as an exploratory journey through that old party question: if you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be? History is full of people you’d love to have a drink with. Let’s meet a few.
as an exploratory journey through that old party question: if you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be? History is full of people you’d love to have a drink with. Let’s meet a few.
Have a drink with: King Edward VII, aka “Bertie” Sportsman, monarch, don’t mention the lobster Ask him about: Holiday weight gain It’s movie awards season, which means I have been trying to catch up on all the “for your consideration” titles I didn’t get to over the course of 2021. Last week I caught Spencer,…
Have a drink with: Your Local Mountebank Healthcare! Fireworks! Toads! Ask him about: What ails you We’re all getting a lot of weird healthcare advice lately, and I admit that it’s hard to stomach the idea that our country, which vanquished polio and smallpox with scientific elbow grease, is entertaining the medical expertise of a…
Have a drink with: The 1919 Anti-Mask League NO BARS, okay? NO. Ask them about: Coughing in large groups Since COVID-19 became a public health emergency in March, different cities and states have responded with protective measures, many of them including a recommendation or a requirement to wear a mask when in proximity to other…
Have a drink of: ANYTHING BUT BLEACH. Disinfectants are not medicine. Ask about: No. Don’t. Just DON’T. I can’t believe I have to say this, much less marshal the historical evidence to prove it, but, please: don’t drink bleach. Don’t inhale bleach. Don’t inject bleach. DON’T USE BLEACH TO DO ANYTHING BUT CLEAN UP AROUND…
Have a drink with: William Banting Keto, paleo, intermittent fasting? Nope: BANTING. Ask him about: before and after pics When the Paleo diet became popular in the early oughts and the ketogenic diet more recently supplanted it as a nutritional craze, keen-eyed historians noticed something familiar about these diets’ recommendations to hork down all the…
Have a drink with: Single Ladies (Halloween Edition) Burning hair, apples, chicken guts, lead poisoning. Ask her about: Do you know the Heimlich maneuver? For most of American history, Halloween was not a holiday for children. Quite the opposite: to the extent Halloween was celebrated at all, by the 19th century it was known as…
Have a drink with: The Store Detective Enemy of deviant feminist candy thieves! Ask her about: hiding a football field’s worth of fabric in your skirt The modern department store came into its own in the 19th century, as retailers jumped feet-first into the growing Barnumesque sense of spectacle suddenly required to get a consumer’s…
Have a drink with: The Yale Medical School Class of 1824 Did you bring a shovel? Ask them about: Buying your own school supplies On a cold January morning almost 200 years ago in New Haven, Connecticut, someone came knocking on Jonathan Knight’s door. This itself was not necessarily unusual, as Knight had his thumb…
Have a drink with: Dr. James Barry Poodle enthusiast, dandy, ace physician Ask them about: trans soldiers On July 26, President Trump announced a ban on transgender military service, citing the unsubstantiated likelihood that trans soldiers would subject the military to increased medical costs and an unacceptable degree of “disruption.” LGBT rights groups have since…
Have a drink of: homemade 19th century cold medicine Ask your doctor if it’s right for you! Side effects may include: vomiting, euphoria, dysphoria, poetry, death. Getting the sniffles now that winter is upon us? For a fun holiday project, make like it’s the Victorian era and mix up some DIY cough syrup, as directed by…
