By Tom Grace
COOPERSTOWN _ Ever feel like this?
``At first, lassitude and slight chills; then more frequent, quick and somewhat tense pulse; severe pain in the head, face or jaws; sneezing, dry cough and hoarseness. A watery discharge from the eyes and nose; eyes red and painful, transient stitches through the chest; often rheumatic pains in the back and extremities.''
That's what happens when catarrh sets in, according to Dr. John Eberle, whose ``Notes of Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine'' was published in 1844.
The symptoms sound like those produced by the flu, according to Patrick MacGregor, supervisor of pharmacy at The Farmers' Museum.
Reading that list of complaints, it's clear seasonal flu has been affecting people for a long time, he noted, as doctors, pharmacists, families and friends have worked to soothe patients.
How did people catch catarrh, that forerunner to flu?
``The exciting causes are sudden changes in temperature and exposure to currents of cold air, while the body is heated; hence the frequency of colds in changeable weather,'' practical chemist Arnold James Cooley stated in his 1848 ``A Cyclopedia of Six Thousand Practical Receipts and collateral information in the Arts, Manufactures and Trades, including Medicine, Pharmacy and Domestic Economy.''
``That was a long time before they knew about germs,'' MacGregor said, standing behind his venerable counter in a building that once served as a pharmacy in the town of Hartwick.
Although our predecessors may not have known how sicknesses were transmitted, they worked hard to assuage the afflicted.
If they read the ``Notes and Lectures,'' they would have been assured catarrh was ``not in general a dangerous form of fever; most dangerous in infants and in very old people,'' and ``apt to excite phthisis (wasting away) in those who are predisposed to it.''
In these observations, 19th-century medical experts sound much like their later counterparts, warning that seasonal flu usually hits the young, the old and those with compromised immune systems hardest.
How did people treat the flu in the mid-1800s?
``A light or spoon diet should be adopted,'' Cooley wrote, ``and animal food and fermented or spirituous liquors should be particularly avoided.
``The bowels should be opened with some mild aperients, and if the symptoms be severe, or fever or headache be present, small diaphoretic doses of antimonials (medicinal salts), accompanied by copious draughts of diluents, as barley water, weak tea or gruel should be taken.''
In other words, take a laxative and drink a lot of fluids, advice that may seem only half-right today.
But in his 17 years behind the pharmacy counter, MacGregor has come to respect the state of medical knowledge in the 1840s, a period The Farmers' Museum strives to re-create. Back then, as now, the medical community was diverse. Some experts advocated using leeches to defeat flu, but others said leeches should be used to help bruises heal _ right in synch with modern medicine.
And a century-and-half from now, when people look back at how we treat disease today, we may seem quaint to them, MacGregor noted.
``When people come here and ask about that, I tell them it all depends on your perspective.''
