A Spoonful Of Toads' Elixir Keeps The Colic At Bay

This month our columnist Pat Keenor  is looking into ancient remedies...And isn’t liking what she finds.

- Pat Keenor

I COULDN’T have been more than eight or nine years old when I succumbed to a bad cold. My parents felt my hot forehead, crushed up an aspirin in a spoonful of jam and sent me to bed. The next morning it was off to school as normal as nothing could keep us from Chawleigh primary, apart from a coma or multiple fractures.

I was still suffering by the time I returned home. My father again felt my fevered brow, shook his head and decided there was nothing for it but to give me his “patent cure-all”. Mother tried to persuade him it wasn’t a good idea but he was determined.

So out came the whisky bottle. To a generous shot of best Johnny Walker was added boiling water and a spoonful of sugar. I was ordered to glug it down. It was not unpleasant and it certainly helped me sleep. But…in the middle of the night I was violently sick. Now, in addition to having a bad cold I was projectile vomiting and my mother was shouting at my father: “I told you not to give her whisky!”