S05.E03: Episode 3

[ZoloftBlob]

I don't know how Trixie would react to that, but I already was thinking that I could see her being angry - angry that Patsy didn't tell her.

 

Am I the only cynic who thinks Trixie, who works in a religious setting, and almost married a vicar, just might not be all "oh so you're gay! I'm annoyed you thought I'd be bothered! Is Delia your life partner?"

 

I mean, maybe I have hung around the Little People Big World boards too long but even now there are people who genuinely believe you get it by touching a gay (that was the first thing out of my brother's mouth when he finally admitted it) and that gay people are irredeemable. I would be genuinely shocked, and a little annoyed to be honest, if Trixie and Barbara and Phyllis and all the nuns were all "oh lesbians, how clever!"

[MaryHedwig]

Wondering why Delia got a single room.  Don't most of the midwives share rooms?

I agree. If there had always been a single room option, I would have given it to the mature Phyllis.

 

Or could this be Sister Evangeline's room? All the nuns appeared to sleep alone, or bunk with God, not sure of the theology here.

 

Then again, maybe they just cleared out a broom closet for her.  Sister Mary Cynthia might have said something to that effect.

 

Of course it is just a handy plot device to leave open the option of private shenanigans in the night.

Edited April 19, 2016 by MaryHedwig

[LittleIggy]

The actress who plays Sister Winifred has such pretty copper red hair.

[Lillybee]

Such a disturbing episode.  My maternal grandmother died having a back alley abortion in the twenties. I don't know what drove her to do that since she was married and already had my mother. From what I hear, she was a wild child. She was a model and had shingled hair and according to my mom wore spectator shoes which was quite a scandal. Her husband was a musician at the time. I hope that she had someone caring when she went though that.

[pasdetrois]

Think of the level of desperation that drove women to jam a coat hanger into their bodies. Social and religious mores drove the desperation - no job, no money, loneliness, abandonment by the father, condemnation and abuse from everyone around you. That schoolteacher would need years to recover from this incident, if she ever recovered.

 

In the 70s I knew a young college woman -- wealthy, educated -- whose father beat and disowned her when he learned she was pregnant (and unmarried). He refused to pay for her education and changed the locks on the family home. She was literally on the street until friends took her in. The older sister of another friend was married to a physician, and when she experienced an unwanted pregnancy, her husband performed the abortion on their kitchen table. My own landlady snooped in the apartments she managed, rifling through drawers (upon discovery of this I moved to a big anonymous high-rise) and peeking through curtains to see if a man was spending the night.

 

It was good to see happy Fred again. I laughed at the shot of the mother lifting her child through a window so a neighbor could run the little girl over to the public toilet. Harried busy mothers know economy of motion! Glad they are taking the time to show that neighborhood demographics were becoming more diverse.

[ZoloftBlob]

Well, you also want to consider - the premise of the show "Three's Company" - where a man pretended to be gay in order to share an apartment with two women while the nosy neighbors eyeballed them constantly for illicit sex happenings - is a storyline we all felt was totally plausible at times, and that was the post hippy late 1970s.

 

I can remember my mom shushing me over how I was not to question why two new kids with the same mom had different last names (and that was because one of them was *illegitimate* and THAT meant that child was forever doomed to be less... and this was the early 1980s)

[Kohola3]

Am I the only cynic...

 

Absolutley not.  

 

Church teachings at that time (and still today in many religions) label homosexuals as abhorrent.  It wasn't until 1967 that male homosexual acts were decriminalized in England. While lesbian acts were never illegal I can image the feelings were similar toward both male and female homosexuals.As late as 1998, the Anglican church considered homosexuality as incompatible with Scripture.  As of 2014 the Church of England considered it a sin.

 

I don't believe that acceptance of a liaison between Delia and Patsy would be viewed favorably or without shock.  I don't care how accepting a community the sisters might be, their religion was clear about that lifestyle.

 

in 1971  my gay cousin committed suicide rather than admit he was gay.  We accepted him but the community support did not exist back then and for many years to come.

[MamaMax]

PBS has to have all of those commercials (VRC, This Program is Brought to You By....) so they cut things out to make room.  Maddening.

