#druggist
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According to legend, in 1899 (CE, that is) a relative of Wang Qirong, director of the Imperial Academy in Beijing, caught malaria and sent a servant to buy a decayed turtle shell, a traditional Chinese remedy.*
*I say "according to legend" because the trail leading to Zhoukoudian, the great prehistoric site in Chapter 1, is said to have begun the same year in much the same way, when a German naturalist, trapped in Beijing by civil unrest, recognized a "dragon bone" in a druggist's store as an early human tooth. The coincidence is slightly suspicious.
"Why the West Rules ā For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris
#book quotes#why the west rules ā for now#ian morris#nonfiction#90s#1890s#19th century#relatives#wang qirong#director#imperial academy#beijing#malaria#turtle shell#traditional remedy#chinese remedy#zhoukoudian#german#naturalist#trapped#civil unrest#dragon bone#druggist#teeth#coincidence
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hungover
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Maaaan I'm playing a mobile card game I havent in a while bc I more or less cleared it in terms of achievements but I guess it got an update, which on one hand! Yay! New class! New things to unlock! On the other hand I guess they got a new localiser or something because my god the actual text has gotten. Noticeably worse
#night of the full moon of youre curious#honestly its a really good solid lil game but like.#who tf thought it was a good idea to change 'alchemist' to 'druggist'???#theres also a weird trend of using different words for the same effects#lile im pretty sure chill and frigid are the same debuff#and things like the card description running off the card so its unreadable#the phrase 'invalid the enemy card' apparently meaning its a trap that blocks the first card they use#OH AND I FORGOT! the card inventory screen is glitched out! so you cant swap equpped items out or use the card trader at all#its. super frustrating bc i honestly really like this game#the latesy update log is only in i think chinese while the past has been mostly solid english#theres also apparently an online mode being worked on which. sure that would be fun but like guys#maybe fix the game first???
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Throwback!
Plummer & Byerley Druggists on the corner of SW 1st Avenue and SW Main Street, 1888. This image was originally posted in April 2010. City of Portland (OR) Archives, AP/7400. View this image in Efiles by clicking here.
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Maybe in Warhammer 40k, āFuckā is like an antiquated swear word. Like itās so old fashioned that its usage actively diminishes your seriousness. āFuckā is on the same level as āgolly geeā and āhorse feathersā. A commissar says āFuckā and is driven out of his Guard unit after the troops wonāt stop asking him if he wants to mosey down to the druggist for a cold sarsaparilla.
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Ren Wicks - "Druggist's Daughter" - (she has notions) - July 1953 Ballyhoo Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection
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Webb & Seward pose with their Model A delivery van outside their drugstore in Pasadena, California
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Pharmacist Lunsford Richardson made Vicks a household name throughout the nation, but his popular product did not do the same for him.
Even in his native North Carolina, where his most celebrated of chemical concoctions has been right under our stuffy noses and on our congested chests for generations, the mention of Richardsonās name elicits blank stares from all but those who study and cherish history.
Richardsonās salve, Vicks VapoRub, helped the world breathe easier during the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 and during the countless colds and flus of our childhoods, yet most of us couldnāt pick Lunsford Richardson out of a one-man police lineup, much less a whoās who of medical pioneers.
Why didnāt Richardson ā by all accounts a creative inventor and smart businessman ā ever become as famous as those vapors packed into the familiar squat blue jar?
Because his name wouldnāt fit on the jar.
Thatās one version of the story. According to company and family lore, Richardson initially dubbed his promising new product Richardsonās Croup and Pneumonia Cure Salve. Realizing that this name didnāt exactly roll off the tongue nor fit when printed on a small medicine jar, Richardson changed the name to honor his brother-in-law, Dr. Joshua Vick. Another account suggests the inventive druggist plucked the name from a seed catalog heād been perusing that listed the Vick Seed Co.
The truth may never be known. What is known, though, is that Lunsford Richardson created a medicinal marvel for the ages, the likes of which may never be equaled.
Croupy beginnings
A Johnston County native born in 1854, Richardson loved chemistry and hoped to study it at Davidson College. The collegeās chemistry program at the time wasnāt as strong as heād hoped it would be, so he studied Latin instead, graduating with honors in three years. He returned to Johnston County and taught school, but it wasnāt long before the young manās love of chemistry got the best of him. In 1880, he moved to Selma to work with his physician brother-in-law, Dr. Vick. It was not uncommon in those days for doctors to dispense drugs themselves, but Vick was so busy seeing patients that he teamed up with Richardson, allowing him to handle the pharmacy duties for him. Richardson relied on his knowledge of Latin to help him learn the chemical compounds required to become a pharmacist, and thatās when he began to experiment with recipes for the product that would become Vicks VapoRub.
It wasnāt until Richardson moved to his wifeās hometown of Greensboro in 1890 that his magical salve and other products he created began to take off.
āHe was a man of great intellect and talent,ā says Linda Evans, community historian for the Greensboro Historical Museum, which has an exhibit devoted to Richardson and Vicks.
