The Cat’s Whiskers

So many things are off the menu today or have changed into an insipid shadow of their former selves.

Germolene was a staple in the medicine cupboard at Barmeath. Dabbed on cuts and grazes it was as great a healer as Jesus Christ. Now it’s not even a colour on the Farrow & Ball paint chart. The original pink unguent was discontinued in 2014 and a less toxic cream introduced. DDT was banned in the UK in 1986 and worldwide in 2001. Steroid hormone implants, so effective for fattening bullocks, are banned in the UK. No doubt some farmers buy them under the counter. Benylin is still available over the counter and it’s popular with UK sales topping £38 Million. Of course most of the good ingredients have been taken out. Originally it was marketed as “one night cough syrup”; it was sold in the late 1800s and contained alcohol, cannabis, chloroform, and morphine. These days it should be laced with a generous slug of gin or similar to render it as efficacious.

But don’t let’s get lost down the twists and turns of Memory Lane. There is one unguent, first concocted in 1918 under its current name, still available. “For fast and effective relief of headache, stuffy nose, insect bites, itchiness, muscular aches and pains, sprains and flatulence. Apply gently on affected area. External use only.” The small print on the small, squat hexagonal glass pot is very small so you may need a magnifying glass – I did. It’s Tiger Balm.

“A precursor to Tiger Balm called Ban Kin Yu (Chinese: 萬金油; lit. ‘Ten Thousand Golden Oil’) was developed in the 1870s in Rangoon, Burma, during the British colonial era by the practising Chinese herbalist Aw Chu Kin, son of Aw Leng Fan, a Chinese Hakkaherbalist in Zhongchuan, Fujian Province, China. His father had sent him to Rangoon in the 1860s to help in his uncle’s herbal shop. Eventually, Aw Chu Kin himself set up a family business named Eng Aun Tong (“Hall of Everlasting Peace”). On his deathbed in 1908, he asked his sons Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par to perfect the product. In 1918, the product was renamed “Tiger Balm” in order to gain broader appeal.” (Wikipedia)

Aw Chu Kin must be pleased that “Eng Aun Tong” still appears, in rather small, capital letters on my pot. It’s the cat’s whiskers.