HealthLinksSC.com | 65 “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” Julie Andrews chirped along with a robin as she portrayed magical nanny Mary Poppins. She seemed quite unlike my paternal grandmother, Margot, who decided that cold medicine went down best with a jigger of I.W. Harper muddled into a swirl of hot tea, lemon and honey. My Southern relatives haughtily called this a “hot toddy.” My father’s mom, a no-nonsense woman of colder climes and Scottish descent, simply called it “medicine.” Today, most people call it “underage drinking.” My childhood visits to Illinois inevitably culminated in head colds that were knocked right out of my skull by a dose of this marvelous medicine, and I was out on the toboggan the next day. For some time, I thought it was perfectly normal to do shots with my grandmother. I don’t have children, but, when I’ve suggested to my friends that a dash of Blanton’s Single Barrel might help little Ryleigh’s stuffy head, the response generally has been nervous laughter. My friends obviously have no barometer that measures my level of seriousness when I speak. It’s why we mostly text – and probably also why I have so few friends. “I’m serious,” I deadpan. “Amy. I’m not giving my child alcohol,” is the stern response. “Fine,” I shrug, knowing that the cough syrup they’re about to pour down the kid’s gullet doesn’t taste half as good and probably contains anywhere from 3% to 10% alcohol anyway, more if it requires a prescription. Makes me feel bad for the little tyke. “A toddy tastes betterrrrr,” I sing. As a youngster prone to throat and sinus infections, my mother would haul me each spring to Dr. Harrell, our pediatrician. He was a memorable character who never forgot that we were children, regardless of our precocious demeanor. No matter how bad the news, his Mister Rogers-like delivery always made everything less scary, save for when he’d say the dreaded word: penicillin. Penicillin was my nemesis. During one fiery rebellion, the pharmacist had to restrain me, my grandmother held my legs and my mother pinched my nose with one hand while jamming the plastic, alligator-shaped spoon down my throat with the other. This could never happen today for the same reason you can’t endeavor to cure a cold with a toddy. Considering that the pharmacist was my grandmother’s sister and that she’d been expressly enlisted to hold me down, no one called the cops. This ruckus, according to my father, would’ve been better handled Margot’s way: with a dash of alcohol. I’d always been a willing patient for her. But Mother didn’t approve, nor did our doctor, so I was left with the pink stuff. I’m not in any way suggesting that our dear readers serve their children alcohol. I’m a child of the ’80s, and things we did then wouldn’t pass muster today. Know better, do better and all that. Do me a favor, though: The next time you catch “Mary Poppins” on Turner Classic Movies, pause on the bottle Poppins uses to fill Jane and Michael’s hovering spoons. Tell me it doesn’t look a bit like a bottle of something with some proof to it. Maybe Mary and Margot weren’t so different after all. THE LIGHTER SIDE OF HEALTH CARE By Amy Gesell A SPOONFUL OF I.W. HARPER GETS THE MEDICINE DOWN
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