A most beautiful and pleasant secret for curing a cough by greasing the soles of the feet. An extremely true thing, and very easy.
BnF, MS Lat. 9471 (15th c.)
Take two or three heads of garlic and peel them, and crush them very well, and then add pork fat, and crush it together well again. Then, in the evening when you want to go to bed, take your socks off and put the soles of your feet toward the fire, and grease the soles with the mixture of garlic and fat. And keeping the feet always to the fire so that it almost burns you, or as hot as you can endure, let the ointment stay on for a while. Then put on warm socks and go to bed, and in bed have your back massaged a little with the ointment. And after three evenings you will be miraculously cured from any cough.
~ De’ segreti del reverendo donno Alessio Piemontese
Previous, semi-related posts:
Advice from c. 530: How To Use Bacon, including for medicinal purposes such as "thick bacon, placed for a long time on all wounds, be they external or internal or caused by a blow, both cleanses any putrefaction and aids healing".
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include advice from c. 1200 on surviving the winter (spoiler - lay off the purging and blood-letting, and keep your hands and feet covered in wolf grease), the anniversary of Australia's Great Emu War, the pre-Seinfeld origins of Festivus, and a pairing guide for pop-tarts and fine whiskies.
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include why you shouldn't salt a leech that's sucking your blood, the mathematics of where to park your car, the physics behind why barns are painted red, and the history of penicillin.
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include what happens when birds get drunk, the Japanese invasion of Alaska, the traditional drunken turkey recipe, and Evacuation Day, when the British left New York City at the end of the Revolutionary War.
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the Thanksgiving birthday pattern, the history of Ken Doll's crotch, how female turkeys choose mates and avoid rejects (although they're generally artificially inseminated these days), and the wave-light flight patterns of a starling flock avoiding a falcon.
Criminal decides to break into the house of an experienced medieval combat re-enactor, who keeps a carbon-steel double-headed battle axe that he calls, "my baby": "Police K-9s followed the trail of blood to apprehend the suspect."
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the chemicals that give autumn leaves their colors, why ice is slippery, exploring an old mental hospital, and an 18th century guide to hunting vampires.
By the way, although this may be what happens in the wild, in real life the turkey industry is built on artificial insemination. The modern turkey has such large breasts that they physically gets in the way when the male and female try to mate.
...the turkey industry is built around artificial insemination, which is a very labor-intensive and hands-on process. Here’s the way it works: A team of workers has to pick up each male breeder, the tom, which might weigh as much as 70 pounds, secure his contribution — as they call it in the trade — and then bring that to the hen house to inseminate each hen. And then keep in mind — with such an intense consumer demand for turkey — this is not a once-a-year event.
With its fanned plumage and bold strut, a male wild turkey’s display conjures images of Americana and festive feasts. But this grandstanding isn’t intended for human eyes – it’s for female turkeys who actually use it to discern a male’s genetic prowess.
This female has figured out how to get rid of a male - just make him dizzy until he falls over:
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include awkward fashion ads from the 1970s, when George Soros broke the British pound, why pigeons bob their heads, and the Swiss town where residents spent a lifetime aging a wheel of cheese for their own funeral.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of gunpowder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
~ Traditional English children's rhyme for Guy Fawkes Day*
O God, whose name is excellent in all the earth, and thy glory above the heavens; who on this day didst miraculously preserve our Church and State from the secret contrivance and hellish malice of Popish Conspirators; and on this day also didst begin to give us a mighty deliverance from the open tyranny and oppression of the same cruel and blood-thirsty enemies...
~ The Book of Common Prayer (1771 Cambridge version) (opening passage of "A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving, to be used yearly upon the fifth day of November; for the happy Deliverance of King JAMES I, and the Three Estates of England, from the most traitorous and bloody intended Massacre by Gunpowder..." This section, added in 1662, was removed only in 1859.)
November 5th is Guy Fawkes Day (wiki) in England, an unofficial holiday commemorating the failure of the so-called "Gunpowder Plot" on this date in 1605. A conspiracy of disgruntled English Catholics under the leadership of one Robert Catesby had succeeded in planting a large quantity of gunpowder in the cellar of the House of Lords with the intention of blowing up Parliament on its opening day, when King James I would have been present.
After one of the plotters warned a relative to stay away from Parliament that day, the scheme was discovered, and one of the key conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was essentially caught in the act.
'The Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot and the Taking of Guy Fawkes' by Henry Perronet Briggs, circa 1823
All the plotters were apprehended and executed savagely, but the Gunpowder Plot had the unfortunate effect of perpetuating a deep distrust of "popery" and Roman Catholicism in England for centuries. (Catholics were barred from serving in Parliament for 224 years.) Today, the occasion is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, and the construction of effigies of Guy Fawkes, carried about by bands of children begging "a penny for the Guy" from all they encounter.**
* N.B. An additional verse, rather scurrilous, and thus less often sung, goes:
** Curiously, Guy Fawkes Day - called "Pope Day" - was the only English holiday permitted in Puritan New England, and effigies of Fawkes, the pope, and the devil were carried in procession, burned, and dismembered. Because of the violence it provoked, the custom was forbidden by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1752. After George Washington publicly denounced the holiday as offensive to Canadian Catholic allies, the tradition died altogether in the Americas, while the effigy of Fawkes became the main one burned in England.
