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====== The Steam Enhanced Straight Jackets of von Gluck ======
//A digression on the medical uses of steam and tight canvas.//

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//"...  Much more than the steam enhanced straight jacket contraption of von Gluck.  Covering the siege weapons with lavender oil and clean bandages did not really disguise its lack of medical suitableness.", says the Duke.//

//"Oh dear Duke, I've often heard you mention this contraption of von Gluck but never the situation. Where on earth did he get the lavender oil? And why did he need to disguise the medical suitableness? asks the Fair Lady Jones as she motions for petite fours to be brought for the table. //

//"Well, M'lady - it was like this ...", says the Duke. //

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"This Mr. Gailysford of yours was obviously attempting to use the very same legal tricks for his amateur experiments with peasants and trebuchets in the same way as von Gluck did earlier for his //Jacket-o-matic// device."

"It was Doctor herr uberkaput Karl von Gluck who first proposed to the academia of the Prussian Medical Academy the implentation of a device to facilitate the quick restraint of the mad.  Those possessed of such ill humors that their wits themselves were completely addled."

"Munich at the time was quite beset with them because of the nefarious French plot to poison sausages with vast quantities of lead as a precursor to a future Gallic invasion.  What with the recent drought in Prussia causing all their sausage-trees to wither and die, they were gullible enough to seek any help, even from the French, and hungry enough to eat even lead-pipe-stuffed sausage skins, it was no wonder there soon arose a nation-spanning epidemic of the mentally deranged.  The, for want of a better word, //food// was so heavy it immediately sank to their legs after swallowing, and was so stiff, it produced a perculiar gait in all the victims who ate it."

"The resultant stiff legged walking, without bending the knee, led to weeks of sleepless nights that drove many a Prussian beyond the brink of sanity.  It wasn't until my discourses to the Prussian parliament later, on my own experiences in our House of Lords (particularly pertaining to how I survived 3 weeks worth of legislature without dieing), that the Prussians learnt from me the fine art of sleeping whilst standing upright.  But that is another story..."

"Von Gluck at the time was in possession of surplus war equipment that had been decommissioned on the grounds of never actually working in the field.  Trite reasons, no longer followed by the military, but prevalent at that time.  He obtained a whole battalion of steam powered soldiers.  Which unfortunately could never get beyond presenting arms and exploding.  The trickier skilled parts of soldiering, such as cribbage and making tea, were completely beyond them."

"He attached canvas to their outsides, covered them in lavender oil in order to disguise the smell of burning coal, and was intent on sending them forth as mobile ambulatory self-jacketing madmen restrainers.  The //Jacket-o-matic//."

"Needless to say, when demonstrating one in front of the learned gentleman, where it immediately tracked von Gluck himself down, straight jacket-ed him, and then exploded, the entire project never got off the drawing board."

"But I digress, please continue with your story, Lady Jane", says the Duke.

--- //[[curufea@yahoo.com|Peter Cobcroft]] 08/08/2005 09:55//

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