A Painful Subject

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3482, 16 August 1937, Page 2

A Painful Subject

TREATED HUMOROUSLY. Bolls are usually regarded as a joke by everyone but the man who has them —he knows better! In the first place, they have the same instincts as the birds who build their nests only Inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains. The boil generally makes its appearance on the back of the neck, and the Victim has to squirm around and perform miracles of contortion in order to get a view of it. In the guise I of a pimple, it gets a firm footing before it is identified, and then it defies you to shift it. But boils, painful at! they are, might be bonie with resignation, were it not for the way one's friends react to them. They either chuckle with fiendish amusement, or they trot out some infallible cure, and insist on your trying it. Some time ago I was visited by one of Job's comforters, as they are facetiously called, and, as I ambled along the street, with my head thrust forward like a turtle, a friend called Brown hailed me, and asked *what was the matter. "Boiils! Why, they're easy to cure," he eaid, when I had told him my trouble. "Just got a piece of pitch, and chew it for a day or two, and you'll never have another boil. "Where does one buy pitch?" I asked.

"Ob, aDy old shop!" be answered breezily. This was obviously ridiculous. The draper, the fishmonger and the bookseller could be ruled out straight away, so I decided to try the grocer. He didn't keep pitch, but felt sure that I could get it from the ironmonger, who directed me to the chemist, and he in turn passed me on to a shfp's chandler, who welcomed me with open arms), and reeled off quotations for pitch by the ton or the car-load. I had not the courage to say that 1 wanted only a little bit to chew—it sounded so childish —so I pretended that I had a large order to place, and procured a sample. On the way home I met Jones, who noticed my boil, and asked what I was doing for it. "Pitch! Rubbish!" he said, contemptuously, when I told him. "You lake a spoonful of sulphur and treacle three times a day. That's the only cure."

I assured him that I would, but, before I had time to put his specific to the teßt, Robinson had implored me, almost with tears in his eyes, to pin my faith to brewer'B yeast, and Smith had declared that I was a fool if 1 didn't get rid of the boil at once with sarsaparilla.

My head was beginning to swim, but I decided to chew the pitch, chiefly because I had it, and also to take the sarsaparilla, which I’m rather fond of. This I continued for a week, and the boil subsided; but two others took its place. My employer then assured me that nutmeg was the only infallible cure for boils, so I substituted it for the pitch, but without effect. At last my wife arose and consigned the whole collection to the ash bin, and, being too discouraged to try any more remedies, I resigned myself to my fate. In a week all the boils had disappeared. •