At History Today, this article has a comprehensive description of the events, and this one looks at the tradition of cartoons and caricatures inspired by the Gunpowder Plot: Drawing on History: The Gunpowder Plot.
The traditional Guy Fawkes mask was intended to resemble him:
The 2006 movie V for Vendetta, based on the comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd, popularized a stylized Guy Fawkes mask. In the movie, V is a freedom fighter attempting to start a revolution against the fascist regime. The mask has since become associated with the group Anonymous.
BBC Video - The Gunpowder Plot: The Conspirators:
BBC Video - The Gunpowder Plot: Treason & Torture:
My favorite DST story - this guy got two DUIs an hour apart at the same time:
The end of daylight saving time caused a unique situation in Urbana on Sunday morning. Police there arrested a man twice in one day, but at the same exact time.
Chief Matt Lingrell explained that Niles Gammons of Urbana was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated at 1:08 a.m., then released with a summons to appear in court this week. An hour later, it was again 1:08 a.m. and police caught Gammons driving under the influence once again.
Can we please slow down and get something straight? There is simply no way to “save daylight.” People can spin the hands of their clocks like roulette wheels, but come Monday here in Washington, D.C., we’re still going to have sunshine for about 12 hours and 45 minutes. The sun can rise at a time of day we call dawn or Howdy Doody Time or whatever–but the stubborn facts of astronomy are at work here and they can’t be wished away.
The reason we have Daylight Saving Time (DST), of course, is because the politicians have mandated it. Washington is much better at wasting things than saving them, but federal lawmakers nevertheless spent much of the 20th century insisting, with typical modesty, that they could “save daylight.”
I recently wondered exactly why we observe Daylight Saving Time (DST). For some reason, I had harbored a vague notion that it had to do with farmers.
Well, it turns out that DST had nothing to do with farmers, who traditionally haven’t cared much for it. They care a lot less nowadays, but when the first DST law was making its way through Congress, farmers actually lobbied against it.
Dairy farmers were especially upset because their cows refused to accept humanity’s tinkering with the hands of time. The obstinate cud-chewers wanted to be milked every twelve hours, and had absolutely no interest in resetting their biological clocks–even if the local creameries suddenly wanted their milk an hour earlier.
As Michael Downing points out in his book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home. They also tried to make a case for agriculture, though they didn’t bother to consult any actual farmers. One pamphlet argued that DST would benefit the men and women who worked the land because “most farm products are better when gathered with dew on. They are firmer, crisper, than if the sun has dried the dew off.” At least that was the claim of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, chaired by department-store magnate A. Lincoln Filene. This was utter nonsense. A lot of crops couldn’t be harvested until the morning dew had evaporated. What’s more, morning dew has no effect whatsoever on firmness or crispness.
Perhaps farmers should take one for the team–i.e., put up with DST even though they don’t like it because it keeps city cash registers chinging into the twilight. Yet the contention that DST is good for business is doubtful. It may help some businesses, but it also stands to reason that other ones suffer. If people are more likely to browse the racks at Filene’s Basement in the daylight, then they’re probably also less likely to go to the movies or take-out restaurants. And in the morning, when it’s darker during rush hour, commuters are perhaps disinclined to stop at the corner store for a newspaper or the coffee bar for a latte. Although it’s impossible to know the precise economic effects of DST, any attempt to calculate them carries the malodorous whiff of industrial policy.
Apparently Anderson High School in Cincinnati has done one of these each year for the last several years. This story is from last year's version, but the picture (click here to embiggen) is this year's.
ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include the physics of juggling, scientists investigating the secrets of smelly cat butts, a 1918 prostate warmer to restore your manly vigor (or radium suppositories if that doesn't work), and the history of toilet paper.
There's approximately a gazillion of these available on the interwebs, and I've probably posted way too many of them - once I started I had a hard time stopping! The vast majority of what I've included here are ads for men's clothing, because they're so many standard deviations from the current norm - the women's versions look (relatively) normal.
I have to say, too, that I lived through the 70's, and although this stuff was, obviously, advertised, I don't remember actually seeing much of it. On the other hand, I don't remember an awful lot about that time period.
The only person who pulled this fashion statement off, sort of, was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, and I'll bet it's been waaay to long since you watched it (watch full screen):
This ad seems to be patterned after Travolta:
I don't know what to make of this:
I'm pretty sure I never heard of Flagg Brothers, but I love the pimp style and the women hanging onto their legs:
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