Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1882-06-06
The Red PeDper,


What ais the human throat in this latter
day, aud what has become of the old fash
toned red pepper? Men who are now forty
years old knew little of throat troubles in
their boyhood. There was little sore throat
occasionally, and once in a while quinsy, and
you would hear at long intervals of putrid
sore throat Children were not as daintily
cared for in those days as now. Few of them
ever had Undertaking to wear, and scarcely
boy who had an overcoat till he was old
enough to earn the money for it himself
Group was the parental horror of that day,
and yet as alum and butter were early found
a sure remedy for that trouble, warping or
contracting and SO breaking the false mem
brane as it was forming. parents had no great
dread of that Children had few colds and
no serious sore throat-and when they had,
8 bowl of red pepper tea sent the ailing boy
to bed sweating and brought him out well in
the morning.
The red pepper of our grandmother
what has become of it? Who that lived in
those sensible days does not remember the
shining string of alternate red and green
peppers that hung from the rafters over the
kitchen fire, and which had been planted,
raised and strung by grandmother's own
hand, and hung in the place of honor, all to
cure the children's colds, colios and cramps,
and the older folks COMPOSITIONS and chills-
death to all the c's? And who does not re-
member how perfectly the pepper accom-
plished its work-a little hard to take, little
hot after it was down, and yet bringing you
out all right in the morning, and lending
halo of pride to grandma's face at the break
fast table that the puzzled face of the mod
ern doctor seldom shares? All, it was = rare
old magic-the red pepper that the grand
mothers raised and used. 1t cured all the
juvenile ills we have enumerated and many
more. So great and quick was its magic that
many boy, who had such a sore attack of
collie Group or cold, that he was sure he
couldn't go to school, was cured at the mere
sight or smell of its steaming tea, and sent
bounding off to school as sound as trivet
and as merry as cricket. Indeed, sudden
cures have been known at the mere mention
of it. Older people, too-men who we're
afraid of working out all day in the damp or
of digging in q we'll, and who now think
whiskey the medium of warding off possible
chills--were often saved by grandmothsr's
red pepper tea.
What has become of the red pepper And
how did it happen that just it went out of
fashion diphtneria came in, and with it doz-
en- other throat diseases with long and mystic
rious names-and none of which medical sci
ence, which has made the slowest progress of
all the sciences, Is able to treat with much
success Our grandmothers kept the young
and old throats of their generation cured up
with red and cayenne pepper, and warded off
many other diseases with them. What, since
they have disappeared, has taken their place
or is doing their work? Something, what
ever it is, that doesn't cure.
gentleman who was a boy thirty years
ago said yesterday: 1.-THE reason there is SO
much diphtheria is because people have quit
raising red pepper" The man he was talk
ing to had q sore throat, and was trying to
stave it off till night with some of the gar
giles and washes of the latter day. so as to get
his days work done, and yet was growing