By: Blonde Two
Mr B2 has had a nasty cold (not man-flu!)
I haven’t (well I haven’t yet).
This is, of course because I have been regularly swimming in the sea and thus indulging in a seaside water cure.
I grew up in Malvern and regularly partook of ‘the waters’. Dr John Wall said this about them (and co-founded the hospital in which I am all three of my children were born):
“The Malvern water, says Dr John Wall
Is famed for containing just nothing at all.”
The Victorians were subject to all sorts of water cures involving wet cloths, douches (both descending and ascending!) and donkeys.
Anyway, the other day I put my seaside water cure theory to the test. I had kicked a friend whilst hugging him goodbye (doesn’t everyone) and had given one of my toes a nasty knock. In the morning the toe was blue and I had a job walking but was determined to go for a swim anyway. When I got out of the water (after a dip of about 15 minutes) there was no pain whatsoever.
“It’s worked!” I thought, “the water cure is real.”
It had worked… temporarily. As it turns out my toe was numb from the cold. Once it thawed out it started hurting all over again.
In Victorian times, water that contained “just nothing at all” must have been a really healthy thing to find – lots of water still contained all sorts of nasties that would make us shudder today. Cholera, for instance, from the 1830s on, and enteric fever. Somewhere between 15 and 26 years of age , a huge percentage of people died – including most of the working class. If disease didn’t get you, food poisoning or untreated allergies and infected injuries would. Water containing nothing but water was a rare and beautiful thing! I hardly dare ask what they did with the donkeys?
Oddly the tap water in Malvern tastes really weird to me after Devon’s lovely soft stuff! I believe the donkeys were for riding up the hill on – thus missing out probably the only healthy part of the water cure, the walk up the hill!
Disappointing! I thought at least they would be turning a treadmill pump. By the way, your Devon water may be lovely and soft, but mine is the hardest water I have ever had – we have to chew the last two spoonfuls of a hot mug of tea – it is gritty white yuk.