Anne Lister's Motions
A tolerable, good or capital motion?
The workings of the digestive system held significant importance in popular medical opinion in the 19th century. The stomach was thought of as the "focus of vitality" and that derangements of the stomach's functions constituted "a large proportion of human ailments." One can imagine then why Anne Lister, who meticulously documented other aspects of her daily life, was also inclined to track her personal health via details regarding her bowel movements.
While casual mentions of a 'bowel complaint' keeping her from church or some other activity may appear in plain-hand throughout the journal, in her crypt-hand Anne also wrote in specific detail about the size, shape, and color of her excrement, sometimes noting the time of day, or whether she thought the constitution of the matter was indicative of her own improved or declining health. She would also note similar (but less descriptive) observations about others, including how long they may have spent at 'the place' or 'on the pot' and whether she believed this to be a contributing factor in any recent illness or irregularity of temperament on their part.
Sneaky poop details... for science, of course!
Anne's journals include enough details about her bowel movements to make many a code breaker shudder when there's a single coded line appearing in the middle of an otherwise plain-hand entry. Cross your fingers and pray for 'cousins'? Somehow, you're never quite prepared to have focus abruptly shifted from tree planting to bowel movements.
So why are we compiling these? For science, of course! Anne's careful observations about her troubles with her digestive tract give us a unique view of her diet (as also tracked by Anne Lister's Cuisine) affecting her health.
Contributors
This project is made possible through ongoing contributions from the following people:
Adeline Lim
Alison Kirchgasser
Dawn Susan
Francesca Raia
Jan Webster
Janneke van der Weijden
Jenna Beyer
Liane Porter
Lívia Labate
Marlene Oliveira
Pauline M.
Shantel Smith
Steph Gallaway
Susanne Piotrowski
Ylva Nilson
How to contribute to this project
Request access to edit the spreadsheet. Please include an email address that is associated with a Google account (this is the only requirement to participating in this project). If you don't have one, here's how to do it.
You will receive an email confirming you have editorial access.
Once granted access, you can add a new item to the bottom of the list.
Tip: Don't worry about redundancy; enter any information you have and we'll reconcile duplicates later.
All information in this spreadsheet is in English, but please preserve the journal passages as written by Anne Lister.
Anyone can help research and add additional information for each references in this spreadsheet.
If you want to help research information about these references or help find any of these artworks, please follow the steps above and note you would like to research the entries.