Salt Herring a Cure for Fever!
Posted by P. Bingham on September 11, 1998 at 15:57:36:
This is an anecdote from an American publication, Select Reviews 1811, dated 1811 (it was seen in the Monthly Magazine 1811, sent to the editor) :
Dr. Moore, father of the late heroick sir J. Moore, used to relate the following anecdote with great humor. A French student of medicine lodged in the same house, in London, with a man in a fever. This man was continually teased by the nurse to drink, although he nauseated the insipid liquors she offered him. At last, when she was more importunate than usual he said to her: 'For God's sake, bring me a salt herring, and I will drink as much as you please." The woman indulged him: he devoured the herring, drank plentifully, underwent a copious perspiration, and recovered: whereupon the French student inserted this aphorism in his journal;
"A salt herring cures the Englishman in a fever."
On the student's return to France, he prescribed to his first patient in a fever. The patient died: on which the student inserted in his journal the following caveat:
"N.B. Though a salt herring cures an Englishman, it kills a Frenchman."
And here are a few tidbits of 1811 British Humor:
Two men happening to jostle each other in the streets, says one, "I never permit a blackguard to take the wall." - "I do," said the other, and instantly made way.
A shabby beau (who now and then borrows a suit of his tailor, when he cannot afford to buy) appearing a few weeks ago in a suit of black, was asked by a person he met if he was in mourning for a friend? "Oh, no," said he, "I wear it because it is Lent."
- LOL, Patricia! But, just curious... SuzanneR 01:12:14 9/12/98
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- salt herring P. Bingham 16:27:06 9/12/98
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- kippers P. Bingham 20:11:32 9/15/98
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- Actually, Caroline 09:09:18 9/16/98
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- salty herring P. Bingham 13:07:46 9/16/98
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- salty herring P. Bingham 13:07:46 9/16/98
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- Actually, Caroline 09:09:18 9/16/98
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- kippers P. Bingham 20:11:32 9/15/98
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- salt herring P. Bingham 16:27:06 9/12/98
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