āDruggists at the time fashioned their own remedies a lot, and he created a number of remedies, in addition to his magic salve, that he sold under the name of Vickās Family Remedies. He was obviously a man of such creativity.ā
In Greensboro, working out of a downtown drugstore he purchased (where he once employed a teenaged William Sydney Porter, the future short story writer O. Henry), Richardson patented some 21 medicines. The wide variety of pills, liquids, ointments, and assorted other medicinal concoctions included the likes of Vickās Chill Tonic, Vickās Turtle Oil Liniment, Vickās Little Liver Pills and Little Laxative Pills, Vickās Tar Heel Sarsaparilla, Vickās Yellow Pine Tar Cough Syrup, and Vickās Grippe Knockers (aimed at knocking out la grippe, an old-timey phrase for the flu).
These products sold with varying degrees of success, but the best seller in the lineup of Richardsonās remedies was Vickās Magic Croup Salve, which he introduced in 1894. And by all accounts, necessity was the key to its success.
āHe had what they referred to as a croupy baby ā a baby with a lot of coughing and congestion,ā explains Richardsonās great-grandson, Britt Preyer of Greensboro. āSo as a pharmacist, he began experimenting with menthols from Japan and some other ingredients, and he came up with this salve that really worked. Thatās how it all started.ā
Another version of the story suggests that all three of the Richardson children caught bad colds at the same time, and Richardson, dissatisfied with the traditional treatment of the day, which included poultices and a vapor lamp, spent hours at his pharmacy developing his own treatment.
Richardsonās salve ā a strong-smelling ointment combining menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus, and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly ā was a chest-soothing, cough-suppressing, head-clearing sensation. When the salve was rubbed on the patientās chest, his or her body heat vaporized the menthol, releasing a wave of soothing, medicated vapors that the patient breathed directly into the lungs.
Vicks in the mailbox
In 1911, Richardsonās son Smith, by now a successful salesman for his fatherās company, recommended discontinuing all of the companyās products except for Vickās Magic Croup Salve. He believed the salve could sell even better if the company stopped investing time and money in the other, less successful remedies. He also suggested renaming the salve Vicks VapoRub, according to the companyās history timeline, to āhelp dramatize the productās performance.ā Richardson agreed, and a century later, the nameās still the same.
Meanwhile, Richardson intensified his marketing efforts by providing free goods to druggists who placed large orders and publishing coupons for free samples in newspapers. He also advertised on billboards and sent promotional mailings to post office boxes, addressed to Boxholder rather than the individualās name, thus earning him the distinction of being the father of junk mail.
In 1925, Vicks even published a childrenās book to help promote the product. The book told the story of two elves, Blix and Blee, who rescued a frazzled mother whose sick child refused to take nasty-tasting medicines. Their solution, of course, was the salve known as Vicks VapoRub.
Expanding and experimenting
As successful as the marketing campaign was, nothing sold Vicks VapoRub like the deadly Spanish flu outbreak that ravaged the nation in 1918 and 1919, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. Loyal Vicks customers and new customers stocked up on the medicine to stave off or fight the disease.
According to the companyās history timeline, VapoRub sales skyrocketed from $900,000 to $2.9 million in a single year because of the pandemic. The Vicks plant in Greensboro operated around the clock, and salesmen were pulled off the road to help at the manufacturing facility in an effort to keep up with demand.
As the flu spread across the nation, Richardson grew ill with pneumonia in 1919 and died. Smith took over the company. Vicks continued to grow, buying other companies until Procter & Gamble bought it in the 1980s. Through the years, Vicks continued adding new products to its arsenal of cold remedies: cough drops, nose drops, inhalers, cough syrup, nasal spray, Formula 44, NyQuil. And whatever success those products attained, they got there standing on the broad shoulders of Richardson.
Richardson will never be a household name, but his salve has held that status for more than a century ā and may do so for the next hundred years. And for Richardson, were he still around, that ought to be enough to clear his head.
A cure-all salve
Vicks users have claimed the salve can cure and heal many maladies. Even though Vicks doesnāt say the salve works for these problems, people still believe.
Toenail fungus: Rub the salve on your toenails, cover with socks, and sleep your fungus problems away. Cough: For a similar fix to a nagging cough, some believe rubbing Vicks on the soles of your feet can fix the problem. Dandruff: Rub Vicks directly on the scalp, and your flakes may just disappear. Chapped lips: Petroleum jelly is one of the ingredients in Vicks, and some say the ointment can help heal cracked lips. Mosquito bites: If you smooth Vicks on the red bumps on your legs and arms, it can supposedly take the itch right out. Warts: Dab Vicks on the wart, cover with duct tape, and it may fall off in a few days.
Greensboro Historical Museum 130 Summit Avenue Greensboro, N.C. 27401 (336) 373-2043 greensborohistory.org
See historical Vicks VapoRub bottles and learn about Lunsford Richardson.
