The Citizen, 1998-10-28, Page 5International Scene
By Raymond Canon
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1998. PAGE S.
It's a miracle!
No ... two miracles!
The Art of Medicine consists of amusing the
patient while Nature cures the disease
Voltaire
My first encounter with quack medicine
was an amber-coloured flask of brackish,
vile-tasting fluid bearing a label that
identified it as Doctor Swinson's White Pine
and Tar Syrup. It went for $1.98 a bottle at
better (and worse) drug stores everywhere.
The small print promised it would cure
"sore throats, bronchial infections and
inflammations of the upper respiratory tract".
As far as I could tell, it did none of these
things, but two or three .wigs gave you a
mild, disorienting buzz, so I guzzled it with
enthusiasm whenever my mother decided I
had a cold coming on.
My theory is that old Doc Swinson had
gloomed on to the guiding principle the
makers of snake oil elixirs figured out ages
ago: as long as the patient gets a little drunk
or at least relaxed, he or she will be glad to
shell out good dough for the most
implausible of products.
And as likely or not, Mother Nature will
see to it that said patient's health gets better
Contrasts in the
two Germanies
When the eastern and western parts of
Germany reunited after the collapse of
communism in the Soviet Union and eastern
Europe, the social scientists had a field day.
There were so many differences which had
arisen as a result of the separation of the two
parts after the end of World War II in 1945
that, although the same language was still
spoken in both parts, most aspects had
become decidedly different.
Let's take the role of women. In the eastern
or Communist part, over 90 per cent of the
female population had a full-time job.
To make this possible, the state provided
comprehensive child care and a year's leave
of absence for each baby. The women began
to enjoy being economically independent and
defined themselves by the name of their
work rather than a housewife or mother. '
On the other hand, the west German
women took a totally different road. Over 40
per cent of them decided not to work; it was
still, in their minds, acceptable for the
husband to earn the money while the wife ran
the -house and raised the children. If she had
in a week or so, and said patient will then go
to his or her grave, swearing on the efficacy
of whatever bogus remedy he was prescribed.
In the last century, pharmacists routinely
ladled out medicines laced with laudanum —
which is a 25-cent word for opium. Patients
really enjoyed taking their medicine in those
days:
The only drawback was they got more than
a little cranky when their prescription ran
out. That's because by then they were opium
junkies.
It's illegal to sell over the counter remedies
containing laudanum today, but that hasn't
put the snake oil salesman' out of business.
They just keep coming up with new products
"guaranteed" to kill cancer/stop
aging/prevent flat feet/cure arthritis/eradicate
warts/fill in the blank.
I have a friend who regularly ingests gobs
of shark cartilage, based on a conversation he
had with a total stranger at a health food
store. I know other folks who swear that
gingko biloba tablets are making them
smarter, that ginseng extract is making them
hornier, that beta carotene is responsible for
their new vitality and that palpating amethyst
crystals has improved their nervous system.
Well, maybe. But every time they bend my
ear about the wonders of their newly-
disQovered health recovery plan, I- could
swear I smell the aroma of Doctor Swinson's
time for a job, that was alright too, but many
of these jobs were part-time.
The tax system was also a help: it made it
advantageous fOr the wife to stay at home.
Then came the reunification of the two
Germanies. Obviously, with the customs
outlined above being so different, it was
necessary to reshape labour legislation. The
effects of this were felt especially in the
eastern part of the country.
First, a lot of the generous childcare
provisions simply disappeared while many of
the jobs formerly filled by women
disappeared almost overnight.
It got worse! As jobs opened up, albeit
gradually, women tried to get back into the
work force and the work was the type of
occupation they had done before. However,
many men had lost their jobs too, in the
shakeout of the communist-style economy
and the women found themselves competing
with men for the same jobs.
Tradition being what it was in that part of
the country, the men were almost always
hired for the job. Over 20 per cent of the
female work force in the eastern part of the
country is still without work.
Since there was less money for the
household, not surprisingly the birth rate,
already low to begin with, dropped by half
that level. The average now remains below
one per woman, far below what it takes to
White Pine and Tar on their breath.
The latest "miracle cure" to come down the
pike? An olive-shaped berry that grows
mostly in the wild (what's left of them) of
Florida.
