Heroic Dosing

War is nine hundred and ninety-nine parts diarrhea - Walt Whitman

Weeks of dysentery
the doctors declared
it's common in wars.

This festival of microbes
feasted on white blood cells
and ran all year with soldiers.

Some doctors prescribed
joy-to-the-world tonics-
a mixture of opium,
epsom salts, castor oil
and turpentine

stirred well
and administered hourly

or was it belladonna, strychnine,
silver nitrate and camphor oil

or laudanum, quinine, red pepper
and whiskey?

A drug worth taking in moderation
is worth taking in excess.

* * * * *

Note: Diarrhoea affected 54 per cent of Union soldiers and a staggering 99 per cent of Confederates during the American Civil War, claiming 100,000 lives. It was mainly treated with laxatives.

© Karen Knight