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Fm: Betty Babas 76336,113

To: Diana Gabaldon 76530,523

changing events…

So, for instance, doing something that assures Hitler dies in WWI wouldn’t necessarily prevent WWII. Just that someone else would emerge to take his place?

OTOH, we could (for fictional purposes) alter something in history which, if we *hadn’t* interfered, could result in the present being different than it is.

Fm: Diana Gabaldon 76530,523

To: Betty Babas 76336,113

Dear Betty—

Well, there’s the rub; _some_ large events really are dependent on the personality of a specified individual—Bonnie Prince Charlie, for example. Eliminate _him_, and sure enough, that particular event (Culloden) probably won’t happen (though something else _might_). Thing is—is our putative time-traveler capable of what amounts to cold-blooded murder, even for a larger cause? J & C weren’t—and lived to regret it.

Hitler, I dunno. Chances are that_some-thing_cataclysmic would have happened, given all the other circumstances, but it might have taken quite a different shape. Who knows?

That’s what makes time travel fun. — Diana

Fm: Alan Smithee 110165,3374

To: Diana Gabaldon 76530,523

Hi, Diana!

You warned me, but I couldn’t help reading the penicillin scene. I love the way you use words. It takes me right into the situation, making me feel the pain and sadness that seeing a patient, and a doctor, in this desperate plight always brings.

I think I may need to know more about your intentions and Claires character to figure how to approach this. After reading the scene I’m unclear about what has caused Rosamund’s death. In fact, were I in Claire’s position, I don’t think I’d conclude that the death could be blamed upon the penicillin—at least not solely upon the penicillin. Is this what you intended? If Claire is the sort of person who would be harder on herself than would her peers, a common tendency among many fine physicians, any mystery, even a slight doubt, about the cause would trouble her because of the unorthodox methods she’d employed.

This is certainly not my bailiwick, but I believe that a fatal drug reaction of this sort would probably occur rapidly, within minutes (possibly even seconds), of the initial injection, though, I suppose, in the patient’s already compromised condition, a less catastrophic immune-involved reaction than anaphylaxis could still result in her death over a longer period of time. (I have the impression from the scene that Rosamund’s death had required much more time than I would have anticipated.) High fever is not a symptom I’d expect of either anaphylaxis or pulmonary embolic phenomena. (Obviously, severe anaphylaxis would result in high fever were it not for the fact that, without modern forms of intervention, it would most likely result in the patient’s immediate expiration.) If Rosamund is already suffering from hyperthermia before Claire gets to her, this obfuscates the cause of death by making it apparent that the sepsis was already advanced and systemic. If high fever occurs following treatment, it actually reduces the likelihood that the penicillin caused the death. High fever would make me think that the surgical treatment of the wound might have spilled an abscess into the patient’s bloodstream, thereby leading to anaphylaxis or bacterial embolus or both. That type of accident is always a risk of this type of invasic intervention and is the reason why it would be normal to administer IV antibiotic _before_ attempting it. The risk of sudden systemic introduction of a large colony of pathogens would be greatly reduced by amputation above the affected area, the solution that Claire suggested when she first saw the patient. Before antibiotics, amputation of a gangrenous limb proximal to the infection was the only course with a reasonable expectation of success. (By the way, why does Claire agree to the pigeon poultice? I know that she’s working in less-than-ideal social circumstances here, but this is a practice that she might have a really tough time accepting—you know, the “do no harm” thing. Not that a gangrenous