Quacks Pretend To Cure Other Men’s Disorders But Rarely Find A Cure For Their Own – Part Forty Nine

Grimstone’s Eye Snuff

Snuff again. Produced at Grimstone’s Eye Snuff Manufactory at 39, Broad Street, Bloomsbury in London the snuff was heavily advertised and sold between the 1830s and 1860s. Perhaps fortunately, although it masqueraded under the title of snuff, it did not contain tobacco. Quite what was in it is by no means clear. One contemporary, Dr A L Wigan, claimed that it was nothing more than black pepper whilst the Lancet Analytical Sanitary Commission reckoned that the ingredients included orris root, savory, rosemary, lavender and prodigious quantities of salt. Grimstone claimed that it was made “of the most choice aromatic and odiferous herbs”.

As we have come to expect with exponents of the art of quackery, this eye-watering concoction came with astonishing claims as to its efficacy and glowing testimonials. Banner headlines proclaimed “Sight restored, nervous head-ache cured” and notified the reader of its royal patronage, “under the patronage of his late Majesty, her royal highness the Duchess of Kent and the Lords of the Treasury”. If it was good enough for the likes of them, then it would be good enough for ordinary Joes. It was efficacious “in removing disorders incident to the eyes and head” and “will prevent diseases of a scrofulous nature affecting the nerves of the head”.

As well as giving “a natural sweetness to the breath” it could “be taken as frequently as other snuffs with the most perfect safety and gratification to the consumer”. Users were advised, however, to be sure to wash their eyes every morning with warm milk and water “to remove whatever secretions may have been produced during the night”. The snuff was available in canisters of varying sizes with prices ranging from 1s 3d, 2s 4d and 4s 4d. Consumers were warned to guard against bogus canisters – only those bearing the signature of W Grimstone were the real deal.

Testimonials, of course, were glowing. Dr Andrews was quoted in one advert as claiming in 1831 that “the herbaceous quality of the snuff had such an effect on the stomach, as well as the nerves of the head, from the tenacious sympathy of the membrane of the nose with the nervous system, that Grimstone Eye Snuff, when taken frequently, must prevent any contagion entering the system and recommends its universal adoption”. Cheques in the post. Ordinary folk also swore to its efficacy. One, aged 94, was blind for six years but after using the snuff could see again and one Fothergill, a youngster at 71, had their long-standing inflammation which had caused blindness “quite cured”. An Elizabeth Robson of 19, Bell Street, Edgware Road, Marylebone even went into poetic raptures about it, “wise was thine head and great was thy design/ our precious sight from danger now set free”

But it was not all plain sailing for our Mr Grimstone and his problems centred around using the name snuff and being coy about what actually was in his powder. Although there was no tobacco in his product and so it would have been exempt from any taxes associated with snuff, the officials of the Stamp Office were on his case and made several attempts to prosecute him for selling an excisable product without paying tax. They also went after the retailers whom Grimstone supplied. This did the trick as Grimstone was besieged by angry shopkeepers demanding that he took back his stock and paid their fines. Grimstone was left insolvent with debts of around £6,000, although he was still flogging his powder until he died in 1861 aged 71.

Apart from clearing the nasal passages, it is hard to think it did much good.

Gin o’Clock – Part Twenty Two

It was the great Athenian tragedian, Aeschylus, who wrote in Agamemnon that wisdom comes through suffering. Rather like Icarus I chose to reach for the sun and instead came crashing down to earth. No, I’ve not been overdoing it with the gin. What I’m talking about is my early experiments with making my own gin.

The hooch was a brackish brown colour, not the bright piss colour of Ungava but a colouration that is suggestive of some urinary complaint. Some diligent enquiries on the internet reassured me that this was not a problem. This is exactly what many commercial gins look like before they are distilled for a final time. As I don’t have a still, then I’m going to have to lump it, although sieving the contents will get rid of the floating sediment.

The major problems, though, were taste and aroma. The aroma was heavily peppered and to the taste it was like firewater with a very heavily pronounced spicy aftertaste. The problem, clearly, was that I had overdone it with the mix and that the ratio between juniper berries was out of kilter with the amount of other botanicals I had used. And, of course, whilst you can relatively easily add, what you can’t do is extract. So, other than dilute, I’m rather saddled with my first batch.

The only thing to do was to pick myself up, brush myself down, massage my by now heavily bruised ego and start again. This time I was going to play it safe. I had about 20 centilitres of triple distilled French grain vodka left to which I added 20 grams of juniper berries. This I left to mascerate. Originally it was going to be for 24 hours but some unavoidable family matters made me rather take my eye off the ball so that it was some 48 hours later that I was able to give the mix my full attention. There was a slight discolouration and the majority of the juniper berries were floating on the top but the smell and taste was much more like a gin.

It was at this point that I added some of the botanical mix – coriander, angelica, orange peel, cassia and cubeb peppers as before – but this time, a much more conservative 5 grams – and after agitating vigorously – that is the distiller’s term for stirring – I allowed it to mascerate for a few days, checking and agitating daily. After a week I judged that enough was enough as the mix had a recognisably ginny smell to it and whilst it was spicy, it was not unpleasantly so.