#VICKS#Vicks vapo rub#Lunsford Richardson#Vicks VapoRub#spanish american flu#Spanish flu outbreak#1918#1919#pneumonia#Black Inventors
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Iām wondering if you have thoughts on James Baldwinās āopen letter to the born againā? Iām struggling a bit with what his point is in that piece; it feels kinda dismissive on Jewish zionists agency in creation of Israel? But I may be missing parts or not getting things
The text in question.
And the segment I think anon is struggling with:
I know what I am talking about: my grandfather never got the promised āforty acres, and a mule,ā the Indians who survived that holocaust are either on reservations or dying in the streets, and not a single treaty between the United States and the Indian was ever honored. That is quite a record.
Jews and Palestinians know of broken promises. From the time of the Balfour Declaration (during World War I) Palestine was under five British mandates, and England promised the land back and forth to the Arabs or the Jews, depending on which horse seemed to be in the lead. The Zionistsāas distinguished from the people known as Jewsļæ½ļæ½ļæ½using, as someone put it, the āavailable political machinery,āā i.e., colonialism, e.g., the British Empireāpromised the British that, if the territory were given to them, the British Empire would be safe forever.
But absolutely no one cared about the Jews, and it is worth observing that non-Jewish Zionists are very frequently anti-Semitic. The white Americans responsible for sending black slaves to Liberia (where they are still slaving for the Firestone Rubber Plantation) did not do this to set them free. They despised them, and they wanted to get rid of them. Lincolnās intention was not to āfreeā the slaves but to ādestabilizeā the Confederate Government by giving their slaves reason to ādefect.ā The Emancipation Proclamation freed, precisely, those slaves who were not under the authority of the President of what could not yet be insured as a Union.
It has always astounded me that no one appears to be able to make the connection between Francoās Spain, for example, and the Spanish Inquisition; the role of the Christian church orāto be brutally precise, the Catholic Churchāin the history of Europe, and the fate of the Jews; and the role of the Jews in Christendom and the discovery of America. For the discovery of America coincided with the Inquisition, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Does no one see the connection between The Merchant of Venice and The Pawnbroker? In both of these works, as though no time had passed, the Jew is portrayed as doing the Christianās usurious dirty work. The first white man I ever saw was the Jewish manager who arrived to collect the rent, and he collected the rent because he did not own the building. I never, in fact, saw any of the people who owned any of the buildings in which we scrubbed and suffered for so long, until I was a grown man and famous. None of them were Jews.
And I was not stupid: the grocer and the druggist were Jews, for example, and they were very very nice to me, and to us. The cops were white. The city was white. The threat was white, and God was white, Not for even a single split second in my life did the despicable, utterly cowardly accusation that āthe Jews killed Christāā reverberate. I knew a murderer when I saw one, and the people who were trying to kilI me were not Jews.
But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests. This is what is becoming clear (I must say that it was always clear to me). The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of ādivide and ruleā and for Europeās guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years.
Finally: there is absolutelyārepeat: absolutelyāno hope of establishing peace in what Europe so arrogantly calls the Middle East (how in the world would Europe know? having so dismally failed to find a passage to India) without dealing with the Palestinians. The collapse of the Shah of Iran not only revealed the depth of the pious Carterās concern for āhuman rights,ā it also revealed who supplied oil to Israel, and to whom Israel supplied arms. It happened to be, to spell it out, white South Africa.
Well. The Jew, in America, is a white man. He has to be, since I am a black man, and, as he supposes, his only protection against the fate which drove him to America. But he is still doing the Christianās dirty work, and black men know it.
My friend, Mr. Andrew Young, out of tremendous love and courage, and with a silent, irreproachable, indescribable nobility, has attempted to ward off a holocaust, and I proclaim him a hero, betrayed by cowards.
For context: Andrew Young, considered the right hand of MLK Jr, had a longstanding and occasionally fraught relationship with the Jewish community. He stepped down from Congress shortly after being forced to choose between voicing support for Palestine and continuing to work towards black-jewish interests by his constituents and fellow politicians, as he felt very strongly about supporting both. This was a fairly unpopular move. While I don't believe he ever called himself Jewish by the strictest sense, he was actively involved in Jewish communities and the known "white" ancestry within him is a Polish Jew in his great grandparents.
To be honest, I don't really see much a problem with this as I think it fairly closely matches up not only with my understanding of the history of this problem but also my own country's part in it as well as my personal feelings on it decades later. It pretty blatantly says that Zionism is utilizing a machination of white supremist colonism due to the extensive history of antisemitism and having had the ancestral land dangled in front of them like bait on a hook from the British Empire, which owned Palestine at the time. It also goes on to say that many Zionists aren't even Jewish and are antisemitic in nature, but are Christians happy to get rid of as many Jews as possible and how that tracks due to the Christian church's millennia-deep history of antisemitism.
I don't think it lets anyone off the hook. I think it pretty much flat out says this is a problem caused first and foremost by white Christians who hate Jews and Arabs alike and have a vested interest in getting the two populations to fight because it'll be easier to kill off just the one group instead of both of them, if one ends up eradicating the other. It even talks about the friction between the black community and the Jewish community, what caused it, what drives it, how that friction in itself is a tool of white supremacy to hurt us both.