 

Warning:  contains unpleasant material to read at a meal.  Typhoid bacteria is shed in the urine and feces of a carrier.  If the carried doesn't practice good hand washing after using the bathroom, typhoid germs can be "added" to any food prepared by the carrier.  Simple, good hand washing is really all it takes to keep people safe.  I can only imagine how often hand washing wasn't as thorough as possible when the toilet was three stories from the apartment and water had to be heated on a stove to wash up afterward.  I wager that got skipped a lot.

 

Even if she had made the jam, the cooking process would have killed any bacteria.

 

In the 60's there were no ever-present squeeze bottles of hand sanitizer from the Dollar Store stilling around like there are now.  People were not hyper sensitive to passing things along via the hands.

 

 

Typhoid Mary spread the disease to her wealthy employers via her dessert specialty -- Peach Ice Cream.  Guess her hand washing was not what it should have been, and the dish is not cooked, so -- there ya go.

 

 

I don't think the nuns are going to be SURPRISED by a lesbian love affair.  Although homosexuality was considered a sin, it MUST have been an issue from time to time with an all-female community living in such intimate conditions.  I am sure Sr. Julienne will be as even-keeled as always, whilst explaining that she can't allow sexual shenanigans in the Convent.

[MaryHedwig]

I laughed at the shot of the mother lifting her child through a window so a neighbor could run the little girl over to the public toilet. Harried busy mothers know economy of motion!

I was so touched by that. Oddly, it made me romanticized tougher and leaner times when neighbors had to be there for one another. I don't know my next-door-neighbors' last names.

Edited April 19, 2016 by MaryHedwig

[Kohola3]

Definitely a different world.  Growing up in the 50's in suburbia I knew every adult neighbor on the block, the inside of everyone's homes, and played with every kid.  Everyone knew everyone else's business.  Moms visited over the fences when hanging laundry out.  Nobody had a second car so we all played in the streets and back yards.  We didn't have a TV until I was 8 or 9.

 

Now I know only the names of neighbors on either side of me.  It's sad, really.

 

Was it easier back then? Not in terms of conveniences.  But it was definitely a richer experience with more face to face interaction.  However, I wouldn't miss sharing a toilet with the rest of the people in a tenement.  Nothing nostalgic about that!

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Call The Midwife Explores A Difficult Choice
When she finds herself in an impossible situation, one Poplar woman goes to dangerous extremes.

[ZoloftBlob]

Was it easier back then? Not in terms of conveniences.  But it was definitely a richer experience with more face to face interaction.  However, I wouldn't miss sharing a toilet with the rest of the people in a tenement.  Nothing nostalgic about that!

 

I don't know. One reason I started watching this show is that my dad was born and raised in the East End from 1944 to 1954 and he refuses to this day to speak of his childhood other than to refer to his life in England as "living in a third world country". I've read the book this is based on (the first book, working thru the others) and I think this is a wee bit sugar coated.

[JudyObscure]

Church teachings at that time (and still today in many religions) label homosexuals as abhorrent.  It wasn't until 1967 that male homosexual acts were decriminalized in England. While lesbian acts were never illegal I can image the feelings were similar toward both male and female homosexuals. As late as 1998, the Anglican church considered homosexuality as incompatible with Scripture.  As of 2014 the Church of England considered it a sin.

 

Right.  So  you would have the religious community considering it a sin,  the legal community considering it a crime, and the medical community considering it a mental illness.   Poor Patsy  and Delia may have the nuns praying for them,   Chummy's husband threatening jail, and   Dr. Turner recommending a psychiatrist.

 

  You know I always felt a little miffed that male homosexuals were considered dangerous criminals, while females were usually just considered "unnatural."  As though it took a penis to  do anything important. Humph. 

 

Has anyone seen Carol with Cate Blanchet and Rooney Mara as a lesbian couple in the 1950's?  I thought it was wonderful and it gave us a very good idea of the attitudes at that time.

[marceline]

No, but Sisters before Misters.

 

 

My friends and I call it "Besties before Testes."

[Clanstarling]

I was so touched by that. Oddly, it made me romanticized tougher and leaner times when neighbors had to be there for one another. I don't know my next-door-neighbors' last names.

Yeah, I don't wax nostalgic about the days when everybody knew your name. I grew up in the 60's and 70's - but mostly on military bases. The housing areas did have some of that quality - except that people were always coming and going. When we lived in civilian neighborhoods, we were the odd men out - it's hard to break into friendships and relationships that have been going on for years and years.

