The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1924-07-16

| prepared by the National Geographic 81
ciety, Washington. D. c.
When q man Is sick, not only tn
doctor on the next block, but men an
women and products from all over tn
world are called on to make him vel
A tale Of xar places is unfolded by an
home medicine cabinet
Only half the story is told by tn
neat druggists labels on pill boXe
and warning red deaths heads on mys
ferrous bottles. Babble Of strang
tongues, mixed exotic odors of ranl
forests and sweating, glistening brown
bodies, and the warmth Of tropic sun!
are stoppered by innocent Spanish
corks.
Who thinks Of Formosa's beneficence
when he rubs an aching ligament with
spirits of camphor? Small credit Java
gets for saving millions of lives from
racking, burning fever. Yet Java pro.
duces 90 per cent of the worlds qui-
nine, the best antidote known to man
after the female anopheles mosquito
has done her worst
How Illuminating a fainting spell
might be if the victim could dream
sweetly as he revived of the lands
from which came aromatic spirits of
ammonia for his resuscitation. Lolling
In a carriage at society's playground,
Nice on the Riviera, he might see
peasants squeezing oil of lemon from
skins Of the yellow fruit Swiftly the
dream shifts to a field in sunny Tus-
cany where the very air Is suffocating
ly suffused with delicate odors as
sIckles flash on purple lavender. Half
way round the earth the next mirage
leaves him on a tropic isle of New
Guinea's coast. Orchards in Banda
grow nutmegs for the oil of myristica,
another component of aromatic spirits
Of ammonia.
Back to the grimy city down in the
"gas house district" the scene shifts
as he watches ammonia being produced
as a by-product of gas. One trip more
before the veil rises: standing in rus
Ting fields of the Middle West he sees
the growing corn which will be distilled
into alcohol
No Longer Rely on Spices.
Once the Spice islands of the East
indies put their trust in the worlds
palate, but fashions in food changed.
To-day they stake their confidence
hat the world will get sick and they
ire winning back some of their lost
If some explorer were to
happen onto the East Indies in the
twentieth century he might properly
all them the Medicine islands.
Banda, in its few square miles Of |
Try land lifted above the Indian ocean,
the past and present his |
DRY of the East Indies. The renais- |
ance In European history is associated |
With the creation of new and finer
rt, an upheaval in the Christian
hurch system, and a revaluation of
he status of women, but 1t is seldom
bought of as a period when clviliza
ion discovered its palate. Yet the
alter impulse led Venice and Genoa
D brave pirates and storms to buy
pices from the East Tainted food
'as eaten without much complaint be-
ore Europe began to demand that I'M
avorlness be drowned in spice.
Marble palaces in Venice were built
rom profits on cargoes of nutmegs.
tut Shakespeare's Antonio and his fell
NV merchants on the Rialto never
new from whence the pungent, hard
ut came. The Arabs got ii from
ldla and beyond that they knew not.
inally the Portuguese sailed around
lie Cape of Good Hope and in their
inquest of the Indies discovered
anda, the mysterious source of nut
EGGS. Immediately they built fort
guard their find, but the Dutch over
owered them and the nutmeg prize
I'll to Holland.
Refrigerators have literally robbed
ollnnd of the fruits of her victory. |
least. until she developed Banda rs
medicine isle. Refrigerators out ;
wed tainted food and with fresh VI
Ids always available, the need for s
ices lessened. Even in the days of
IT grahdfathers the center Of the s
bile was often decorated with q cast s
. a whirling device containing SIX or s
ght spices. Today salt and pepper I
nkers suffice.
Demand for the oil of myristica helps S
g nutmeg producers The splendid !
ansions In Dutch style in Banda G
hich can be purchased today for t
ng. are, however, monuments to an +
her Eldorado. Macassar oil. In CIV I
zation's search for hair restorer 1t t
t two generations ago upon Macas- Il
r oil, product Of tropic island T