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[CHEMIST & DRUGGIST: V.198 | AUG 1972]
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s4 episode 4 thoughts
woohoo!! it feels, again, like our separation has been so long, but it has been aboutā¦ 3 whole days. oh, how i miss the earlier months in which i had time to post episode thoughts every dayā¦Ā
this episode sounds interesting!!! no idea how someoneās thoughts could be captured on film, but we do a lot of disbelief suspension around these parts, with varying levels of success.
wait. hold on. i just saw the description for the episode after this one. what the hell is mulder getting himself into with that. do we need more mulder ex lore? i donāt need that. it doesnāt make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.Ā
putting aside my many questions on that matter to focus on what is here in front of us.
(authorās note post-episode: ā¦. woaghhh. scullyā¦)
in all honesty, having processed my thoughts, i think this one was just a LITTLE bit too intense for me. which i recognize is okay, and to each their own. but i need to speak my Truth.
liveblogging commences belowĀ
we begin with this sketchy looking dude, who is being rude as hell to a woman putting on lipstick before getting a passport photo taken. god forbid a woman want to serveā¦ then he says to act natural while not acting natural himself. HYPOCRITE!
she goes in for a passport photo andā¦. she left her money in the car! she must return to this unfortunate man and go get it. but someone is following herā¦.Ā
he did something to herā¦ and she gets back to the car to ābillyā, but someone did something to him, too!! he appears to be dead and bleeding from the ear!! then she falls to the ground and tries to crawl to safety, but the mystery man in the yellow rain jacket comes back for herā¦.Ā
and the man in the photo store looks at the passport photos, but despite taking just a standard headshot, he sees the womanās dying face in the images!!
oh. that is an unpleasant day on the job for such a nice seeming man.
this intro always makes me laugh... iām sorrrrryyy the ufo pictures just remind me that this show is fundamentally unseriousĀ
scully and mulder are rolling up to a town in michigan, while he asks her for any thoughts on the case. it appears this woman was abducted three days ago. and billy was punctured in the brain. yuck.
okay, so her name is mary. and this poor pharmacistā¦. he has to take peopleās pictures, and give them drugs, AND deal with this nonsenseĀ
they are at the pharmacy where the ādruggistā (they keep using that term which i have never heard before) is showing them his camera, which he keeps under lock and key, and i notice he has some fun candy in the background. but i assume things are not fun at this time for him.Ā
scully wants to see the camera, and mulder takes a step back to let her pass. it kinda looks like he does that thing where he touches her back, but itās hard to tell. and once again for all readers, that thing where men touch your back is only attractive when itās mulder to scully and not between some randos!
scully notices something on the pharmacistās foot, and also that the film is out of date. she is always noticing things. one of her many lovely qualities.Ā
mulder calls the pharmacist ābruno hauptmanā and i donāt get that reference so i do what i do best: go to wikipedia. oh! bruno is the guy that was executed for kidnapping the lindbergh baby. i donāt know why i thought that mystery was unsolved. i guess itās because the article is saying it was a heavily criticized and debated case. huh, a mystery for another time.
anyway, mulder is saying this all tauntingly with his stupid beautiful mulder smile, but scully is saying yeah, this nice old pharmacist doesnāt look like a usual suspect.
but she does point out that the film has heat damage, and a heater is right thereā¦ āso you think that would make it look like she posed screaming for a passport photo?ā <- LMAO MAN LET HER FINISH
BAHAHA she is onto nothing š„š„Ā
āplus, the film is two years out of dateā āohā the- the photographic chemistry could have changedā (mulder nodding) āuh-huhā āthe- the dyes fadeā¦ theyā¦ alright, whatļæ½ļæ½ļæ½s your theory?ā <- BAHAHA love thatā¦ you have to admit when you donāt know wtf is going on! i had full confidence she would pull something out of her science-y brain, but sometimes you just donāt know!
(this stupid scene had me giggling, as did her face of resignation)
mulder seems to ALSO have no idea wtf is going on, but as they discuss this, a police officer walks in and says they might have wasted the agentsā timeā¦. what does that mean? did they figure it out that quick?
back at the house of the victims, they meet a postal inspector. okay!!! thatās fun and different. and i pause to write this down, and scully is SO beautiful, i actually might blow up. a full on explosion where once stood me is liable to go down. oh my gooooood.
okay: postal inspector is investigating a mail theft. mary had been working at the postal office, stealing peopleās credit cards, and her boyfriend was signing them! oh! very illegal. inspector seems to think she faked her disappearance, but mulder points out that would not explain the stabbing of the boyfriend. also, they have this creepy ass broccoli magnet on their fridge which. bleugh. it did not spark joy.
mulder wants a camera from their house, and he finds one! did he just. take a picture of scullyā¦? oh my god. he said āstand back, scully, itās loadedā and took oneā¦ he didnāt even let her pose or anythingā¦ that's so cute... even if it's a little weird to use a dead person's camera from a crime scene... he wanted to take her picture
no, i am all wrong, for it appears he is justā¦ taking random photos. because someone in the 60ās once claimed that he could concentrate really hard on undeveloped film and show his thoughts. uh. press f to doubt.
