Mommy

[protohistorian]

Do we have any information regarding the state of the relationship between George and His mom?

[Sam Flynn]

Do we have any information regarding the state of the relationship between George and His mom?

None, Dave. Indeed we have no facts whatsoever about the state of relations between Klosowski and any members of his family.

[Natalie Severn]

Do we have any information regarding the state of the relationship between George and His mom?

It might suggest a reasonably stable family background that George was apprenticed by his mother and father from 1880 until 1885 to a Senior Surgeon in Sloven.An apprenticeship that lasted such a long time [5 years] suggests that his parents were supportive of him,at least to a certain extent ,during that time.An apprentice usually received little pay,so the onus for bed and board usually fell on the parents during the course of the apprenticeship.As Chapman appears to have been living away from home during that time, it may have meant them contributing towards his keep.

[Sam Flynn]

It might suggest a reasonably stable family background that George was apprenticed by his mother and father

A reasonable suggestion, Nats.

As Chapman appears to have been living away from home during that time.

Doubtful - Zvoleń was over 150 miles from Nagórna, and there would almost certainly have been "senior surgeons" (for which read "village doctors") closer to home willing to take on a young helper. In that capacity, Severin quite possibly paid his way without too much subsidy from his parents.

Chances are the family moved further East at some point in Severin's youth, possibly to Zvoleń itself. It would have been a natural place for Klosowski's carpenter father to have found work - the timber industry was rather big there. Even today, despite greater urbanisation than that which existed in the 1870s, the area around Zvoleń boasts around 39,000 acres of managed forestry.

[protohistorian]

[QUOTE=Sam Flynn;64718]A reasonable suggestion, Nats.Doubtful - Zvoleń was over 150 miles from Nagórna, and there would almost certainly have been "senior surgeons" (for which read "village doctors") closer to home willing to take on a young helper. In that capacity, Severin quite possibly paid his way without too much subsidy from his parents.

Chances are the family moved further East at some point in Severin's youth, possibly to Zvoleń itself. It would have been a natural place for Klosowski's carpenter father to have found work - the timber industry was rather big there. Even today, despite greater urbanisation than that which existed in the 1870s, the area around Zvoleń boasts around 39,000 acres of managed forestry.

The political climate in Poland at that timr was rather charged, religous based conflict, both became team sports for the exercise of hatred. It was most definately not a stable enviroment.

[Natalie Severn]

PH,
I wasnt suggesting the political climate was stable but rather that his home background appears to have been reasonably stable up to the age of 15 -ie both parents were still together when they apprenticed him to a 5 year stint in surgery work.

Sam,


Regarding your assertion that a "Senior Surgeon "in Poland was little more than a "village doctor".This may be the case but surely the fact this man,Rappaport was entitled to call himself a "Senior Surgeon",[Philip Sugden"s term after researching the matter] even in those days,must have meant he was at least qualified to carry out say an amputation?
I am thinking here of the Country doctor Charles Bovary ,in Flaubert"s," Madam Bovary",who during the same period of time in a similar type backwater in Normandy, wished to "better himself" and the progress to "surgery"was through carrying out a leg amputation.
The fact that he made a complete mess of the task and the man nearly died and therefore Dr Bovary failed to progress to the next level was the crucial prompt for the plot to develop .
So this progression to a more senior level, must have been considered pretty significant-even in a village in Normandy of 6,000 inhabitants circa 1880"s.I am well aware the book is a work of fiction Sam,but as Flaubert"s writing is famed for its "social realism", he would have been unlikely to have had his characters acting out of synch in this respect.

[Sam Flynn]

Regarding your assertion that a "Senior Surgeon "in Poland was little more than a "village doctor".This may be the case but surely the fact this man,Rappaport was entitled to call himself a "Senior Surgeon"

He may well have been entitled, Nats - as far as the traditions of rural Poland permitted. However, I wouldn't want to give (nor indeed perpetuate) the impression that Moshko Rappaport was some sort of William Gull, Joseph Lister or Christiaan Barnard. No "senior surgeon", even in the London of 1888, would take on a 15 year-old boy as an apprentice in any serious clinical sense. Come to think of it, neither would the likes of Bagster Philips or Thomas Bond.

