After reading several newspaper articles recently on vaccinating children for every disease known to humankind, I found my thoughts wandering to what life was like for us as children in the 1950s, when getting measles, mumps, chickenpox, and flu, were rites of passage. Not only that, but antibiotics were not available in pill form, and I clearly remember only three medications: Cheracol (for coughs), Paragoric (a narcotic for pain and really bad coughs), and St. Joseph’s aspirin for Children. If you were so sick that the doctor had to come to the house, he often administered penicillin in the only way he could – by injection. How come we’re still alive?
We weren’t allowed to stay home from school for vague discomforts such as “my stomach hurts,” or, “my throat feels funny.” Upon a complaint like that, my mother would check for a fever, using the most reliable instrument she had, her hand. She would place her hand on your forehead, and close her eyes, channeling generations of motherly nursing, and make her decision.
If no fever, she would give your head a slightly dismissive shove and say, “You don’t have a fever. You’ll feel better when you get out in the fresh air.” “The fresh air” meant the mile’s walk to school. If your forehead was so hot that she had to plunge her hand into cold water to ease the burn, she would say something soothing, like “You may have a slight fever. Go on back upstairs to bed.” I can still feel the relief of hearing those words. Because it was then that the fun began…
