A Modester Proposal?

[Wilson Gray]

And possibly more humane than castor oil, "cough medicine" made of
whiskey and turpentine, phenolphthalein pills, and Epsom salts,
"remedies" for children's illnesses that I grew up with. And that's
only a partial list from the good old days, of just the stuff that I
personally was (mis)treated with. I never had to deal with sulfur &
molasses and many other supposed "medicines" of that era.

-Wilson

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      A Modester Proposal?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On the use of a colonial American nostrum, called "snail water", a
> mixture of ground snails and worms:  "Dissolved in water, children
> suffering any sort of maladies were expected to get well after
> gulping down great volumes of this swill."  Unless they were
> swallowed themselves.  But surely more humane than roasting.
>
>  From _Hustlers and Con Men_, by Jay Robert Nash (1976), p. 59.
>
> Joel
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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