I guess I meant there are a lot of remedies and potions handed down that had some basis in fact. Others no. The American Indians had all kinds of medicines from plants for various maladies that worked.
You can still get Blackjack gum. Pretty good, but the flavor doesnât last long.
Same company also makes Beemanâs and clove-flavored gum. Oldschool.
I used to have to walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.
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You mean Mercury is not good for you?
In the 18th & 19th Century, Calomelâwhich was a Mercury solutionâwas used as a purgative, and it always produced the desired result of evacuating the patientâs colon in an explosive manner. When Cholera patientsâwho were already suffering from severe dehydrationâwere treated by the medical professionals of the day, the âcureâ that they were given was usually Calomel. That only served to hasten the death of the already-dehydrated patients.
So, in addition to Mercuryâs obvious toxicity over the long-term, the medical professionals of the past managed to use it with disastrous results in the short-term.
Chewing tar is, unfortunately, a real thing. Pictures on Google. Yuck.
I have been trying to find out if anyone else chewed tar as a child for years ;and just happened onto this conversation. Iâm 69 years old and always wondered if it caused ADD symptoms I believe Iâve always struggled with. I wonder if it had lead in it? Also ate dirt off car tires. Weird, huh. Guess I was bored or hungrey for something??
Actually, they werenât kidding, but I doubt they did it. Iâm 65 and it was a story my G-father told from when he was a kid. The Wright brothersâ first money venture (yes that pair) noted that kids were buying chewing gum. They made their own from tar and sugar for half price. No one bought the second batch.
Mark Twain talks about it when he lived in Hannibal. Of course, you could never quite tell when he was pulling your leg. G-dad was a similar character, but told of it when he lived in town, in Missouri. I couldnât test because all rural roads in Iowa were gravel or oil coated at that time. G-dad made Twain look like a straight man.
As I recall, road base was packed gravel, tar was poured over and gravel added on top, then rolled in. In later years, gravel was premixed into the tar. When it got really hot, the tar would bubble to the surface in small puddles you could scrape up with a stick, sort of like roofing tar (but not as stinky). When I was a very young boy, we lived in Port Charles LA and the roads bubbled. You had to be careful walking in bare feet (as we all did) not to step on the tar strips.
Iâm 60 years old and chewing on tar is actually a fact Us kids used to do it all the time. Looking back probably not that wise considering all the crap that was probably in it back then and itâs probably not as toxic now but who knows.
@cdaquila Carolyn , do we really need a thread here about chewing Tar ? Me thinks cyber space is good place for it.
This is cyberspace
Yes, it is still made, but it no longer contains Pepsin.
My German Great Aunt used to eat that stuff and it freaked me out.
Hi, I thought this might have faded into the past but seems the discussion is still alive. Is there any way to bring it back to cars, vehicles, roads, or whatever would be on topic? Maybe itâs past that. Thanks.
The sane grandfather who ate head cheese lost his Hupmobile when visiting the Lamb ranch in what is now Allegany State Park. The ranch had been acquired by NY State by eminent domain, but the Lamb family refused to leave.
My grandfather had left his car in the barn and accompanied the Lamb family inti Salamanca to a movie. The Cattaraugus County Sherriâs took the opportunity to set fire to the ranch.
Well thatâs no good. First of all , if the family doesnât want to move, seems like a reasonable compromise is to let them stay for the rest of their lives, give them a life estate. Eventually the govât will get it. And even if the govât wanted to force them to leave, youâd think the method to convince somebody to move in that sort of situation would be to cut off their electricity and water supply, rather than burning the property to the ground. I think there is or was recently a SCOTUS controversy whether it is legal to use eminent domain to benefit a private organization, such as if a townâs elected politicians want to use eminent domain to create a spot for a privately owned apartment complex.
New York State and Allegany State Park are not private entities. Police forces were not know to be shy about enforcing the law or willing to bow to public sentiment in the 1920s. Nobody wanted to wait for decades to build the Park and probably most of the land owners did not want to leave but the eminent domain hearings were over and the family was in violation of court orders.
The buildings were razed anyway and the Sheriffs tactics prevented an armed conflict and bloodshed.
Similar tactics were employed in the creation of the Blue Ridge Parkway and probably in the creation of many other State and National Parks whose stories I do not know. The same qualities that make a place a great park make it a place residents donât want to leave but if we had not made these parks when we did many of their attractive qualities would have disappeared and no one would be driving to them.