2 thoughts on “Days of Real Sport: The Medicine Show”
I finally have to delurk here to ask two questions. Why is the kid blindfolded? I don’t recall any medicine show custom involving blindolds.
Second, what are those, I presume, gas lamps? The upper round part doesn’t seem large enough to be a sufficient gas reservoir. It could be a carbide lamp where water is dripped from the upper chamber onto calcium carbide to make acetylene gas, but I don’t see any carbide chamber. Come to think of it, it could be a liquid fuel (oil, alcohol, or kerosene) gravity fed lamp like an Argand lamp, but without the fancy wick and chimney. Doesn’t match anything I’ve ever seen, but must have been common enough for Briggs to assume everyone would recognize it. He even shows a case for one (if that’s not a banjo case), but why only one case? There are three, or maybe four, lamps.Report
I wonder if any of these are things you mention that aren’t really true but were at the time associated with them. Like chalk outlines at crime scenes? Might explain why Briggs put them in even if they weren’t actually there.Report
I finally have to delurk here to ask two questions. Why is the kid blindfolded? I don’t recall any medicine show custom involving blindolds.
Second, what are those, I presume, gas lamps? The upper round part doesn’t seem large enough to be a sufficient gas reservoir. It could be a carbide lamp where water is dripped from the upper chamber onto calcium carbide to make acetylene gas, but I don’t see any carbide chamber. Come to think of it, it could be a liquid fuel (oil, alcohol, or kerosene) gravity fed lamp like an Argand lamp, but without the fancy wick and chimney. Doesn’t match anything I’ve ever seen, but must have been common enough for Briggs to assume everyone would recognize it. He even shows a case for one (if that’s not a banjo case), but why only one case? There are three, or maybe four, lamps.Report
I wonder if any of these are things you mention that aren’t really true but were at the time associated with them. Like chalk outlines at crime scenes? Might explain why Briggs put them in even if they weren’t actually there.Report