The first in a series of five articles
THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEALTH CARE IN JIMENA (1952 – 2007)
by CURRINI
I had to go to the medical centre in Jimena for the first time the other day. As I sat waiting, looking around at the cleanliness, the size of the place and the number of people being served in this modern facility, I remembered how public health used to be in the village where I was born and raised. My first memory was of the capacity for suffering we were handed down from our parents, not to mention the resignation we showed for those illnesses and accidents that beset us all little by little.
Every home had its own medicine ‘chest’, which at mine consisted of an enormous talega (bag) hanging from a big nail in the wall. Inside were a lot of little bunches of herbs tied together with wool. Eucalyptus and poleo (pennyroyal) for colds, leaves of tilo (limetree), bitter orange and hierba luisa (lemon verbena) ‘for the nerves’, manzanilla (chamomile), doradilla (?), arnica, romero (rosemary), tomillo (thyme), oregano, ruda (?) (which they used to pass across the eyes for the measles), rompepiedra (‘stone-breaker’ for, you guessed it, kidney stones) and a whole lot more I forget now. What I do remember, though is that on another nail beside the first one, hung a long red rubber tube with a sort of tap, black, on one end and a green tin at the other. Yes, this was for the famous lavativa (enema it would be called today) that we got when we overdid the chumbos (prickly or cactus pears). There was another smaller lavativa, too, called pera de goma (rubber pear), but that was for the ears.◊
Follow the story next Tuesday, October16
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