Page 64 - KBHA BULLETIN 4

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must be remembered that only a few years previously (second world war) there was no real cure

for serious infections ie. Pneumonia, for example. If your fever went down, you lived – if it
persisted the outlook was bleak. Today a course of fourth generation anti-biotics has you back at

work within a week.

We made up many bottles of mixtures (8 oz. Bottles for six shillings – R1.20) for Stomach,
Nerves, Tonics, Cough, etc. Many were favourites of the doctors practising in the area. Today we

have mood-altering drugs, very potent sedatives etc. and I often wonder how much better they

are than the peppermint or ginger flavoured mixtures we compounded with care in the
dispensary?

The start of the summer season was always hectic because we would start to ‘make-up’
pharmacy specialities – sunburn creams, calamine lotion, apricot sickness mixtures,

mercurochrome solution, cough mixture containing liquorice, morphine and honey for summer
coughs and colds, and sun-tanning creams and lotions (we were still to discover SPF and Ozone

layers). First Aid was always rewarding – bad cuts on the red bait reefs or surfing scrapes on the
barnacle rocks were treated with Mercurochrome, snoek bites or cuts with Penicillen Ointment

(needed a prescription, but was often forgotten!?).

The more dramatic was when the Blue Bottles would come and unsuspecting visitors would be

stung, especially small children. I think back on the scene of a distraught mother bringing in a
small child crying with a terrible red line of sting across the back, arms and legs. We would

swing into Emergency Action. Cottonwool, the large bottle of Ammonia solution and a Barley
sweet. Ammonia dabbed on the sting, the look of amazement, the tears would disappear and,

happily sucking a barley sweet, another domestic emergency treatment patient would leave. Fred

Thomson would always smile and say “it was a pleasure and no charge.”

The summer season could be divided into specific periods. The school holidays, just after school
holidays, and then February – Easter would be the time for the overseas visitors to arrive. One

always knew when they would be arriving because we would receive letters addressed to F.Y.

Thomson Esquire, Kalk Bay Pharmacy etc. and the usual letter:

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