It is the fruit of the saw palmetto plant, and
demand for it has mushroomed so
dramatically of late that "berry poachers" are
sneaking into secluded, berry-rich areas of
Florida parks and stripping plants in the dead
of night.
Apparently the berries are picked, then
dried and processed for their oil. The oil is
then packaged into soft gel capsules, packed
50 to a bottle and sold for exorbitant prices at
select health food stores.
Do I sound bitter? Well, I am, a little. The
truth is, I was taken in by this latest scam.
Laid out my money like a rube, followed the
instructions to the letter for three solid
months.
Nothing.
You see, these berries are supposed to
"help" male pattern baldness and enlarge
breasts.
Well, forget it. I was as bald as a volleyball
when I started taking these pills. Three
months later I still look like I go to the same
barber as Patrick Stewart and Montel
Williams.
Mind you, I'm up to a 40 Double-D cup in
--my bras.
replace those dying.
To create another problem, the German
government, in a fit of generosity, increased
the parental leave from one to three years.
During this time the mother's former job has
to be kept open.
So, even if a job becomes available, it is
only for a specific period of time, that is,
unless the mother decides not to come back
into the work force.
If they do go back, all is not milk and
honey. While a kindergarten place is
guaranteed for every child over three, there
are not enough places. Even in a regular
school, the hours are not compatible with
those of a working mother.
Small wonder that 15 per cent of the wives
are childless, a figure that is expected to rise
to 25 per cent within the next 10 years.
Somehow, I also see a distinct labour
shprtage in the not-too-distant future!
A Final Thought
You gain strength, courage and
confidence by every experience in which
you really stop to look fear in the face. You
are able to say to yourself, "I lived through
this horror. I can take the next thing that
comes along." ... You must do the thing
you think you cannot do.
— Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
The
short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Time passes
It may have been on my side in the !60s,
but time certainly, at times, seems to be the
enemy now.
The Gropp household is big on birthdays
in the fall. Five out of six occur between
September's end and Christmas, with the
most recent being that of my warrior. For a
couple of weeks he enjoys being just a year
older than me, rather than two. Regardless
we are both a title shell-shocked, albeit
happy to be here, when we consider our
ages.
Sitting with friends on his big' day there
was this moment when we all, with no small
amount of stupefaction, pondered the
miracle of how we got to be our parents.
Who would have thought we'd be in our
40s?
I remarked however that the relativity of
age is usually defined more by our children
than ourselves. While I have moments,
where I can almost convince myself that I'm
still that skinny chick, fighting acne and my
mom, my kids will manage often to
unwittingly remind me I am not,
(Though to be honest, two out of those
three still hold some truth.)
I expect that our youngsters expect
something from us. We look like grown-ups
so act it. But there again there is a problem. I
have lived with this changing body and face
for quite some time. The alterations, while
not always welcome, have come gradually
enough for me to have grown accustomed.
My grandma may always have looked 60 to
me, my parents always 40. But with a little
imagination I can convince myself that I and
my peers do not.
A little denial is a wonderful thing,
allowing me even briefly to think young. But
consequently while my kids seem to see the
etchings of time in me, it is in them that I
become aware of how swiftly it is moving.
Thinking of myself at 44 has little impact on
my state of mind. Thinking of them all
nearly grown, all becoming fiercely
independent I find myself awed by the
swiftness of the years.
Perhaps my dismay can be put into
perspective for you a bit, though I know
most of you already understand.
When I began working for The Citizen'my
youngest was in Grade 1. He'll be 16 in
December. And in retrospect those 10 years
seem to have passed in fast, forward.
I've always heard that the older you get,
the faster time goes. That being the case I
will soon just stay in bed, because there
won't be enough time between rising and
sleeping to worry about.
I have to believe it somewhat, because
looking back the years of my childhood
seemed endless, while today time moves
faster than a rake through a singles' bar. Yet,
the younger folks are still blissfully unaware,
Discussing with my eldest the fact that two
of his siblings are looking at post-secondary
education in big bad TO, I said we were
going to have to get his friend there to watch
out for them.
"Mom," he -said. "It's a long way off. I
wouldn't worry about it just yet."
I couldn't help thinking how nice it was for
him that he hadn't yet realized how swiftly
the time would pass.
Arthur Black