He may have been fully entitled to the appellation in the village of Zwolen at that time, but to magnify Rappaport's status by describing him as a "senior surgeon" would be misleading in today's terms.

[Natalie Severn]

He may well have been entitled, Nats - as far as the traditions of rural Poland permitted. However, I wouldn't want to give (nor indeed perpetuate) the impression that Moshko Rappaport was some sort of William Gull, Joseph Lister or Christiaan Barnard. No "senior surgeon", even in the London of 1888, would take on a 15 year-old boy as an apprentice in any serious clinical sense. Come to think of it, neither would the likes of Bagster Philips or Thomas Bond.

He may have been fully entitled to the appellation in the village of Zwolen at that time, but to magnify Rappaport's status by describing him as a "senior surgeon" would be misleading in today's terms.

It may be worth reading up on what happened here a little earlier in the 19th century, Sam.
In all respects the practice followed in the case of Klosowski aka George Chapman follows what happened in rural and parochial establishments here, some fifty years earlier-aspects of which were even continuing in 1880"s London.
For example the fact that Klosowski"s parents took out a 5 year apprenticeship when he was 15 years old and that Klosowski ,at 20 after completing the 5 year apprenticeship then went to a city hospital and paid to do a practical course in "the science of surgery" corresponds precisely with the preparation all students were required to undertake here as a preliminary for the further qualification [eg after 1830 to qualify for membership to the Royal College of Surgeons].
What is also of significance here is that such an apprenticeship cost parents a great deal of money.The premium paid by Keats"s trustees----his parents already both dead, was £210.Moreover Keats like Klosowski was 14 years and ten months old when he was apprenticed to Thomas Hammond,his doctor and neighbour.The apprenticeship began in Church Street Edmonton with a surgery in the garden and a room above the surgery for apprentices to live in .See chapter three," Keats" by Robert Gittings.

What is evident is that to be apprenticed to a village doctor here cost a premium of £210 in the early 19th century and that it very likely cost Klosowski"s parents a similar sum of money in Poland to apprentice their son to Rappaport.

Sugden states that Chapman/Klosowski himself paid the fees for his practical course in surgery and once again the similarities of training between the UK and Poland----though some thirty to fifty years apart, are striking.
To progress in surgery for Keats it was compulsory to "work in a hospital" -like Chapman, even if he then had only wished to be a "Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries",the sole difference being that in Keats"s case he wanted to take a years hospital training to qualify for Membership of The Royal Society of Surgeons not just the briefer six months course for the Licentiate.

This information alone suggests that Klosowski"s parents very unlikely indeed to have been "impoverished"----probably they were quite comfortably off which may help to explain why he could be in a position to open his own hairdressing business within a year and a half of arriving here..

[Sam Flynn]

Nats,

Thanks for the fascinating info about Keats.

All I can say is that I'd find it very difficult to equate the life of Klosowski (son of a carpenter in a tiny village), and his helping a small-town doctor like Rappaport (whose practice was in a tree-felling backwater of Poland), with the experience of John Keats (son of an inn-keeper) and an apothecary in North London.

If there is anything to be learned from this, it's that broadly similar arrangements to the London of 1810 still existed in the Poland of 1880. It hardly inspires much confidence in the level of education enjoyed by the young Severin. Who, I repeat, got good marks for applying leeches and draining blood into a cup, and who went on to cut hair - just as one might have expected a feldscher (rather than a "proper" doctor or surgeon) to have done.

[protohistorian]

None, Dave. Indeed we have no facts whatsoever about the state of relations between Klosowski and any members of his family.

Thank you Sam, it may not be good news, but it is another brick in the wall.

[Natalie Severn]

I"m glad you liked the stuff on Keats!
Slight " stereotyping " going on here Sam , about "Poles" circa 1888 ?
,The hospital where Klosowski did his short course wasnt in a backward village ,it was in the capital,Warsaw,and to judge from photos taken of that city before WW2 it had a lot going for it including some of the finest architecture in Europe .
I understand John Keats"s father was a groom actually ,though you are right that part of the family were linked to running inns in and around Aldgate-The Swan and Hoop being one that was apparently owned by Keats gt grandfather.
Anyway the point I was making was that Chapman"s parents probably paid , to have him "apprenticed" for five years and leeches or no leeches, a parallel apprenticeship in England to a local doctor either to qualify for a course in surgery or to gain an Apothecary licenciate ----up to and including the 1860"s -cost money----they were very sought after apprenticeships and in England and you needed to be spoken for by a medical practitioner or apothecary .

