Black and white image: Hair dryer 1900
There are books filled with strange facts, harebrained ideas, and slips of the tongue. I listed for your enjoyment below
many of these sayings. Enjoy!
*Most old timey bottled elixirs, liniments, and tonics revitalized the ailing sufferer because they happened to contain a
healthy shot of whiskey or a strong dose of morphine. The 1907 Food and Drug Act forced many quack medicines out of
business, leaving only proven remedies and new ones, to feature stoic pictures of the inventors.
*Dairy cows typically give milk for five – six years, producing an average of 12,147 pounds of milk.
*Meat will not dissolve if left in a glass of Coca-Cola over night, it will, however, be tender and marinated.
*If all the Coca-Cola ever produced were in regular- size 16 ounce bottles and laid end to end, they would reach to the moon
and back 1,045 times. This is one trip per day for two years, 10 months, and eleven days.
*“Good to the Last Drop,” a slogan used by Maxwell House Coffee, was first used by Coca-Cola in 1908.
*On the average day in 1993, consumers drank 705 million servings of Coca-Cola soft drinks world- wide.
*Coca-Cola out sells Pepsi world- wide by more than two to one margin.
*The Egyptians used toothpaste as early as 2000 B.C.E, made from powdered pumice stone and wax. They also used
toothpaste made from human urine, which Roman physicians insisted whitened teeth. (Oddly the ammonia in wine does
work as a whitener).
*Dr. Scholls of Scholl’s foot- pads ascribed to his own credo: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.”
*A Harebrained Theory: English writer Samuel Johnson claimed, “The cause of baldness in men is dryness of the brain,
and it’s shrinking from the skull.”
*Heroin was used in cough syrups and pain medicines, prescribed by doctors for headaches and menstrual cramps.
In 1910, after twelve years on the market, doctors realized that heroin is far more addictive than morphine. In 1924, the U.S
banned the manufacture of heroin, but by then there were plenty of addicts to create a demand for heroin on the black
market.
*In 1941, when told that the Japanese had destroyed Pearl Harbor, actress Joan Crawford replied, “Oh dear, who was she?”
*In 1903, British Surgeon, Sir Jonathon Hutchinson incorrectly insisted that eating bad fish was the cause of leprosy.
*Myrrh, an aromatic gum resin secreted by shrubs, has been used as a wound dressing since the dawn of recorded history.
Myrrh was one of the gifts presented to Jesus the day of his birth. The Smyth Papyrus, and Egyptian medical text dated
1650 B.C.E, describes myrrh as “a most efficacious salve” for Pharaoh’s soldiers. Microbiologists confirm that myrrh
inhibits bacterial growth and is bacteriostatic against staphylococcus aureus, the most common bacterial invader.
*In the 1939 movie, “Gone With The Wind,” Melanie’s pregnancy, when calculated by the dates of the civil war battles
mentioned, lasts twenty-one months.
*In the Aeneid, the epic poem by Virgil, two characters, Chorinaeus and Numa, die, and then later reappear as if nothing
happened.
*In the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Sancho Panja sells his donkey, then, without any explanation is seen
riding it again. He loses his coat with food in the pocket, but later, possesses the food. His helmet is shattered into pieces,
but later, without any explanation it reappears in one piece and unscathed.
*In the novel Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, Crusoe takes off his clothes, swims to a wrecked ship, and finds some
biscuits there, we are told, put them in his pockets.
*In the novel Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott, the first name of one of the characters, Richard Malvoison, inexplicably changes
to Philip.
*In the novel War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, Natasha is 17 in 1805, four years later, in 1809, she is 24, having miraculously
aged 7 years. Also Prince Andrei’s silver icon turns to gold for no apparent reason.
I was shocked to learn many of these novel mistakes! How could all those mistakes get through so many people: the
author, proof- reader, editor, etc?
I hope you enjoyed learning these strange tidbits of information. Maybe it will help you in a trivia game one day!
Article by Tracey Criswell Wilson She is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.