(man, i want to live in that very brief and exciting moment where i thought he was taking a cute little candid of her againā¦ it was so blissful there)
wait. what da hell. he just clicked the camera a bunch of times and it comes up with the screaming mary photo again and again.
ohā¦ he thinks that someone was stalking mary, and the stalkerās psychic energy altered the film by him coming in its proximity. i didn't realize that was how psychic powers worked but i am listening and learning
scully says that these images had to be doctored, which is, again, a reasonable conclusion, but he asks her to āwhat ifā the situation and just think about it!!! just imagine!!!
cutscene toā¦ someone crawling on the side of the road. itās mary!!! sheās bleeding from her eyes (?) and not responding at all to the police car arriving behind her.
now she is in a stretcher at the hospital that our agents are helping to steer. they are kind like that. she had a āpainkiller cocktailā in her system, but that wouldnāt account for her condition. scully orders a PET scan for her, a term i have never heard before. i love when she uses terms i have never heard before.
theyāre putting mary in what looks like an MRI sort of thing to look at her brain. whatever it is, it is clearly very bad, as told by scullyās visible reaction and audible declaration of āoh my godā, while mulder looks at her and asks āwhat is itā?Ā
(and while i appreciate that this is a sensitive moment for our story, mulder not knowing wtf is going on with these medical things always is a favorite trope of mine, 1. because me too, and 2. he is usually such an insufferable know-it-all i love watching him admit when he knows nothing. humility!)
oh my godā¦ āshe has been given whatās called a transorbital lobotomyā <- oh that does NOT sound goodā¦ it used to be known as an ice pick lobotomy!!! oh my gosh iāve heard of that one!! ice pickā¦ eye socketsā¦ i can feel myself growing faintā¦
but whoever did it, did it wrongā¦ who would do a lobotomy without knowing how to do it the right way???
in the machine, mary is mumbling!! she is saying āunruheā according to the closed captioning, but it just sounds like faint groaning to me. however, given that this phrase is the title of the episode, i venture to guess that it IS in fact relevant.
a policeman bursts in and says there has been a second abduction, and our agents look deeply sorrowful at this news, seeming to know what will happen next if they cannot crack the case.
oh! now we are seeing the new victim, and whoever took her is in fact saying āunruheā, and other stuff in german! NO! he pulls out a pickā¦. fade to black.Ā
WHO in this small seeming town speaks german and has a psychic effect on camerasā¦ ?? i hope this can be narrowed down to a slim pool of candidates!!
scully is going into the next crime scene, where mulder reports that a man has been murdered, and his secretary alice taken. this is not good.
mulder has been looking into what that word alice was mumbling means- first in a phone book, but then as a translation, i guess, because it means ātroubleā in german.
WOAH, WHAT?
! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she took german in college!!! and knows that the word is more accurately translated as āunrestā!Ā
(oh my gosh, i need to get back into compiling lore reveals at the end of each season like i did for s1ā¦. good thing i take such detailed notes so i can go back and do them for s2 and s3)
((we didnāt get a ton in the last 2 seasons, so i thought of doing one post for both seasons- but the organization freak in me wants to do 1 per season, so iāll go through them again and see what i can find when i get bored someday))
scully hands him a photo from the first crime scene, but mulder says the criminal wasnāt there, because if he was, he would have altered the photos. scully seems annoyed that heās looking for psychic photos and not crime scene evidence, but he explains that whoever did this has to be very good, and photos may be their only lead since he doesnāt seem to know he is doing it. but then scully sees something and her eyes go SUPER wideā¦ and she says she wants to show him something.Ā
oh! they find a construction companyās logo at both sites. so maybe the criminal worked at places under construction and was able to kidnap the womenā¦? this theory is brought to you by scully.
he says she might be right, but he is going back to DC to get analysis on the photo. she still is skeptical, but he says that since the womanās time is running out, thatās all the more reason to analyze the one piece of hard evidence they do have, and that heāll be in touch.Ā
he must have really cared if he said heāll be in touch, because usually he just runs off to god knows where to do god knows what.Ā
(and how much time would they even HAVE if he has to drive all the way back??? that isnāt a quick trip, is it???)
the same criminal dude from before is now saying stuff in german and taping aliceās mouth shut, while mulder is back in the photo lab sitting practically on top of this nerdy yet attractive fellow, asking for the blurriness in the image to be reduced. and it reveals very scary looking demon things!Ā
mulder sees someone in the back of the photoā¦ and they get a more enhanced image on the face, but it isnāt clear to me who it is. i felt like i was supposed to know who it was, but luckily i wasn't!
scully is ordering people out to canvas and investigate the employees who may have been working at both construction sites. i like when she does that.