[Sam Flynn]

Slight " stereotyping " going on here Sam , about "Poles" circa 1888 ? ,The hospital where Klosowski did his short course wasnt in a backward village

Indeed not, Nats - but the places where he served 4.5 years' apprenticeship most definitely were. Well, small towns/villages at least - the word I used was "backwater", which is about right for both Zvoleń and Tymienica.

The Praga hospital indeed has a long and respectable history, but I daresay that back then its facilities may not have been up to the standards of its contemporaries in Berlin, Paris or London. That's not stereotyping - merely a recognition that some parts of Europe were rather repressed at that time, and then (as today) there were richer and poorer countries. Poland was, in the 1880s, firmly in the latter bracket - and was to remain so for more than a century.

I understand John Keats"s father was a groom actually ,though you are right that part of the family were linked to running inns

Keats senior, according to what I read, was a "hostler" (hostel/hotel owner), which is a word related to - but different from - an "ostler" (a groom, as you say).

As an aside, I'm reminded of an episode in Spike Milligan's "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall", where a pompous Sergeant-Major is introducing a new, culturally-inclined senior officer to the troops. Says the Sergeant: "Right, you 'orrible lot, the Colonel wants to talk to you today about Keats. Now, I bet half you hignerrant bastards don't even know what a 'keat' is..."

Anyway the point I was making was that Chapman"s parents probably paid , to have him "apprenticed" for five years.

That's quite possibly the case, but I think we can forget the comparatively large fees typically paid for in the richer countries of Europe for such a position. I shouldn't be surprised if, at the age of 15, the young Klosowski had to do a bit of fetching and carrying in order to earn his keep as well. As arguably an important commodity in Moshko's practice, those leeches needed to be cared for, after all

[Natalie Severn]

I think we should be careful Sam,of looking at the Poland of 1870-1900 as being backward.
The information I have is that Warsaw for example had modern sewers,drainage and gas works and roads during that time that easily ranked with those of Western Europe.Also that its University and various faculties were very well equipped .Marie Curie was a very eminent scientist to have emerged emerged from the Poland of that period and its cultural tradition in Music was very well established and in many respects ahead of the UK"s.
Sam,how do you know that all Chapman"s five year apprenticeship amounted only to attending to leeches? This is where I see your assertions about Poland and its medical training and practice to be unfounded .
Poland after all was the country that produced Marie Curie,whose work in the 1890"s led this young woman scientist to make groundbreaking discoveries into radiation which took the entire medical world a whole lot further forward--and since there were very few men let alone women in any of the countries you quote-Britain ,France or Germany whose own advances in the field of medicine even compared with those of the Polish Marie Curie, I find it hard to understand your position.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Nats,

Moshko Rappaport was no Marie Curie. The latter had a somewhat privileged - or, at least, intellectual - upbringing, so she was no Severin Klosowski either.

As to Klosowski's 5-year apprenticeship and leeches - I'm only going on the certificates/references he himself kept. If there had been any grander element to his training, would you not think that he'd have held onto those too?

As the ace bull$hitter that he was elsewhere, he doesn't even seem to have pretended to have had any more illustrious training - "I was a feldscher at the Infant Jesus Hospital..." seems to have been the apex of the claims he made in respect of his "surgical" career.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats,

Moshko Rappaport was no Marie Curie. The latter had a somewhat privileged - or, at least, intellectual - upbringing, so she was no Severin Klosowski either.

As to Klosowski's 5-year apprenticeship and leeches - I'm only going on the certificates/references he himself kept. If there had been any grander element to his training, would you not think that he'd have held onto those too?

As the ace bull$hitter that he was elsewhere, he doesn't even seem to have pretended to have had any more illustrious training - "I was a feldscher at the Infant Jesus Hospital..." seems to have been the apex of the claims he made in respect of his "surgical" career.

But a "feldscher" Sam,was an "assistant surgeon".