Pasteur
carlyo | April 24, 2013Guest Blogger USA Science & Engineering Festival Nifty Fifty Speaker Joe Schwarcz PhD
I had my tonsils out in 1954. In those days a few bouts of tonsillitis, and out they came. I remember being plied with chloroform before the operation and with ice cream after. I also remember being given a special gum, “imported from America” to chew. It was probably some version of “Aspergum” which contained aspirin and was supposed to relieve the sore throat. The idea of using the gum after a tonsillectomy was introduced in the 1940s by Lawrence Craven, a California physician, who made an interesting…