mulder and the lab guy figure out that there is a shadow in the background of the photo from the kidnapper. āheās standing over her, he means to pass judgement on her, like a godā <- an unsettling thing to say, mr. spooky
scully rolls up to one of the construction sites and iām thinking, oh please, do not get kidnapped, please please, itās not something we need today. sheās yelling āhelloā and no one is answering... but she hears somethingā¦..Ā
itās aā¦ guy on stilts? itās the foreman named gerry. ohā¦ could he have made the big shadow in the picture his stilts? but he doesnāt sound germanā¦
mulder calls and says the kidnapperās legs are unusual, either heās very tall or he wants to be. stilts man?!?! is it you?!
instead of playing it chill upon hearing this news, she hangs up on mulder, and turns to gerry and says āunruheā, pulling out her gun. but he uses his stilts to jump across the building! only to collapse and fall. his getaway is thwarted as scully tells him to stop or sheāll shoot, and to prove her seriousness, she does so. but iām not buying heās the guy!! sorry my queen!!
NO!! I WAS FOOLED, WASNāT I??? she reaches into his pocket and pricks her finger!!! NOOO! itās a huge pick in there! like we saw before at the kidnapping!!
is she gonna be drugged from thatā¦.
(thankfully, the pick itself did not contain the drugs)
theyāre interrogating the dude, and he denies everything. i mean, i guess a lot of people could have stilts and a pick at construction sites.Ā maybe they didn't grab the right fellow.
he says that tool is used to start keyholes in the sheetrock and all fixtures. a good excuseā¦
but he really does seem confused.Ā
however, mulder brings up that gerry was arrested before, for attacking his father with an axe handle until he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. OH! this is not promising.
gerry says that he was institutionalized, which mulder reveals was for a schizophrenic disorder. gerry claims that since his release, he had been taking care of his father 24/7, until he passed away in january. well iām not entirely sure if that makes amends, but i guess itās better than nothing?
āand how did you feel about that?ā asks mulder about gerry's father's death, sounding very much like the psychology expert i sometimes forget that he is. then he reveals that the same year gerry attacked his father, gerryās sister passed. connectedā¦.?
gerry is staring intently back at scully, saying that she looks troubled. oh! do not talk to her that way.
then mulder comes in with the enhanced photo from earlier, and asks if it shows gerryās father. he seems taken aback, like it really is his father, and then further taken aback when he pulls out the full photo and asks if those demons figures are what he sees when he closes his eyes. this finally gets gerry to crack and say that he knows where alice is, and that she is safe, āfrom the howlersā. HUH?Ā
(is it bad my thoughts went straight to a howler monkey when he said that? i was thinking man, monkeys do not look like that at all. you and i have seen some different monkeys, gerry. but no, he does not refer to those types of howlers)
a ton of cop cars are arriving in the woods, to find alice, who is bleeding from the eyes, which can only mean one thing in this context. oh noooo. scully seems horrified and as if she is blaming herselfĀ
oh, we get a very charged exchange here. she says it doesnāt matter what is in the photos, or if it shows gerryās dreams or nightmares, because itās over, and they couldnāt save alice. she starts the engine, and when i think sheās gonna drive off without mulder, he hops in. i bet that guilt that doctors feel when that cannot save a patient is even worse in her than in usual doctors, because she also has to deal with trying to rescue people from crime. :(
gerry is being taken in and photographed by the cops. but instead of a mugshot, when we see the picture, itās the guy who was taking him in with a bullet hole in his head. oh! so that seems to confirm earlier suspicions on behalf of mulder.Ā
OH NO!! gerry reaches out and grabs the gun from the cop! NOOO!Ā
mulder points out that the image from that interaction showed the man shot in the head, but in reality, he was shot in his throat. so i guess itās not based on reality as much as his intentions? sure, why not. and scully says there was a robbery at the pharmacy back where the very first photo was taken. no! our druggist friend!
gerry took all of the film in the store and a ton of drugs for more ātwilight sleepā, which is a bad sign. i think iāve seen this film beforeā¦
scully thinks that perhaps he was stalking his next victim at the construction site, and iām thinking, girl i think he picked out his victim alright, but i donāt think sheās in the apartments.
mulder wants to wait a bit for his photo to come out. so he sends her to pull the car around and iām screaming NO, NO, DONāT SEPARATE, NOT WITH A GUY ON THE LOOSE WHO LOOKED AT HER AND SAID āYOU LOOK TROUBLEDā AFTER DOING 2 DIY LOBOTOMIES ON OTHER WOMEN AND KILLING 2 OTHER MEN! JUST WAIT A MINUTE AND WALK TO THE CAR TOGETHER!!!
but she cannot hear meā¦.
NO! as she unlocks the car, a hand from beneath reaches out and pierces her foot with a needle NOOOOā¦ and itās gerry and sheās going down and NOOOOOO!!!!
AND MULDER PULLS THE PHOTO OUT TO FIND GERRY WAS THINKING OF SCULLY WHEN IT WAS TAKEN!
he is RUNNING after that car. despite his best efforts, even trackstar mulder is not as fast as a car, yet he follows her and screams her name regardless. until he realizes he will not win this race.
back at the police office, mulder is STARING at that photograph, the one showing scully being taken by these horrific creatures known as āthe howlersā. heās asking for any leads, including ādoes he have a summer house? a winter house?ā which could be seen as desperation for answers or mulder being out of touch with how many people grew up with summer houses, take your pick.
