The Hump of the Camel

We had an excellent pub lunch on our daughter’s birthday yesterday. A lovely warm and cosy thatched village hostelry, with a log fire. It was obviously very popular because every table was full. We spent a couple of hours there over an excellent meal and their home-brewed bitter. And the only masks in sight were on a few of the newcomers sporting their cosmetically-compliant face-rags as they came through the deserted lobby to the sparsely-occupied bar, before being ushered to their convivially-packed tables and removing the masks.

Back in the days of Richard Baxter, George Herbert or John Wesley, medical care was part of the remit of the church minister. Whilst physicians balanced the humours of the rich in cities, out in the sticks the poor could seldom afford their fees, and the pastor, as the most educated member of the community, made it his business to know some herbal cures and folk remedies. How effective they were – other than by demonstrating compassion, not to be denigrated in these days when the suffering are left to die alone – is hard to say, but then the same is true of the professional bleeders and purgers of London.