Our family was odd in another way that relates - in my mother's Austrian and very Catholic family, being pregnant w/o being married was no big deal. So much so, that my sister and I were the only women in THREE generations (starting in the late 1800's or early 1900's)_ who didn't either have out of wedlock children, or were pregnant when they got married. I've always been amazed by that.

Edited April 19, 2016 by clanstarling

[MissLucas]

Once you delve into what historians call the history of mentalities you will not just find incredible tragedies of people who were destroyed because they would or could not conform to a specific time period's morale but you will also find the most baffling stories of people who managed to get away with things every text-book on the topic will tell you was an absolute no go. This was either done by sheer force of personality (occasionally helped by privilege though that could also work the other way) or simply because a community was not willing to deal with the consequences and upheaval of sanctioning said behavior and therefore stubbornly looking the other way. The later was more or less what happened in season one with the siblings living in incest.

Edited April 19, 2016 by MissLucas

[zxy556575]

My great aunt was the only female in her law school in the 20s. Always wore trousers, in the Katharine Hepburn style. Her name was Winifred but she went by Pat. Never married, she lived with a friend for 30+ years.

 

She died in 1976 but it wasn't until 20 years after her death that it suddenly occurred to me: d'oh!!

 

If anyone in the family knew/guessed -- her siblings or my parents -- they certainly never spoke of or even alluded to it in front of me. Her father was a Lutheran minister.

Edited April 20, 2016 by lordonia

[marceline]

Am I the only cynic who thinks Trixie, who works in a religious setting, and almost married a vicar, just might not be all "oh so you're gay! I'm annoyed you thought I'd be bothered! Is Delia your life partner?"

 

Yes and no. She's always aspired to be "terribly worldly" (Read that in the voice of your favorite character. ;-) ) and she's admitted to playing the beard for gay men in the past. That said it wouldn't surprise me if she had some issues with lesbianism in general and Patsy/Delia specifically because that hits much closer to home.

[frogprof]

You will find them summarized in the (outstanding) recap.

The only reason I knew about the missing scenes was because of the recap. I don't understand why KUT/PBS cut the scenes, is all I'm saying.

[OtterMommy]

My PBS station (or somebody) totally dropped the first Bitch Angie scene AND Patsy snapping at Delia. The hell?!

 

Mine must have too...because I didn't see anything like this!

[OtterMommy]

Whenever i read the recaps I am always reading about scenes that I never saw. So either the recapper has quite the imagination, or my PBS is cutting the hell out of this show. I wish i knew why this is, but I have never been able to see an uncut version of this or other BBC America shows. 

 

This is so frustrating!  I just read the recap (which, I agree, is excellent!) and, you're right, it almost seems like a different show.  I don't think the first cut scene, the one with racist Angie, was that important...but I can see the scene between Patsy and Delia being so.  When I finally watched this episode last night, I was surprised that the Delia/Patsy dynamic wasn't touched on after Delia moved in...and then I find out it was but someone didn't think we needed to see it.  I would argue that scenes like that--which may build towards something coming in the future (speculation on my part...I know nothing of what is coming up this season as I've been trying to avoid all spoilers)--is something that SHOULD be included!

[OtterMommy]

Why was it entirely Barbara's obligation to tell Trixie that Tom had asked her out?  

 

I wouldn't say it was an obligation--Barbara doesn't owe Trixie anything.  However, it would be a consideration.  And Barbara is a very considerate person.  I doubt that, if she had told Trixie, Trixie would have told to back off and that Tom was hers.  Trixie may have been, well, melancholy over it, but she probably would have recognized that she was the one who broke it off and, no matter what her feelings for Tom, she would not have been fulfilled as his wife.

 

As the story progresses, I hope that the conflict between Trixie and Barbara (if there is any) is more around how the trust between the two was impacted by Barbara not telling her than by any jealousy that Trixie has. While I do think that Barbara and Tom are a cute couple and well-suited to each other, I really don't care that much about Tom to sit through a story line where he is the great prize.  However, I would be interested to see how this impacts Trixie and Barbara's friendship and how they navigate that going forward.

"Potato salad is often the harbinger of Doom!!"

Best line ever.

 

Oh, I agree!  This line made the episode for me!