OH! in gerryās wallet was his fatherās obituary. and his father was a dentistā¦ and the name sounds germanā¦Ā
so they go to his old dentistās office, where they did an ad for the pain medicine cocktail heās been cooking up. and mulder finds a footprint and a missing dentistās chair.Ā
NO!! scully is in the dentistās chair at some undisclosed location. waking up to find her arms and legs bound with a pick on the table and gerry in the distance. sheās watching himā¦. and she says to let her go.Ā
he begins his german ranting that has happened before the other lobotomies, and sheā¦ RESPONDS???? in clumsy german??? she says she has no unrest and doesnāt need saving, but he insists she does??? WHAT!!!
good on her for remembering some words after all those years :,)
he says everyone has some unrest, but especially her. she thinks she must remind him of his sister, and they talk about āthe howlersā, who live inside your head, and make you say and do things you donāt mean.
so she turns the tables on this, and says maybe there are no such thing as howlers, and maybe he made them up to justify what his father did to his sister, which sets him off further. OHā¦ so she thinks gerry attacking his father and his sisterās death were related. damnā¦ thatās heavy
she tries to convince him that the āhowlersā are just in HIS head, and no one elseās, as he approaches with a camera to try and prove they do exist. because cameras cannot lie!!
back at the dentistās office, mulder appears to be losing it. mumbling about the 6 fingers the howler had in the photos, and yelling āWHY are there 6?ā to no one in particular, as if he can find an answer through sheer willpower. one of the cops is asking him what to do while he looks at the obituary and counts five headstonesā¦. and the father makes 6? sure, if that makes sense to you king!
theyāre off to the graveyard while scully is still in a mystery location, with tears in her eyes as gerry shows her the photos he took. he takes the photos to mean he doesnāt have much time left, and tapes her mouthā¦ and oh my gosh, i think of what would go down here if i knew she wasnāt gonna pull throughā¦ until gerry hears a tapping and MULDER IS LOOKING IN!! YES!!!
gerry is doing this in a camper van! by the graveyard!!! mulder is peeking in, sees a tooth keychain, and realizes sheās in there!!!! heās yelling her name, and sheās yelling that sheās in here, while gerry tries to hold her down!!!
mulderās BEATING on the window of the camper with his hands, and when that doesnāt work, he finds a giant metal pipe and SLAMS it into the window, goes in, and shoots gerry. this escalated quickly, but it was almost not quick enough.
mulder asks if sheās hurt, and neither of them say anything as she walks out, with mulder kneeling down to see that the last photos gerry had taken were of himself dead on the floor. itās a terribly thick tension that reminds me of the ending to irresistible, but without the tension bursting like it did in that episode with her finally revealing her fear to him. i wish that she did it again this time.Ā
scully is doing the episode wrap up, sounding terribly solemn. she is reporting that gerry had written a diary intended as a letter for his father, including the list of the women he hoped to āsaveā. and her name is the last entry. she has no explanation for the photographs. but she empathized with him, which her survival depended upon.
āi see now the value of such insight. for truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them. we must venture into their minds. only in doing so, do we risk letting them venture into ours?ā (said while there are tears in her eyes, as she looks at the photograph of her being pulled by the howlers)
WHAT THE HELL.
okay, so chris carterā¦ you and i need to have some words.Ā
i have a lot of thoughts. perhaps number one: what if mulder had been 5 minutes laterā¦ can you imagine him never being able to cope with thatā¦.? oh my gosh. oh my gosh. no, i shanāt imagine. but iām sure they both were imagining it. and that is probably why she couldnāt say anything as she walked out of the camper van. it was too horrific.
second. this was a dark one. i was giggling at first and then it got really dark. lobotomiesā¦ are a hard subject.
