Blast From Our Past

This patient has cracks in his feet!

They could be serious!

Why they could be a sign of a tinea infection! Tinea causes athlete's foot!

Tinea also causes something that I can truly say I've never experienced.

Jock itch.

So why does this doctor have this patient's fungus riddled foot sitting on his crotch?

Now, you are supposed to rub Absorbine Jr. on your feet to stop the athlete's foot.

Does that mean you are supposed to rub it on your, well, jock area if you have "jock itch"?

What if you just itch and you aren't necessarily a jock? Did they call it "nerd itch"?

And what ever happened to Absorbine Senior?

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

There have been many, many advances in medicine since I was born in 1957.

My children never had to go through mumps, measles, or rubella. I had all three. By 1970 there were immunizations for all of them. In my internet travels I found some photos and ads of just how things were different "back in the old days".


Somehow, I managed to miss the era of the "Quarantine" sign. I remember, having to stay in a dark room and not being able to even see my friends. For a week.

Spent my time watching the reruns of "The Mickey Mouse Club". And colouring. In the dark.

It was the week before Christmas break, too.

I was going to play the autoharp at the concert and I had a lead in the Christmas puppet show.

But we all went through it, there were no vaccines at this time.

My mother had to remind me of this when I called her shortly after I had my first daughter and reamed her out for not having me immunized like she should have.

How dare you make me suffer through all those childhood illnesses.

Ooops. My bad.

Ahhh, would that all vaccines taste so good!

I have distinct memories of lining up in the gymnasium of my local grammar school to get my "goodie".

That "goodie" would ensure that I would never get that most dreaded of childhood diseases.


Polio.



And here is why polio was so feared. Even to this day it makes me woozy to think of having to live in a contraption like this:

The iron lung.

If polio paralysed your chest muscles, you had to live in this, which was essentially a respirator.

Pressure changes inside the "lung" would cause the patient to "breathe".

Scared the hell out of me as a kid.


And through all the fevers,swelling and pain, my mom religiously gave me St Joseph's Childrens Aspirin.

Never got Reye's Syndrome.

Never knew anyone that got Reye's Syndrome,unless you want to count a character in "All My Children" in the early '80s.

But it is a devastating disease that can strike after any viral illness and they did find an increase when ASA was used in children under the age of 16. So now we use Tylenol. But "back in the day", this was the stuff that made us feel better. And besides, it was yummy.


So, what is wrong with this shot?

Right, no carseats!

This law is so new that when we brought our first baby home in 1980 we were not required to have one!

Emergihubby has a 1963 Ford Galaxy and they didn't even require seat belts in the back seat in those days.

And check out the nurse on the right trying to make sure she gets into the photo....

Sometimes I think we "baby" our children a little too much these days, but I will say that from a health perspective, they have it so much better than we did.

I hope someday there won't be a need for any vaccinations because we will have wiped out the majority of the illness that killed so many for so long.

Wishful thinking? I hope not.