Wondering why Delia got a single room.  Don't most of the midwives share rooms?  If a single was available, they might have given it to one of the others and had the newcomer share a room to help her get to know the others.  On the other hand, Delia may still be working elsewhere so maybe that was the reason.  

 

It might be because the midwives work together and, this terminology is not really correct, but are "employed" by Nonnatus House, whereas Delia is more of just a boarder?  I can't remember what sort of nurse she was, but it might not be the kind of nurse who has to run out at all hours of the night, like the midwives.

[txhorns79]

Wondering why Delia got a single room.  Don't most of the midwives share rooms?  If a single was available, they might have given it to one of the others and had the newcomer share a room to help her get to know the others.  On the other hand, Delia may still be working elsewhere so maybe that was the reason.

 

I'm sure Delia has her own room for contrivance purposes.  That way Patsy will be comfortable enough to engage in womanly pursuits with her, followed immediately by someone accidentally walking in, seeing everything and being shocked.  That's what I really don't like about this plotline.  I feel like it is destined to end badly for everyone.   

 

 

She died in 1976 but it wasn't until 20 years after her death that it suddenly occurred to me: d'oh!!

 

In fairness to your aunt, they honestly could have just been friends.  I know there can be a danger sometimes in trying to interpret an unconventional relationship from decades ago through modern eyes.   

[Ceindreadh]

It might be because the midwives work together and, this terminology is not really correct, but are "employed" by Nonnatus House, whereas Delia is more of just a boarder?  I can't remember what sort of nurse she was, but it might not be the kind of nurse who has to run out at all hours of the night, like the midwives.

 

IIRC, Delia is a nurse on a male surgical ward.  She wouldn't be on call as such, but could easily be rostered on for night shifts and might need a single room so that she could sleep during the day. 

[Spunkygal]

In fairness to your aunt, they honestly could have just been friends. I know there can be a danger sometimes in trying to interpret an unconventional relationship from decades ago through modern eyes.

My parents bought my childhood home in 1956 and I was born in 1957 (although to this day I look like I'm 29, ha!), and our lifetime next door neighbors were two ladies who really were roomies for life. I am in no way throwing shade on same sex relationships, but just saying that these two ladies who were born in the 1920's did not want to live alone and forged a lifetime friendship. One is still alive and will be 95 this year. I have spent plenty of time with these ladies during my lifetime, together and alone now that one is gone, and they were like sisters to each other. I always admired their independence and determination to have good paying jobs in their day (teaching and banking). they were/are awesome role models for me and I am happy that I was able to tell this to the surviving one at her 90th birthday celebration! Back in the day, some ladies just didn't want to live alone or maybe couldn't live alone for economic or safety reasons. Love you, K and MN! Edited April 21, 2016 by Spunkygal

[dustylil]

If Nonnatus House was  an ordinary female-only boarding house for professional women, it would be one thing. The residents could conduct themselves - romantically and otherwise -  like they were starring in a Carry On movie. However,  it wasn't. It was the home of an  order of Anglican nuns who provided midwifery and related care to the hard scrabble local community in conjunction with other medical service providers. 

I find it hard to believe that  Patsy  and Delia -  intelligent and thoughtful women - would conduct their relationship with so little circumspection and respect for the nuns that their involvement is likely to become known.

If they want to spend more of their time together, let them go back to their original plan and get a flat together. With two incomes they could surely afford it.

[Badger]

Here's a link to the Simply June "Call the Midwife" page.  Scroll down for Season 5.  These are the complete uncut episodes.

 

http://www.simplyjune.org/p/call-midwife.html

[MaryHedwig]

I am in no way throwing shade on same sex relationships, but just saying that these two ladies who were born in the 1920's did not want to live alone and forged a lifetime friendship.

You may very well be right.  In fact, I am sure you are. But my grandmother, born 1902, might not have agreed with you.  She might have said, "Honey, back then people did the same things they do now, they just didn't brag about it."

Edited April 21, 2016 by MaryHedwig

[MissLucas]

If Nonnatus House was  an ordinary female-only boarding house for professional women, it would be one thing. The residents could conduct themselves - romantically and otherwise -  like they were starring in a Carry On movie.

I beg to differ - most female only boarding houses had and still have very strict rules though they mostly apply to male visitors.

[txhorns79]

If Nonnatus House was  an ordinary female-only boarding house for professional women, it would be one thing. The residents could conduct themselves - romantically and otherwise -  like they were starring in a Carry On movie.

