Martha Mondays: Life Before Medicare

Do you remember life before Medicare? We didn’t call a doctor until we’d exhausted our own home remedies. There were exceptions, of course. We couldn’t cope with broken bones or kidney stones, but for many ailments which now send us to a clinic for antibiotics we relied on mustard plasters, hot compresses and various other odoriferous and unpleasant concoctions.

We practised preventive medicine. Cod liver oil and Scott’s Emulsion were our defence against colds and flu. Both are still available today, but now they’re in capsule form or orange flavoured. No such amenities for us. We firmly believed that the worse medicine tasted, the better it was for us. A notable exception was a kid I used to babysit. His mother brainwashed him to think cod liver oil tasted good by calling it candy.

Sometimes we miraculously recovered without knowing why. This happened to me when I was playing in the woods and accidentally ran through a spider web spun between two trees. The spider resented the intrusion and bit me on the arm. By the time I got home my arm was swollen to twice its size all the way up to my shoulder and my mother decided I must see the doctor in case it was a black widow spider. She did not have any home remedies for bites from poisonous snakes or insects. But I was dirty from running around in the woods, and it was unthinkable to present oneself at the doctor’s office in less than pristine condition. First I must have a bath and put on clean underwear. I did not think the doctor would ask me to take off my clothes in order the look at my arm, but there was no point in arguing. All mothers had this thing about clean underwear. By the time I finished scrubbing my knees and soaking in the hot tub my arm was back to normal. Even without knowing it, it seemed, mothers were always right.

~ Notes from Over the Hill, pages 14-15

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Martha Mondays are a weekly feature at the Siretona blog. Siretona Creative is a publishing and production company that empowers women in the arts to build community among generations and nations. Martha’s book was one of our first major projects: a collection of Martha’s articles that “offer a dose of humour and insights to ease doubts as the golden years approach” (Dr. Lynda Haverstock). Sounds pretty intergenerational to us. So we crafted it carefully, including a specially commissioned and researched typeface that would both beautiful and easy to read.

For more information about Martha’s book, visit www.marthamorgan.ca.

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