The next stage is to strain the mixture through some muslin or cheesecloth to capture the by now heavily marinated berries and other jetsam. I did this half a dozen times using fabrics with increasingly smaller mesh and, amazingly, the spirit started to clear. It still had a bit of a hue but was not as off putting as the original. Alternatively, you can use a water filter jug such as Brita make. I then bottled the spirit, put a label on naming it Hooch #2 and sampled it with some Fever Tree Premium Tonic. Not bad, if I say so myself, although the 200 or so distillers surfing the ginaissance have nothing to worry about – yet!

Traffic Offence Of The Week

What happens when you mix a very tall man with a very small car? A conviction for dangerous driving, that’s what, if the curious case of 6 foot 7 inch Adam Elliott is anything to go by.

A car salesman, he was delivering a Ford KA convertible to a client but the problem was that there was not enough room in the cabin to accommodate his frame. The answer was obvious – he stuck his head out of the sun roof and drove off over the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.

Unfortunately, the police were not so enamoured with Adam’s ingenuity, stopped him and accused him of driving whilst standing up, something he denied. However, when in front of the beak, he pleaded guilty. He was banned for dangerous driving and distracting other road users and will be sentenced on February 27^th.

Still, at least he’s had his moment in the sun (and other newspapers).

Exercise Trends Of The Week

January is the month when we start the year off full of good intentions – exercise more, drink and eat less, you know the type of thing. My January is spent fighting off these urges, usually successfully. I’ve never understood the allure of yoga. Quite why anyone would want to bend their body into completely unnatural poses is beyond me.

Still, if ever in a moment of weakness I considered taking up yoga, I came across a couple of hot new trends this week that might just tempt me. The first is called bieryoga and seems to originate from Germany. The routines adopt the standard yogic poses but the instructors work a bottle of beer into the routine so you end up taking up a pose with a beer bottle in your hand or balanced on your head.  The good thing, so the blurb says, is that you get to drink the contents of a couple of bottles during the session.

If beer is not to your taste, over in San Francisco (natch) you can go to a Ganja Yoga session featuring a heady cocktail of cannabis-fuelled yoga which makes the students become “more mindful and free”. Whilst striking a pose you take a toke on a spliff, which might make balancing a challenge towards the end of a session.

Then again, I might just cut out the middle man and go straight for the booze and weed. It makes more sense.

What Is The Origin Of (113)?…

Take with a grain of salt

When searching through the internet you come across a lot of stuff that you have to take with a grain (or pinch) of salt. We use this phrase to suggest that we are applying a degree of scepticism to what has been relayed to us. After all, we don’t want to be seen to be too gullible. But where does the phrase come from?

Salt was a very important condiment in ancient times but as it was difficult to get it was highly valued. It has spawned a number of idioms which pepper our language. Roman legionaries were said to have been paid in part in salt to make their nosh more palatable, the origin of our word salary (from salarium). The phrase, to be worth your salt, was used as approbation of your worth and effectiveness. To eat salt with someone was used to signify that you enjoyed their company and friendship. In polite society the salt cellar was placed in the middle of the table and so to be above the salt meant that you were sitting close to your host and, as a consequence, in a favourable position. Trollope used salt, the salt of youth, to indicate spirit. And, of course, we have the Biblical salt of the earth and many more usages.

In Book 23 of his Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder tells the tale of Mithridates the Great who in an attempt to resist assassination developed a panacea which was effective against all known toxins. He took his potion daily – according to Pliny it consisted of over 50 different additives, each tested for its potency on prisoners, which were ground into a powder and made into a chewable tablet which he took addito salis grano, with a grain of salt. It is known today as the mithridate, although what it was and whether it was effective is not clear.

What remains of classical texts is down to happenstance and the diligence (or otherwise) of scribes, often monks, who as part of their daily duties would copy out manuscripts. They were notoriously inaccurate – I spent part of my third year at university comparing versions of the same text trying to decipher what was the original – and often prone to introduce their own thought or the mores of the time into the texts. And this is probably what we have here.

Medieval theories were that Pliny was sceptical as to the veracity of the Mithridatic story and was reporting it with the rider to take it with a pinch of salt. This is unlikely to be correct, firstly because grain of salt doesn’t appear to have been a signal in Roman literature to be wary of what was being said. If he really meant to put the reader on warning, Pliny would probably have used something more current. Secondly, the Latin phrase that has been associated with our idiom is a piece of mediaeval Latin, cum grano salis, which almost certainly didn’t appear in the original text.

The figurative usage of the phrase dates to at least the 17^th century. John Trapp’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, dated 1648, contains the sentence, “this is to be taken with a grain of salt”. The variant, pinch, is a much more modern variant, probably appearing for the first time in print in 1948, ironically, in a book about Roman History, F R Cowell’s Cicero and the Roman Republic, “Cicero and his friends took more than the proverbial pinch of salt before swallowing everything written by these earlier authors”.

Of course, a pinch is more than a grain. We are much more profligate these days.