I beg to differ - most female only boarding houses had and still have very strict rules though they mostly apply to male visitors.

 

 

I have to agree with Miss Lucas.  Wasn't a major plot point in this very episode about a professional woman who was thrown out of her private boarding house because the landlady had strict rules about how her tenants conducted their romantic lives?  I didn't get the impression from the episode we were supposed to believe her behavior was out of the ordinary for the time.  Even aside from that, I've heard of places like the Barbizon Hotel for Women in New York where they had strict rules on male visitors, curfew for the women, etc. 

Edited April 21, 2016 by txhorns79

[MamaMax]

If Nonnatus House was  an ordinary female-only boarding house for professional women, it would be one thing. The residents could conduct themselves - romantically and otherwise -  like they were starring in a Carry On movie. However,  it wasn't. It was the home of an  order of Anglican nuns who provided midwifery and related care to the hard scrabble local community in conjunction with other medical service providers. 

I find it hard to believe that  Patsy  and Delia -  intelligent and thoughtful women - would conduct their relationship with so little circumspection and respect for the nuns that their involvement is likely to become known.

If they want to spend more of their time together, let them go back to their original plan and get a flat together. With two incomes they could surely afford it.

 

 

Well, Delia's mother wouldn't allow it.  Remember, it was Nonnatus or home to Wales.

[ZoloftBlob]

If they want to spend more of their time together, let them go back to their original plan and get a flat together. With two incomes they could surely afford it.

 

I thought the whole reason they were no longer doing that was that Delia had the terrible car accident and her mom was refusing to allow her adult daughter to live alone in London. Because otherwise, why wouldn't they just carry on with the original plan?

[Badger]

Don't forget Jenny had to sneak Jimmy in, and they were just friends.  

[dustylil]

her mom was refusing to allow her adult daughter to live alone in London. Because otherwise, why wouldn't they just carry on with the original plan

 

But she wouldn't be living alone though would she? She would be living with Patsy. And while I could understand - given the era - that Delia might not be willing to explain her relationship with Patsy to her mother, surely she should have had enough gumption as an adult to determine where she was going to live. And inform her mother of that fact.

 

My apologies for the confusion I caused regarding my earlier comment about  female only boarding houses, especially given what we saw of the residence the teacher was living in. My tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote it.   I thought my reference to those tacky and salacious Carry On movie made that evident. Sorry for not being more clear.

 

In any event, in an ordinary boarding house or similar residence, the rules of conduct are generally quite straightforward. Should a resident choose to disregard them and be found out, he or she could move and continue going about his or her lives in a new location. That would not be the case for lay boarders of Nonnatus House. Should Patsy and Delia  be conducting a physical  relationship and this be stumbled on, I would imagine the discovery might also seriously  impact on their work and careers. It seemed like a huge risk to take when there were other choices open to them.

[proserpina65]

But she wouldn't be living alone though would she? She would be living with Patsy. And while I could understand - given the era - that Delia might not be willing to explain her relationship with Patsy to her mother, surely she should have had enough gumption as an adult to determine where she was going to live. And inform her mother of that fact.

 

Except we saw in the previous episode that she didn't inform her mother about wanting to stay in London regardless of the mother's opinion.  She was fully prepared to go back to Wales and live with her parents until Sister Julienne offered to let her live at Nonnatus House.

[txhorns79]

Except we saw in the previous episode that she didn't inform her mother about wanting to stay in London regardless of the mother's opinion.  She was fully prepared to go back to Wales and live with her parents until Sister Julienne offered to let her live at Nonnatus House.

 

Yes, they've shown over the course of several episodes that Delia's mother was the one making decisions for Delia, and Delia was accepting of that.  I think Delia said something to the extent of her owing it to her mother or parents to do what they wanted since they dedicated so much time to caring for her after the accident.   

If Nonnatus House was  an ordinary female-only boarding house for professional women, it would be one thing. The residents could conduct themselves - romantically and otherwise -  like they were starring in a Carry On movie. However,  it wasn't. It was the home of an  order of Anglican nuns who provided midwifery and related care to the hard scrabble local community in conjunction with other medical service providers.

