SO LONG A-DYING

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 8, 21 May 1945, Page 31

SO LONG A-DYING

“ There can be few substances which have not, at some time, been used as drugs,” said the RADIO DOCTOR recently. “ The early Hindus, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, all knew a lot of drugs. We borrowed their drug lists and added a lot more. People were drug-minded. Even the potato was first introduced into Europe not as a food, but as a love philtre. Gold, pearls, musk, crocodile’s dung, sarsaparilla, and even Egyptian mummy have been used to heal the sick. How about a teaspoon of Egyptian mummy three times a day ? Then there was a phase for disgusting substances, such as crushed body lice, incinerated toads and old shoes—yes, all had their adherents, their sworn supporters, as have many no less useless if more respectable remedies to-day. “ Listen to what they did to King Charles II when he had a bad stroke.

First they bled him. They gave him an emetic and a purge. Then he was delighted with an enema containing antimony, rock salt, violets, beetroot, linseed, cinnamon, cochineal, and aloes. Then his head was shaved and his scalp was blistered. Then a sneezing-powder and a powder of cowslip flowers to strengthen his brain. For drinks he had barley water, licorice and sweet almond, and white wine and absinthe, with extracts of thistle leaves, mint, and angelica. On his feet they put a plaster of Burgundy pitch and pigeon dung. They gave him medicines of melon seeds, slippery elm, cherry water, lily-of-the-valley, lavender, and dissolved, pearls. Then came nutmeg, quinine, and cloves. As he didn’t seem to get better they gave him forty drops of a mixture of human skull. Yes, they left no stone unturned in his treatment. By the way, he died.”— The Listener, England.