The Medicinal Miracle of Heroic Cures by The Baron

The Medicinal Miracle of Heroic Cures

I have come down with a cooling disease. I toss and turn, my stinking black fire blazes and I wear more layers of clothes than a woolly mammoth-clad Neanderthal. I visit Dr Benjamin Rush at his world renowned pharmacy in search of solution to this damned affliction.

He prescribes a heroic cure - six pints of brandy per day. Water is not an option as it is that evil substance that has given me this frigid disease in the first place. The solution lies in the warming arms of Madame Brandewijn. She will save my ailing body form its freezing paralysis. The inebriation that follows will heal my body if not my mind; if my mind can last through the coming alternate realities, I will be completely cured. And I am not alone. Apparently, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, has been treaty with the very same therapy.

Alcohol has been used medicinally throughout recorded history; its medicinal properties are mentioned 191 times in the Bible alone. Early civilisations, such as the Egyptians, Chinese and Mesopotamians, used fermented beverages for herbal remedies. It has also been used as a preventative and favoured over water. Monk-created elixirs such as Benedictine and Chartreuse were early herbal remedies which still remain today.

The British Empire used quinine in their gin & tonics as a preventative against malaria in the“ Jewel in the Crown” colony of India. The French used mint juleps in their North African colonies for the same reason. Of course the original Julep used cognac and apparently the mosquitoes were not as fond of their burnt wine sodden pours.

Apart from their medicinal use of cognac, the French looked to absinthe as a preventative against diseases, with the green fairy being used to purify water. At one stage our Gallic cousins drank more absinthe than wine. Consequently, it was not long before the wine growers, armed with national pride and a fair amount of propaganda, drove absinthe out of everyday life. Newspapers carried sensational stories of men possessed by the green fairy killing their entire family. La Fee Verte out, cognac and wine

In 1867, the Merchant Shipping Act declared that, in an effort to prevent the dreaded scurvy, all ships of the British Royal Navy had to carry stores of lime juice. To make the lime more palatable, gin was added and the mixture was named after the corkscrew-like device used to open the barrels of juice. As an alcoholic class distinction Sailors drank rum while Officers imbibed gin. In the official Royal Navy story, it was Sir Thomas Gimlette, Surgeon General who created the medicinal cocktail for his officers and was so popular it took his name.

Rum was used as a combative against gas warfare in the trenches of WWI. Once a gas attack was detected the soldiers were immediately given large quantities of rum. They would naturally get violently sick from the combination of nauseating gas and rum fumes, where after the deadly gas was expounded and the soldiers survived to fight another day… after they sobered up. Brandy and whiskey were listed as official drugs in the U. S. Pharmacopeia until the 1940's and ethanol was listed until 1975.

My affliction closes in as my drunken haze steals away the pain and gloves the hands of death. I fear Madame Brandewijn is but a bed nurse to Surgeon Death. Oh well, at least I go in her calming arms. Cheers! To good Health.