 

 

My apologies for the confusion I caused regarding my earlier comment about  female only boarding houses, especially given what we saw of the residence the teacher was living in. My tongue was firmly planted in my cheek when I wrote it.   I thought my reference to those tacky and salacious Carry On movie made that evident. Sorry for not being more clear.

 

That must be an exceptionally dry wit.  I say that only because rereading the initial comment, I'm still not seeing how it was meant to be taken as a joke. 

[MissLucas]

I think Delia's mother knows exactly what Patsy means to Delia but she's unwilling to even allude to the nature of their relationship because she's convinced herself that by not talking about it she can make it go away. She kept Patsy's letters from Delia without ever giving a good explanation why she did that and all her anxious fussing about Delia not being fit to live in London are nothing but a smoke-screen. She knows and Delia knows that she knows - and that's why Delia never confronted her mother about making decisions for her. A confrontation with her mother would sooner or later force them both to address the elephant in the room. It's a frustrating dynamic to watch and I feel for Patsy but I also feel for Delia.

[Driad]

Delia's single room, like most things in fiction, can be explained from two points of view: Watsonian (characters' point of view) or Doylist (writer's point of view).

 

Watsonian: likely Delia got the single room because she is not one of the midwives or nuns, and has a different schedule.  Nonnatus House may have a few rooms for guests.

 

Doylist: either the writers plan on Delia and Patsy participating in private activities (and probably getting caught), or they want viewers to worry about this possibility.

 

ETA: Here is one explanation of Watsonian and Doylist: 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WatsonianVersusDoylist

Edited April 21, 2016 by Driad

[OtterMommy]

Delia's single room, like most things in fiction, can be explained from two points of view: Watsonian (characters' point of view) or Doylist (writer's point of view).

 

I must say that I quite like this way of looking at things--not just in the Patsy/Delia case in particular, but in entertainment (movies, TV, literature) in general.  I've never heard it described like this, so thank you for that!

[operalover]

Isn't the new mom who had Typhoid now a carrier too? I don't get it. Isn't she also to be banished? If the Nanna Meg was a carrier because she had a mild case as a kid, then doesn't that mean once you have it you are a carrier? Or since you were cured of it you no longer carry it? 

 

Also honestly enough alread with the "come back Chummy" posts in every episode thread. I only started watching last season with no Chummy (except for one episode with the mother's ashes) and the show is great without her. It's just getting very annoying trying to read about the current episode having to wade through all this Chummy come back stuff.  Never knew her, don't miss her. I can just say the show is GREAT without her. 

[AuntiePam]

Isn't the new mom who had Typhoid now a carrier too? I don't get it. Isn't she also to be banished? If the Nanna Meg was a carrier because she had a mild case as a kid, then doesn't that mean once you have it you are a carrier? Or since you were cured of it you no longer carry it? 

 

 

I read the Wiki.  It's not explicitly spelled out, but it sounds like a person can be a carrier without being sick -- like Meg and Typhoid Mary -- and that people who get sick can be cured, and they're no longer infected.  Once the infection is gone, that person isn't a carrier because the bacteria is no longer in their body.

 

Someone correct me if I'm misinterpreting.

[operalover]

that makes sense, but then why can't they "cure" the carrier or kill the disease in the carrier too?

[anna0852]

That's about it.

 

Can the antibiotics that are used to treat an acute infection also be used to clear the bacteria from the carrier's system as well?

[AuntiePam]

That's about it.

 

Can the antibiotics that are used to treat an acute infection also be used to clear the bacteria from the carrier's system as well?

 

It's not spelled out at Wiki or webmd.  I''m guessing "maybe".  Carriers might not know they're carriers, so they don't take the antibiotics. 

 

From webmd:  About 3%-5% of people become carriers of the bacteria after the acute illness. Others suffer a very mild illness that goes unrecognized. These people may become long-term carriers of the bacteria -- even though they have no symptoms -- and be the source of new outbreaks of typhoid fever for many years.

 

Webmd says that removing the gall bladder from a carrier means they won't spread the disease.  Typhoid Mary refused to allow this, and spent the last 26 years of her life in quarantine. 

[proserpina65]

It's not spelled out at Wiki or webmd.  I''m guessing "maybe".  Carriers might not know they're carriers, so they don't take the antibiotics. 

