No.214

Can you remember the last time a doctor looked down your throat and asked you to say Ah? Or held your wrist to feel your pulse? Or listened to your chest through his stethoscope?

When he had finished the examination, he would write out a prescription which you would present to the chemist. Invariably you would get a bottle of mixture with a horrible taste, specially concocted just for you!

In most homes there was a corner of a shelf in the kitchen where a selection of medicine bottles stood. Apart from those which had been prescribed in previous years, there would be essentials like Syrup of Figs, Emulsion, Malt and the dreaded Castor Oil!!!

For some children the cure for constipation was blackberries and for others raw or cooked onions.

It seems that a mixture of sulphur and treacle was given once a week to many children, and that’s something I hadn’t heard of.

Also new to me was brown paper sprinkled with vinegar and pepper applied to the cheek to combat the toothache. In our family the cure was the application of oil of cloves to the gum, but I don’t remember it being all that successful.

The advertisements for many foods claimed that their products had health benefits. This “Plateful of Health” is an example.

I don’t know if warts are still a problem for children. When I was young, quite a few boys in my class had warts, usually on their hands.

This week I was fascinated to find those old “cures” listed in my newspaper.

Take an eel, cut off its head, and rub the wart with the blood from the severed wound. Then bury the eel’s head in the ground. As the head rots away, the wart will gradually disappear.

Steal a very small piece of lean meat from the butcher’s, rub it on the wart three times from left to right. Bury the meat immediately and repeat: As you rot, so departs my wart.

Rub the wart with a blackberry, then throw it away. As soon as it is eaten by a bird or animal, the wart will disappear.

Prick the wart with a pin, then stick the pin into the trunk of an ash tree. Recite the following rhyme: Ashen tree, ashen tree, pray buy these warts from me. The warts will be transferred to the tree.

I‘m remembering that Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer knew how to get rid of warts, but their method was certainly not to be recommended.

They had to go to the cemetery at midnight and wait beside a grave in which a wicked man had just been buried. The devil would appear to take away the dead man and the boys had to recite, “Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I’m done with ye!.”

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Breathless
by “MasterRevelation”

I'm not too fit, I'll have you know,
I'm overweight and rather slow,
But when I run, I manage; though
I'm breathless!

Though in the past it was not thus,
I am not one to swear and cuss,
Except that, trying to catch a bus,
I'm breathless!

When as a youth, I used to play
With sweet young ladies in the hay,
The girls would be the ones to say:
"I'm breathless"!

At sport I'd always stay the course,
I was as strong as any horse,
But now, with just a little force,
I'm breathless!

I guess my life has reached the stage
When these things happen at my age.
If all my passions I assuage,
I'm breathless!

No longer, now, do I aspire
To climb a mountain, walk on fire,
Instead I curb each wild desire:
I'm breathless!

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Good news for all who are 80 plus!

According to The Register, old people who use computers are less likely to get dementia. This is the finding of researchers at the University of Western Australia's Centre for Health and Ageing.

So the message is, for folks like me, - Keep on Blogging!!!

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Finally, this is a video from Switzerland. Uploaded by jumpin88, “Dancin’ the Boogie” composed by Silvan Zingg features world champion dancers William and Maéva. The pianist is Silvan Zingg.

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NEW - taking the one less travelled by - NEW
This blog began last weekend and will be updated today
http://takingtheonelesstravelledby.blogspot.com

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