{It so happens Omar has a bucket list.}
“People said that there was a new arrival on the Promenade: a lady with a little dog.” I mean, cat. A little cat. Taking to the health-giving restorative waters like characters on the printed page, Omar, sauntering neatly, and me, perhaps as his “dipper”, if you’ll enable switch from Chekhov to Regency ear.
(In the Regency era, Dippers had the task of dipping their clients in the sea waters whilst keeping them afloat. Men bathed, women dipped, but what of felines?)
Nobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing — fortifying and bracing — seemingly just as was wanted — sometimes one, sometimes the other. If the sea breeze failed, the seabath was the certain corrective; and where bathing disagreed, the sea air alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure.
(From Jane Austen's unfinished novel, Sanditon, published in 1817.)
{The patient patient waits.}
{Nuzzles and Gulls.}
{Have rabbit harness, will travel.}
{Four paws on sand. One quiet beach. One sun on old bones.}
{You know, just walking my Siamese cat. (One quiet beach a stone's throw from the vets.)}
As small aside, whilst I am happy to revel in Crazy Cat Lady status from time-to-time, I should point out, for those of you who did not catch these photos first posted to instagram, that this beautiful beach is but a stone's toss from the Mill Street veterinary clinic, hence the bright detour. As Omar is sixteen (or thereabouts), we've decided not to put him through any further operations. He is now on ear drops to clear up an infection in his right ear, and eye drops to clear up an infection in his left eye, and orally administered drops to help keep him regular. A drop of all three, twice daily.
The opening quotation is from the first line of The Lady with the Little Dog by Anton Chekhov plucked from my Penguin Classics edition of The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896–1904, page 223.
And this fine collection of medical delights (and edited captions) is courtesy of Phisick Medical Antiques.
{The Oxydonor Victory invented and made by Dr Hercules Sanche of Detroit Michegan and patented June the 24th in 1890. A remarkable instrument of quackery “To cure all form of Disease quickly, intangibly, pleasantly, infallibly, during sleep or while awake; and to brace the human system in all conditions, with Animation never known and not otherwise attained, whether in Disease of Debility, or in Fatique, and in all Physical and Mental Ordeals”. The user was required to place the central metal tube or “Vocor” in a jar of iced water and then attach the the contact disc “on the Naked Ankle of the Lady shown in the cut” (see picture) until better! The colder the water the better the cure.}
{A large striking and brilliantly coloured antique ear trumpet. Many of the early ear trumpets were designed with subtlety and camouflage in mind. Not so this one whose owner has upgraded this 19th century ear trumpet with a lick of paint. It comes with a matching satin ribbon.}
{A French apparatus for personal irrigation from the turn of the 20th century, the Injecteur Americain. When stood in a bowl of water, pressure on the sprung pump would direct water through the filter at the bottom, along the rubber tubing (now vulcanised) and nozzle to the required destination.}
{Three late 18th century wooden apothecary jars labelled Traganth Pulver, Gallea and Rhiz Zingiber. Tragacanth, in a powder, is used as a vehicle for active and heavy medicines, for the purpose of giving cohesion and firmness to lozenges, and to form paste. Gallae or gall nuts whose active ingredients were tannins were used as astringents for treating diarrhea, intestinal parasites, haemorrhoids, bleeding wounds and ulcerations, excessive sweating and involuntary seminal emission. And the genus Zingiber contains the true gingers, plants which have been attributed medicinal qualities in the treament of flu, headache, fatigue, sore throat, stomach ache and hyperemesis gravidorum.}
{An antique snuff box made from papier-mâché with a hand painted illustration of a patient suffering the use of Perkins Tractors at the hands of his physician. This is a based on the humorous 1801 print Metallic Tractors by James Gillray, celebrated English illustrator and satirist of the time. The tractors were peddled as a panacea by their inventor Elisha Perkins and despite their ineffectiveness, were very fashionable throughout Europe and America in the early 1800s. The artist has not tried to make an exact copy, but has in his or her own style faithfully reproduced the components in Gillray’s scene with the table, brandy bottle, steaming punch jug, pipe and newspaper, down the to attentive, sympathetic dog in the corner.}
{Lucas Cranach the Elder,The Fountain of Youth, 1546}
{Still from Walt Disney's Don's Fountain of Youth, 1935}
{William Heath, Mermaids at Brighton, c. 1829}