 

From webmd:  About 3%-5% of people become carriers of the bacteria after the acute illness. Others suffer a very mild illness that goes unrecognized. These people may become long-term carriers of the bacteria -- even though they have no symptoms -- and be the source of new outbreaks of typhoid fever for many years.

 

Webmd says that removing the gall bladder from a carrier means they won't spread the disease.  Typhoid Mary refused to allow this, and spent the last 26 years of her life in quarantine. 

She also refused to stop working in food preparation, which is how she was infecting the families for whom she worked, and that was a major part of the thinking behind quarantining her.

[salvame]

I wonder if the fact that we don't see some scenes has to do with the way the show is formatted for UK viewing vs US - more of a timing thing.  Has anyone noted similar issues with "Downton Abbey"?  

[izabella]

Yes, they cut scenes from Downtown Abbey, too.  Very frustrating for US viewers.

 

DA also had a lot of pregnancy stories, including two "out of wedlock" pregnancies.  The first was a house maid who fell for a soldier who was just playing.  Poor Ethel had to leave her job, the now-dead soldier's family shunned her and wanted nothing to do with her or her baby, and she ended up becoming a prostitute to survive.  In the end, she gave up her baby to the soldier's parents, and with the anachronistic help of two titled ladies, was able to get a job in a nearby village so she could peek at her child from afar.

 

The other woman was the daughter of the Earl who had an affair with a married man, and I won't go into all the shenanigans, but Edith ended up roses with her bastard child being taken in as a "ward" by her parents, though her rich aunt did take her to one of those doctors in "Harley Street" who could have performed an abortion for women with means.

 

Miss Whitmore had the misfortune of being a poor Edna instead of a wealthy and connected Edith.  As it has been since the beginning of time, and will always be, apparently. 

 

There are many poor women in the United States whose rights to obtain a safe and legal abortion continue to be abridged, restricted, and eroded on a daily basis in some states.  In some states, there are only one or two places that perform abortions, and poor women don't have the money or means to get there, stay there for the mandatory waiting periods and mandatory counseling designed to talk them out of it, and on and on.  Some states don't have any doctors who will perform abortions due to community vitriol and death threats, so those women have to go out of state (or, if they are lucky, they live near a place where a doctor from a different state drives or flies in once or twice a month to do abortions and then gets the hell out of town so she isn't run out with pitchforks or guns. I am not making this up -see North Dakota where there is 1 clinic in the entire state, and see Texas which is making laws about abortions not being able to be performed in clinics, etc.).  

 

This is my long winded way of saying we are not so superior in 2016 about abortions, and the ability to obtain safe, legal abortions is not a battle we have "won" but a battle that we need to constantly fight or risk losing the gains we have made.

Edited April 23, 2016 by izabella

[Badger]

Actually, starting with Season 3, "Downton Abbey" added scenes for the US.  The only season where they definitely did delete scenes was Season 1.  They may have for Season 2, but I'm not positive about that.  If you watch  "Indian Summers", they also add scenes for that one too.

[J-Man]

 

A typhoid outbreak at Nonnatus House is investigated.

This is somewhat misleading -- there was no outbreak of typhoid AT Nonnatus House.

 

Can someone please explain Tom's clerical status? They refer to him as "Mr. Hereward" or "Tom" so I guess he's not entitled to be called "Father" or addressed with some other honorific. I really don't know much about Church of England-- is he a vicar? A priest? (And is there a difference between them?) I'm just confused.

[Diffy]

Can someone please explain Tom's clerical status? They refer to him as "Mr. Hereward" or "Tom" so I guess he's not entitled to be called "Father" or addressed with some other honorific. I really don't know much about Church of England-- is he a vicar? A priest? (And is there a difference between them?) I'm just confused.

 

Tom is a curate.  He's ordained in the Church of England but is an assistant to the vicar (or rector) of the church until he gets assigned his own church.  The difference between a vicar and a rector is mostly historically based.  It has to do with whether the Bishop or the local aristocrat had the ability to appoint them to the specific "living" (church) and isn't relevant to the function.  Curates, rectors and vicars are all parish priests.  A vicar would be addressed as Vicar, a  rector as Rector, and a curate as Mr. as the norm.  A very high church Anglican might refer to them all as Father but not often.  They can all also be addressed as Reverend So-and-So.  If you also watch Grantchester - Leonard is Sidney's curate.

 

That may have been more than you wanted to know.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Diffy