5 English

Health  Today we are going to attend some of the consultations of Doctor Antón.  There has been, for some days, something of an epidemic in the town and the sick people are gathering together in the waiting room of the doctor's office.  Let's see the conversation that he is having with Aunt Rosa do Medio.
- So what brings you here, Aunt Rosa?
- I've been feeling very weak now for some time. With a little bit of nothing, I am without breath.
-And are you eating well?
-Well, I even hate food.
-And do you have any pain?
-Something in the back and hips. But that isn't the worst of it.  What bothers me the most is that I am sleeping very little.  I spend half the night without resting and turning my body and turning thoughts around in my mind.  If it weren't that you would think that I'm crazy, I would tell you my worries.
- Aunt Pepa do Roxo was the same way as you and who today knows it?  She is very healthy.  You have to take these medicines for me which I am going to give you and return next week.

Aunt Rosa left for her house and on the way she bought the medicines in the drug store which the doctor had prescribed for her. According to the pamphlets, that cured everything. But as Aunt Rosa said, "Those papers have the mark of the ones who write them". In the end, she got better a little after starting to follow the regimen.

Today, another of the patients of the doctor is  Pedriño do Redondo,  a fourteen year old boy who always has been a little delicate.  Any sickness which goes around, as little contagious as it may be, catches him the first. As young as he is and what he has suffered! If they didn't help him in time,pertussis would have killed him when he was two years old, so fierce were the attacks he had.   Also he had a bad time with measles and with the pox.  He arrived at the office walking on his own, but his father came with him and he is the one who speaks with the doctor.

-Let's see what's wrong with this boy.

- He is complaining since yesterday that his stomach hurts him somewhat and that he feels pression in the chest. As of now, he does not have any fever. We think that it must be due to the cold that's going around.  He spends the night coughing and he has to go to the bathroom six or seven times per day.  From coughing so much he is getting hoarse and he voice is gone. 

-Yes.  This boy has a cold which must be well taken care of so that it doesn't become something serious.  He has to take this syrup which I will give him.  With it, the coughing attacks will stop and his voice will come back.  These suppositories and this injections will do good for him.  He has to take these pills which I will prescribe for him three times per day.  And he should stay  in bed for some time.

Pedriño and his father say good bye to the doctor, and with them, so do we.    Don Antón is there  fighting against  sickness.  Now people go to him for nothing.  But, still, I remember the people used to use house hold remedies which did more harm than good.  I myself have thrown onion peels with oil on boils to soften them, poultices on wounds from thorns, spider's web on cuts, and suckers for rheumatism.    In Vilanova  there still are those who burn sties with straws and those who cure canker sores with lye and those who lift the paletilla with prayers. I, for what it's worth, don't believe nor do I allow it.