While it will not be easy to produce chloramphenicol with the resources at hand, it can be done—with a lot of Grantville’s money and skilled people. Early production would probably be limited to bucket quantities, however, enough to treat perhaps a hundred people per month. Only with the advent of stainless steel and chemical plants will production on a larger scale become likely. And for some time, the people capable of manufacturing the drug will be limited to a small number of the up-timers with a pharmaceutical or chemical background.
Conclusion
I’m afraid there isn’t an easy answer to the development of penicillin or other grown antibiotics. It will take time, effort, expense, and some risk. Ultimately, in a decade or so, the characters in the 1632 series will succeed. In the interim, chloramphenicol and sulfa drugs will have to fill the void, and save as many lives as possible.
Chemical Engineering in 1632: It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.
My thanks go to Rick Boatright, Drew Clark, Laura Runkle, and other members of the 1632 chem group for their contributions to this article, as well as to my wife, Marla, for editing it.
HORSE POWER
by
Karen Bergstralh
The people of Grantville have been plunged into a world where horsepower literally means horse power.
In the 17th century muscle, water, and air provided power. Water wheels provide power for mills but their use is limited by location. Water is also subject to seasonal variations. Air-driven power always comes to mind with the Dutch windmills; but, again, air-powered windmills are limited by location and subject to variations. The ability of boats to move down rivers with the currents and back upstream with wind power again depends upon variations in the water and wind.
For dependable and portable power, that leaves muscles. The muscles involved might be human, canine, bovine, or equine. Horses, mules, and oxen provided the heavy muscle power.
The major categories that horses are used for are:
Draft—pull carts, wagons, plows, harrows, canal barges, and such;
Transportation—riding;
War—cavalry, officers’ mounts, pulling artillery;
Power—hitched to sweeps to provide rotary power for machinery;
Food—do I have to explain this one?
Each category has different physical and mental requirements. A horse that is well suited to be a cavalry mount would not be suited to pull a wagon or plow. Each job requires a different combination of body type and personality. Also, each of these broad categories can be broken down into more specific uses, all with their own body type requirements. Within each category there will be a wide range of horses from the few, very good, very expensive, to the many solid, medium priced, to the poor quality, very cheap.
Draft horses may be light, medium, or heavy. Light draft would be pulling two wheeled carts to haul produce or people from the farm or around the city. Small placid horses and ponies are suited to these jobs. A new wrinkle, starting in the 16th century and continuing in our timeline (OTL) until well into the 20th, is the development of fancy carriage horses. These fancy carriage horses fall between the light and medium draft categories. Medium draft horses would be used in teams of two to eight to pull plows, harrows, and wagons on the farms. Heavy draft horses, also used in teams, are needed to pull the mechanized farm equipment Grantville will be building.
Light and medium draft horses abound; heavy draft horses do not. A major change, one that is just starting in the 17th century, is the development of the heavy draft horse. As road systems get better between towns the larger draft breeds also begin to show up. They are the heavy trucks of the day. Oxen are still the animals of choice for plowing because the plows are so big, heavy, and awkward and horses are expensive. Slowly, in OTL, several heavy horse breeds developed and others were remodeled from medium to heavy draft. The early introduction of mechanized farm equipment will speed the demand for these heavy horses and in this area, the Grantviller with the Belgians may have something to offer his down-time farmer friends.
Horses used for transportation can be generally assigned to two categories—speed and comfort. The speedsters are bred for just that. They are used to speed mail and messages and for the man in a hurry. The comfort horses are the amblers. Another major change that occurs in OTL is the almost complete disappearance of amblers or gaited horses from Europe. The ambler has a soft, easy to ride gait much appreciated by those who ride long distances. Modern examples of amblers would be such as the Peruvian Paso, Paso Fino, Icelandic, and Missouri Foxtrotters. The ambling gait is a natural gait and is known today by a number of names such as singlefoot, shuffle, amble, Paso Llano, Paso Fino, or Tolt.