Doctors and doctoring

My parents didn't take us to the doctor very often -- of course back in the "old days" the doctor usually came to you. Same thing. My dad believed in "homeopathy" -- that is the medical philosophy that like cures like. If you got bit by a bee youd swallow bee venom to relieve the itching, you got bit by a snake, you'd ingest snake venom to cure the effects of the bite, etc. And any other healing was done with natural -- not man made -- products. Since I can remember how dad "cured" us when we were growing up, I still enjoy the benefits of homeopathy for some of my ailments -- real or perceived. My favorite website is: http://www.abchomeopathy.com/

Our town, at the time I was growing up, had three doctors -- dad and mom weren't hung up on one or the other, we saw all three at one time or another, and then dad liked a doctor who resided in Haddon Heights -- Dr. Paisley-- because he went along with the homeopathy daddy liked to treat us with. And...Dr. Paisley made house calls, all the way from Haddon Heights. The doctors in Runnemede at that time were Dr. Palmisano (I finally went to him exclusively for a while just before I got married, and then afterwards while we still lived in New Jersey); Dr. Fessman (he retired when I was a teenagerand he was the doctor who treated emergencies, like broken limbs because he was basically across the street); and Dr. Lovitt (he was an osteopath, and we saw him very, very rarely).

Don't think we saw Dr. Paisley or any of the other doctors very often, though. Dad had his own cures and cures they were. We had our normal childhood diseases -- there were no inoculations back then and so when measles or chicken pox or mumps or whooping cough were going around, we got them and we were quarantined. That was a time when we HAD to have a doctor -- law required a posting on the door of a sign that our house was contaminated, and a doctor had to verify that it was true. Let's see, meales was a red sign, mumps was a blue sign, chicken pox was a yellow sign, and I think whooping cough was a green sign. No one in our family ever got whooping cough, and by the time my brothers were born, there was a vaccine available for that and we all got the shots.

I digress.

Dad's cure for itch was witch hazel. I still use witch hazel a lot. Using Witch Hazel is like the use of Windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Zits, sunburn, mosquito bites, ivy poison, prickly heat, even diaper rash. Dad's cure for cramps was a shot of brandy -- horrible stuff, and while I'm not so sure it really worked well, after an hour a 90-pound teenager was feeling no pain.

If we complained of something, dad would take our temperature with his hand on our forehead, and if we felt hot, THEN he'd get out the thermometer. He'd tell us in advance what his guess for our temperature was by his feeling, then confirm it with the thermometer. I don't recall he was ever wrong.

Dad did realize the benefits of penicillin and when the Hong Kong flu hit in the early 60s, I got it bad. I was very sick. Dad dosed us up with his potions and got the doctor to prescribe penicillin for that extra punch. I do remember that by evening each day I was feeling great and determined to go to school the next day, however, since I wasn't getting any homeopathy between 7 pm and 7 am (that's 12 hours) by the next morning I was down and out again. Finally, after a week, I was back in school, weak as could be, but no fever.

My younger brother Mark had pleurisy when he was quite young. I remember the croop pot that was set up in his bedroom. He got pitifully thin, and dad allowed Dr. Paisley to treat him, but we'll never know what got him better, dad's croup pot or Dr. Paisley's liquid cough medicine. I know my son will want to know what a "croop pot" is. Well, it was like a vaporizer, but it was a small, pottery thing, that had some stinking stuff put in it that was supposed to open the nasal passages and broncial tubes and give the person near the pot the ability to breathe freely. I wonder what ever happened to that pot. I know it was stored in the bathroom linen closet for years. Actually the smell wasn't too bad and it wasn't like Vicks, it had a unique smell, but I can't recal what herbs dad used in that thing to relieve us kids of croop.


I wish I could remember some of the other treatments dad used. I have some of his "text" books on the subject. I've looked through them. I've read them. But I don't have the mind to remember them as he did.

Of course, mom being Italian had her own means for getting us better as well. And, chicken soup was one of them. Also, olive oil was another medicine -- a spoonful of it. I've learned what good olive oil is mostly from the WWW, but my mom knew all that from her mom, who knew it from her mom, etc.

I guess I've rambled enough for today. Take care.