In Canada we have an excellent health care system which is basically free. We have some of the best doctors and best medical facilities. In under-developed countries many people cannot afford to see a doctor whereas here in Canada many will see a doctor just for a simple cough.
As a kid growing up in Mauritius in the fifties, I was fortunate to be generally in good shape. I never had to see a doctor, but I recalled that my elder brother was once taken quite sick. I think it was jaundice and he had to stay in bed for several weeks. A couple of his school mates came to our home to see how he was doing. Though young I was, it was a touching moment for me to see them, sad and solemn, standing by my brother’s bed and to witness the caring feeling between friends.
Kids in my neighbourhood seemed immune to sickness. I never heard of them going to the doctor or hospital. Nonetheless none of us could afford the doctor’s fees even if we wanted to.
We did however get mildly sick or hurt on occasion, mainly headache, stomachache, diarrhea, bruises, cut and sprained ankle. There was not a lot of stuff in our medicine box. Aspirin (we lovingly called Aspro), Mentholatum ointment and Iodine solution were all we had in our arsenal.
For headache, fever, inflammation, tooth pain, Aspro was the answer. The Aspro pill came in a flat round shape, with a small groove across the surface. The groove was there to facilitate breaking the pill in half, so that we could have two servings instead of one.
The Groove facilitates breaking the pill in two
My favourite medication, even up to today, was the mentholatum ointment. The unique iconic shape of the green jar has remained basically unchanged after fifty years. We used mentholatum for a variety of ailments from headache to strained ankle, sore throat to running nose. I even applied it over my itchy eye and enjoyed sniffing its aromatic smell.
One other common ailment which many kids got infected with was pimple. The pimple spewed out pus, a thick yellow or greenish opaque liquid. We applied “Cognoc”, a Mauritian term for a sort of chewing gum look alike substance. The Cognoc came in the shape of a candle stick, a little over 1 inch in diameter, wrapped in a special sturdy wax paper. We would slice an eighth of an inch circle from the top end and pressed it over a piece of round paper or cloth. Then stuck over the pimple. The “Cognoc” played its magic sucking the pus from the pimple. Every couple of hours we rid the pus from the cognoc until the pimple dried out.
We used an iodine solution commonly known as Mercurochrome but which the Chinese called “Red Medicine Water” for cut, blister, sore and wound. For affluent people, Dettol, an upgraded more expensive disinfectant solution would be used. If we could afford it, the infected area was protected with Elastoplast plaster. More often than not, a strip of cloth from an old shirt would substitute the Elastoplast. On rare occasion when the infection was severe, mom would resort to a concoction of freshly crushed medicinal herbs and leaves, I believe it was called “La Tisane”. The “la tisane” was applied to the wound and held in place with a sheet of cellophane wrapped around the wound.
Kids had to deal with tooth pain, a most dreaded experience that we wished we could avoid. A shiver always runs down my spine when I think of the excruciating pain of a decaying tooth. Going to the dentist was not an option. Too unaffordable. Often moms would instruct their kids to use their index finger and thumb to wriggle the bad tooth front and back, until it loosened. This raw measure might take several days. Then a double cotton thread was lassoed around the tooth. Against the protest and wail of the sufferer, the thread was pulled with a jerk and out flied the tooth through the air.
For centuries Chinese people have embraced the Ying and Yang concept, two opposing elements that needed to be harnessed and balanced. It is like the North Pole and the South Pole, Fire and Water, Cold and Heat. When we got a flu, we said that we were exposed to too much cold. When our nose bled or we got a cold sore, we said that we were exposed to too much heat. To counteract the cold, we usually wore warm clothes. To lower the excessive heat from our body, we drank a bowl of dark brown bitter Chinese herbal tea, home brewed out of dried herbs and leaves available at the local Chinese medicine shop.
Fever liked to attack young weak children. It remained a mystery to all kids as to why even in the midst of the summer heat, we shivered when our body was burning with fever. Aspro taken, mom put us to bed, wrapped in heavy blanket. When we woke up our shirts were drenched in a sea of sweat, just like coming out from a long sauna. But miraculously and to our delight, the fever was gone.
Another common sickness was the cough. Often, we did nothing. We just let the cough run its course. However, when it prolonged for too long, over a week or two, we took cough syrup. All Chinese family likely kept handy a bottle of “Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa”, a popular cough syrup imported from China. Pei pa koa is made up of a blend of herbal ingredients, the formula created over a hundred years ago in China.
