Kind readers, if you were hoping to skirt Prohibition by having your doc write you a prescription for beer, I am sorry to say you're outta luck.The Supreme Court has ruled that such prescriptions have "no medicinal value" and that they are injurous to the national effort needed to enforce strict prohibition.
Oddly enough, a cache of whiskey nabbed in Ypsilanti at this time was donated to Beyer Hospital for, um, medicinal use, so...er...bit of a contradiction there.
Anyways, stop badgering ole Doc Watson for a beerscription! Just make some bathtub gin like everyone else!
Maybe I can get a prescription for that gin. Originally, according to Wikipedia, "It was sold in pharmacies and used to treat such medical problems as kidney ailments, lumbago, stomach ailments, gallstones, and gout."
ReplyDeleteOoh, weird. When was that, may I ask? And of course many patent medicines were compounds with some kind of rotgut or other in 'em.
ReplyDeleteA Dutch doctor and scientist, Franciscus Sylvius, is credited with its invention. I haven't found a date. But he was born in 1614, and died in 1672.
ReplyDeleteThe invention of gin, or, genever as it's called in Dutchland, or the invention of prescriptions for gin?
ReplyDeleteI thought the medical use came first. But the more I read, the less sure I am.
ReplyDeleteI think Dutch gin was around, as both medicine and beverage, before the cheap form sold in the infamous London gin shops became popular.
Shades of Hogarth! I loves me some o' that Hogarth.
ReplyDeleteWas it Hogarth who prescribed gin for hog warts?
ReplyDeleteOr would that have been Dr. Doolittle?
Hm. Dunno When you say "Doolittle" I am reminded of Eliza Doolittle's "gin was like mother's milk to her" comment, about her own mother.
ReplyDelete