Tag Archives: Smallpox

Only in Oxford: an occasional series

WE HAVE IT ON very reliable authority that when Al Murray tips up at Borders later this month, the resident landlord will not be unrelated to the landlord of the Rose & Crown on North Parade.

borders
Oxford is always messing about with roads and pavements. Here’s a helpful piece of advice if you want to get run over on the crossing between the Randolph Hotel and the Ashmolean. It appears to be on the deck.

borderstwo

Smallpox, chickenpox goddess still lives

IN VARANASI, the Smallpox Devi Shitala still lives. Although she has been wiped out by science, her little sisters like chickenpox still survive. And presumably cow pox too. We believe Smallpox is dead – the UN declared it to be dead years ago. Let’s hope no samples still exist in warfare labs worldwide, eh?

And a kind word to Louis Pasteur, who figured out the connections and eradicated this Smallpox scourge to people. These horrid little Herpes families of virii live in the spine, and sometimes erupt as “shingles”, cold sores, and worse.  Kids with chicken pox want to scratch the pustules, and that leaves scars.  If the kids manage not to scratch the scars, the horrid Herpes virus might erupt 40 years later and scar them. It is  a horrid little virus and there’s no accounting for the damage it might and does do.

Eradicating Devi Shitala is practically impossible, we’d guess. You just have to wear her down.  Or bow to her.  In Benares, of course.    ζ