psychological disturbances, anesthesia of the left arm and face, dullness, beginning coma. A twenty-year-old male with headaches, spasms of the left arm and face, optic atrophy. Certainly there were deaths, lots of them, but there were successes. Why not allow Abby to be one of them?

The hospital situation presented a problem, since many deaths at the turn of the century and before were due to septicemia. That’s why I went to great lengths to have them sterilize the church and use the autoclave. I
had Seth carefully follow the instructions I found in two medical texts, one written in 1894 by Fedor Krause, and a second from ten years later by Drs. Bergmann and Bruns. Vital also was
The International Medical Annual
for the year 1891 (E. B. Treat, Medical Publisher, 5 Cooper Union, NY, 1891), which contained not only the following quote but some lovely wildflowers that had been pressed between the pages!

In addition to the references cited above, I also became familiar with the practices at Massachusetts General Hospital from two other sources: an article titled “The Massachusetts General Hospital—Early History and Neurosurgery to 1939” by Fred G. Barker II, M.D., and “The History of the Massachusetts General Hospital from June 1872 to December 1900,” by Grace Whiting Myers, librarian emeritus, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information on the history of brain surgery, you might like to check out the following Web site:
http://www.brain-surgery.com/history.html
, which traces the origins of brain surgery back to the neolithic
Stone Age. (My guess is that while they may have performed the surgery then, they didn’t have much of a survival rate!)

Those of you in the medical profession may note some practices that Seth used that seemed improper. Please remember that medicine has come a long way in the past hundred years. We know things now that Seth Hendon was unaware of. All of the medical books of the time insisted that to fight frostbite the skin was to be rubbed gently to return circulation. Today’s physicians would be horrified at the thought. But Seth lived then, so I had him rub Joseph Panner’s feet. (This is one of those do-not-try-this-at-home things!) No doubt I included other treatments that might raise an eyebrow by today’s standards. Most of Seth’s treatments (aside from Abby’s brain surgery) are found in
Dr. Chase’s Last and Complete Receipt Book and Household Physician
(1884, 1887, 1904),
The People’s Common Sense Medical Advisor
by R. V. Pierce, M.D. (1909), or the
Century Book of Health
by J. H. McCormick, M.D. (1906).

While medical details give me the willies, I loved every minute of writing Seth and Abby’s story. Of course, they went on to have a couple of kids, Abby learned to assist him in his medical practice, and their daughter became a surgeon. And everyone, everywhere, lived happily ever after!

With
A Heart Full of Miracles
Stephanie Mittman returns to her favorite place—the midwest of the late 1800s. There’s something about the sense of community in that time and place, of people pulling together to fight the fates, that appeals to her strongly. So strongly, in fact, that it’s always hard for her to say good-bye to her characters and leave behind the town they live in. So, in an effort to recreate her reality, she and her husband have moved to a small town on Long Island and she is happy to report that the people in the post office, the library, and the drug store all know her by name. Now, if she could just tear herself away from her computer for a while, maybe she could even meet the neighbors!

She loves to stop writing to answer letters and E-mails, so if you’d like to contact her, she can be reached online at
www.stephaniemittman.com
or by snail mail c/o MLG, 190 Willis Avenue, Mineola, NY 11501.

Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2000 by Stephanie Mittman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address:
Dell Publishing, New York, N.Y.

Dell® is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-56960-8

September 2000

v3.0