An Old-fashioned Cure That Worked

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 5

An Old-fashioned Cure That Worked

ONE of those mountain thunderstorms loomed over the green hills beyond Graz. I thought to myself that there would not be much more time for sunbathing before the rain came on, but I lay down, drugged by the sun, on the grass again beside the swimming pool.

All round me the natives were quickly packing up their things in the hot silence. I lay still. The air was so thick and cloying that any movement made one sweat.

This was mere bravado. I knew I should probably be wet through or even struck by lightning on the way back to the hotel, but I continued to lie there, smelling the sweet, crushed grass under my head. Suddenly, there was a hot, stabbing pain in my foot. I gave a yelp and sat up. Two startled Austrians near by looked at me inquiringly. A bee was sitting on the big toe of my left foot. I brushed it off, and after the stoic grimacing had died down —a performance for the benefit of my Austrian audience —I picked out the sting and waited for the pain to subside. It did not, but persisted with a dull throb. The first rumblings of thunder were heard from the next valley. I struggled into my clothes and hobbled back toward the hotel amid the first hot, fat plops of rain. Even in a sandal, my foot felt constricted. I reached the hotel canopy just as the first torrent of the storm swept down the valley. Strange Behaviour That evening, we were playing “Saint Joan,” by Bernard Shaw, in Graz Opera House. This is by no means a short piece, so as the evening wore on, my foot at the bottom of a long, brown suede, thighlength boot began to behave strangely. After the performance, with the aid of several pairs of willing hands (more willing to dislocate my ankle than remove the boot, I suspect) and a lot of face screwing on my part, a foot I had never seen before was freed from the folds of brown suede. It looked as though it had just awakened after a night on the town, bloated, creased and scarlet I told myself that it would be all right in the morning, so I limped back to the hotel and bed. But no! The following morning, when I woke, I was forced to recognise the lurid melon with toes at the end of my bed as belonging to me. Little Sympathy Cries for help and a doctor by telephone to the Austrian girl at the desk proved unavailing. And only the night before I had thought how charming and pretty she was. Now she was being disgustingly, Teutonically obtuse. How I forced the foot through my trouser leg and hobbled down to reception, I shall never know, but if it had been an audition for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” I am sure I should have got the part. The other members of our company who were standing around settling their bills and collecting their baggage together in preparation for our move

to the next engagement, did not show nearly enough sympathy. All I got was a couple of tut-tuts and a rather sinister inquiry from my understudy whether I thought I should be able to appear the following evening. Austrian Doctor At last a doctor arrived, a splendid Austrian, whose English, if a little bizarre, was at least workable. After a few slow and repeated explanations from me and a thorough examination of the infected limb by I

This article is by the New Zealand actor. Elric Hooper, formerly of Christ* church.

him, penicillin was prescribed and he jabbed me in the rear with a long needle, saying as he did so (and I translate): “I shall come again tomorrow. You must have another injection.” “But I shan’t be here tomorrow,” I said, hoisting up my trousers. “Then you must call a doctor in the town where you are going and get the other injection.” “We are going to Prague today.” “Prague!” He threw up his hands and cast his eyes ceiling-ward in the manner of Raphael’s St. Catherine; a gesture more Italian than Austrian. I somehow gathered he was not contemplating eternity and that he was trying to express disgust or dismay. As I stood bewildered and watched him replace his instruments in his black bag, I got the distinct impression I was being abandoned. He straightened up, shook my hand with too much sincerity and ominously wished me luck. I am sure he left my room on tiptoe. Separate Identity On the way to the airport I lay draped across the back seat of the bus, being bounced in the air every time we passed over some irregularity in the country roads. Nevertheless I contrived to look as much like a Romantic poet in the last stages of consumption as the springs of the bus would allow. The pumkin with toes lay at the end of my body, not painful now, but defiant, as if trying to assert a separate identity. We arrived at the Hotel Excelsior in Prague that evening to be met by our interpreters, all good party members. This was our first encounter with a Communist State and this group of Czechs in grey suits, males and females, with flashing prismatic spectaces, all speaking ostentatiously idiomatic English with flashes of carefully cultivated pre-war slang was a bit daunting and for a moment or two I forgot my foot. But when rooms and meals were organised, my foot again claimed attention. One of the interpreters, a middle-

