Tag Archives: history

Country Doctors – A Fading Memory

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At eighty-seven, Dr. Russell Dohner still sees patients who come by his office off the town square in Rushville, Illinois, just like he has done for the past sixty years. But time marches on, and Dr. Dohner has been forced to more than double his fee for a first-come-first-served office visit. On their way out, each patient now pays Edith Moore, the eighty-five-year-old secretary, a five dollar fee.

 

Dr. Dohner doesn’t accept medical insurance–he says it’s not worth the bother. “I always just wanted to be a doctor to help people with their medical problems and that’s all it’s for. It was never intended to make a lot of money.” You can read more of Dr. Dohner’s story here, in the LaCross Tribune.

 

From the late 1950s, I grew up in a small, rural town in northeast Ohio. There was a little white house across the street from us, where Dr. List had his office. With wisps of gray hair, black-rimmed glasses, and a white coat, Doc List stitched me up when I fell partway through a glass storm door, prescribed medicine whenever I got sick, and he even fitted me with my first pair of glasses. My parents always paid him in cash. Back then, Doc List either didn’t take medical insurance, or we didn’t have that kind of insurance. I’m not sure which was the case, but whenever we needed medical care, we just walked across the street.

 

Fortunately for me, Doc List’s son followed in his father’s footsteps. When I was about thirteen, and too sick to even walk across the street, the young Dr. List made the last house call I can remember. He ended up sending me straight to the hospital with a 105 degree temperature, and a bad case of viral pneumonia.

 

In the story, An Irish Miracle, Doc McGowan makes a house call to look after Alastar Connolly, after he took a nasty fall and split his head open. Dr. Dohner, both Dr. Lists, and Doc McGowan are caring, dedicated country doctors. The only difference is that Doc McGowan was a large animal veterinarian, affectionately, a horse doctor. Since his patients usually weighed well over 1000 pounds, it wasn’t really his fault that he might have been a little heavy-handed with the local anesthetics he administered to Alastar.

 

Would you trust an old country doctor, like the ones in this story, with your medical care today? Their training and methods might have been from a bygone era, but they each cared deeply for their patients, many of whom were also friends and neighbors. Going to a doctor’s office these days seems to begin with “Has your insurance changed?” instead of “It’s nice to see you, how are you feeling?”, and end with a string of cryptic billing statements and frustrating telephone calls that can stretch out for months afterward.

 

Something in between might be nice.

The Stinking Human and the Invention of Body Odor

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If you are beside a person who stinks, you cleared as much space in between in fear of acquiring the displeasing odor. If you are the foul one, you exchanged stares at those who grunt discomfort while they cover their noses, like you’re proud of it. You know that offensive pungence; you’ve had it, you’ve smelled it.

 

There was a time when body odor is acceptable. They don’t even care it exists! Historically, this concentrated flavor is a celebration. Young men in certain parts of Austrian Tyrol will dance with a handkerchief under their armpits and “wave it under the nose of a woman in whom they were interested”.

 

Now, it’s something we should be ashamed about. Everybody’s anxious to control it. You can’t even leave the house without pasting a deodorant on both armpits.

 

In the 1910s and 1920s, advertising agencies invented problems. They wanted humans to be dissatisfied and self-conscious with their current life. One of them is body odor. And to eradicate it, people have to buy their product. Wise.

 

In 1919, a deodorant for women called Odo-Ro-No used B.O. for the first time. They promised a sweet smell which will lead to social success.

 

The creation-of-problem approach also worked for mouthwash company, Listerine. Their pitch? “Unpleasant breath”. It peaked their sales from $100,000 in 1921 to $4 million in 1927.

 

The human stink is underrated. For instance, it can be used for identification. Newborns find comfort in the smell of their mothers. Parents can precisely identify their children by sniffing their clothes. Scientists call this an ‘odorprint’, and everyone has its own distinct scent like a fingerprint.

 

Sniffing other people’s odor is an opportunity to find a mate. Men are more attracted to women with good fertility; and women are more attracted to men with high testosterone. This information is acquired through the smell.

 

Odor can be a predictor of personality. Polish researchers in the University of Wroclaw conducted a study where a group of people were tasked to sleep in the same shirt for three days, and another group of people will smell it (poor participants..). To a certain degree, people can guess personality types based on their odor. And predicting personality has the same accuracy as watching a video clip of the person!

 

My odor smells like a vinegar from the time of pharaohs packed with punches but has the addicting aroma of a gasoline.

 

How would you describe your body odor?