aged housewife, was assigned to take me to the hospital the next morning for treatment. Long Wait I suspected there are only two taxis in Prague and that, on this particular morning, had broken down and the other was at some party mission in Upper Bohemia, because it was not until an hour and a half after the telephone call to summon it that the taxi appeared. Meanwhile my guide and I sat waiting in the hall of the hotel. At last a taxi suffering from severe indigestion pulled up in front of the Excelsior, we climbed in and drove across Prague to the hospital. Hospital! I think somebody began to build a luxury hotel and then lost courage. Without further additions or ado, the medical profession had moved in. The stairs we climbed had no risers and the iron rods in the ferro-concrete treads had not been cut off at the ends, only bent back. We trudged down corridors with raw concrete walls. The floor was bare and rough. After filling in 10 forms, mostly in duplicate and some in triplicate, we sat in a small waiting room with plywood walls and decorated by a bunch of dusty, artificial flowers, a faded coloured photograph of a party leader exhorting and a poster in Czech advocating something unspeakably communal but health-giving. Hospital Starch We sat waiting and waiting. I had yet to learn that this is the most popular pastime in Marxist countries. Since then I have spent much time in Communist States and most of it sitting waiting for a waiter, official, tram, or chambermaid. Patience is a much practised virtue. People passed through the room, indistinguishable as either doctor or patient. Starch is a rarity in Prague or so the maid whom I called to take my shirts to be washed told me that morning. I realised for the first time that that terrifying awe and mystique of doctors and more especially matrons is due to starch. One crackle of an apron stretched across a militant, hospital bust and I am as docile a creature as you can find. But here the unstarched staff seemed too casual to inspire complete confidence. Somehow from the very start the doctor who appeared at the door and called my name in a distorted Czech manner did not rouse absolute trust. I have no doubt he was spotlessly clean but it is hard to take seriously anyone dressed in' baggy, creaseless trousers; a once-white overall, starchless and crumpled; and a pink, open-necked shirt The lavatory attendant at Notting Hill Gate, London, dresses identically. The conversation was by necessity bilingual and threecornered. I explained to my guide that I needed a penicillin injection and she informed the doctor in Czech. A little dialogue followed. My guide turned to me. ‘No Penicillin’ “Please give me your penicillin.” “I have no penicillin,” I said, “I’ve come to get some from the doctor.” “He has no penicillin.” There was some more Czech dialogue. “You must fill in an application for some penicillin.” “How long will it take?” I asked. “Two days,” she said. I sat down; my foot asserted

its completely separate identity, sitting at the end of my leg, fat and smug. I looked at it malevolently. “Can’t he do anything for it?” I asked in desperation, “I have to perform this evening.” More Czech dialogue.

“He says he will treat you.” The doctor rang a bell on his desk. Immediately from behind a screen came two Russian wrestlers dressed as nurses. They looked like a bizarre cabaret act. It was only their high - pitched giggles as they lifted me effortlessly on a sort of operating table that assured me they were female. Finding myself stretched on a sinister and hard padded bench in a place where I had no chance of making myself immediately understood, started my heart pounding. “They’re going to amputate!” I thought, looking round for blood stains. “After all, Czechoslovakia is a vampire country.” Nurse’s Mirth I gazed appealing toward my interpreter who returned a serene but far-from-consol-ing mystic smile. For a moment I thought I had discovered the secret of the Mona Lisa. One of the nurses disappeared behind the screen, in pain with suppressed laughter. I was not sure whether her mirth was due to the sight of this strange phenomenon from the West, me, or from anticipation of some sadistic delight to come. The other nurse tried to push my trouser up my leg. Here was a difficulty. She was obviously used to dealing with great flapping bags and small calves. Here she was faced with decadent, tapered trousers and the over-devel-oped calf of an actor. There was only one solution. I would have to take off my trousers. The nurse showed more tittering embarrassment than one would expect from a member of her profession. My interpreter had reassumed her party mask and sat in the corner, the light catching her spectacles. The first nurse returned bearing a large pot on the crook of her arm, stirring the contents with a wooden spoon. The doctor stepped back and directed operations from some distance. I soon realised why. Black Glue Without warning the nurse ladled a great spatula full of black glue on to my foot. A second later the smell hit me. It was that of freshly disinterred decomposing fish. My first thought was for my friends. Would I have any when I returned to the hotel? The nurses bound up the foot in a mile of bandage until it looked like a Pharaoh. I climbed down off the table and with some difficulty got Pharaoh through my trouser leg. I thanked the doctor as best I could, signed two more forms and left to the titters of the two medical amazons. Before we reached the hotel, I felt the bandage loosen. An hour later it fell off And my foot was almost its normal size. By the evening I could not even pretend to limp. I was cured.

On my return to England, I asked my doctor about the evil-smelling tar they had put on my foot. He laughed. “Oh yes, it’s an old folk cure for drawing off poisons, made from decomposing herbs and animal matter. Often much more efficient than all your drugs. Trouble is people won't use it Too messy. Two guineas, please.”