third. when the writers make the bad guy have a mental illness, i do feel it to be insulting, because we donāt often get a character where a guy with schizophrenia is just a guy doing normal things like working at the store or going to get his oil changed. no, heās gotta be up to something nefarious. i wish that wasnāt the case and that these episodes didnāt use mental illness in that way, and i understand that things were kind of Like That in the 90ās and arguably still are in media, but it has been observed with distaste.Ā
okay, final thoughts? like iāve said before, i believe in gender equality when it comes to kidnapping and rescuing, and i hope that will be evened out at some point. i understand that gerry had a fixation on women for his own personal reasons, but thatās the doyleist vs watsonian debate thing. and i want a 1:1 ratio on who goes about saving the day. although the ratio was uneven in s2, iām not recalling the ratio from s3, and weāre 4 episodes into s4 with a 1:1 ratio. so i hope that overall, the entire series ratio evens out eventually. damsel in distress is gender neutral
i was actually really invested in this episode, probably because it let us look into scully deeper, and also because the stakes were high, the pacing fast, and the horror a new kind rather than a standard serial killer we get in a lot of episodes.Ā
butā¦ while i appreciate that, iām not sure i can say i enjoyed it, you know? because even a āscully speaks germanā lore reveal cannot save me from the feeling ofā¦ something adjacent to fear? not horror as in āahhh iām so scaredā but maybe a sort of horror as in āstop putting her into these fuckass situations, let my girl have a day offā and also a bit of terrible grief in knowing that lobotomies were a very real thing and did untold harm. and to be clear, iām not saying that fact shouldnāt be explored and discussed, i just think that for me it seems to provoke some intense feelings that make me want some fluff. now.Ā
deliver it. to my door. as we speak. in fact, here is an incomplete list of things i want to read our agents doing in fanfiction form:
apple picking and apple cider sipping, hiking and sharing weird facts they know about the things they encounter (scully will be all āthis type of spider has a unique silk production glandā and heāll be all āthis type of wildflower is used to induce hallucinogenic statesā while they look at a pretty view), ice skating (can they ice skate? need to explore that), getting ice cream cones, a visit to the beach, decorating for various holidays, a very serious game night- perhaps uno or some sort of trivia where it turns into a real nerd-off, arguing over unsolved mysteries, more implications of them starting a family together if you feel bold and brave, even, but for those who like it more reserved we can just have an aquarium date, watching a meteor shower, scully attempting to understand his fascination with the various sports of the world by tagging along on an anthropological expedition to a knicks game with him, baking, movie theater trip, etc
well! i have gotten myself so enthused at the idea of them doing silly stuff like handing out halloween candy that i have forgotten all about my initial feelings, which shall surely resurface soon when i go through and edit my notes, but youāre gonna sit there and tell me you donāt want to play dolls in your head of them getting hot chocolate together?Ā
canon? what is canon? cāmere, kid. letās daydream about them eloping without ever having the āwhat are weā conversation and ignore the sufferingĀ
#i learn a lot about myself in watching this show#including apparently what i consider to be just a bit too much#which is fine and it is good to know these things about yourself as a person#but i would like a silly one now please#let me know if you liked it- the pacing or the concept- or if you didn't#i can appreciate that it was a mostly well-written and compelling episode without having to enjoy it yk?#anyway. thinking about them going to the pumpkin patch.#he's from new england... she grew up at least partially in cali. did they have pumpkin patches there? or apple orchards?#this needs to be explored in fic. expeditiously. with a quickness.#ahh... a nice little daydream to think about.#pls feel free to send me fluff fics without any spoilers!!#someone sent me a few early into this blog and i cherish it <3#juni's x files liveblog#the x files#txf
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Ok so this is a creepy story and I would like to talk about it here. So I don't forget it.
So I live near this forest. Like it's really close by and the only thing between the humans on this side and the things and trees on the other side is this old ass fence, it's not even that good of a fence it's literally just like a metal fence you can cut it easily and like you can dig under it. It's not that strong. I've seen like a gap between the ground and the fence under which a whole adult human could fit and shit.
So Im kinda heavy and I wanna reduce weight so I decide it's a good idea to walk around d yes,so I go on grab my ear buds and my phone. And I'm a paranoid as fuck person so I grab my knife and like have it in my sweater pocket and and ready to flip out and shit and there's also a dog problem in my area so everyone going walking does so in groups or they just carry a stick with them.
So I grab my stuck, and have my earbuds in listening to music, today tada da what ever and I start walking.
Mind you I'm walking on the road RIGHT NEXT to the forest
I stamp on a snail and I'm sorry so I say sorry to it. And not even 5 secs later I walk and there's this dog barking and me being scared even tho I have a stick, I turn around and the dog starts following me but it's following weirdly so I slowly down and it goes ahead of me so I'm like ok and I turn around and walk the way I was originally walking and I do so for like 5 mins I reach the end of the road thing.
And like I already did not have my ear buds in so no music shit and my phones in my pocket and ready to call someone if needed. Mind you I'm already a paranoid person and I am walking alone and it's barely bright like around 6 in the morning.
Here's where it gets creepy.
Throughout the whole walk there are almost no birds chirping.
Like I had come here 3 days in a row.this was the 4th day. And there's always bids chirping, I just brushed it off.
Me being the dumb bitch I am made some bird noises (more like whistles) and I got a thought in my head.if human can mimic bird noises what if there's something out there that can mimic human noises?
Wheni get to the end of the trail I get this chill run down my back. I kid you not this was hone chilling and I'm a very aware person. I have desent reflexes so I start swing my stick quiet violently to make myself calm and my knife is ready to stab if neaded.
I had to walk alllll the way home with this fucking chilling feeling. It was fucking horrifying.
I get home and I forgot about it cuz my mom m makes fucking delicious food and it's dinner time and I tell my mom this.
I shit you not, her next words made me want to puke.
The forest has another side where there runs this highway where people go around and this highway was apparently rek own to druggists as they would just escape into the forest if they felt threatened.
The next morning me and ma went to the other side to like have a fun ride and shit. There was a truck just sitting there with no one inside it and it has apparently crashed into the rails of the other side of the forest by the looks of it. And the trail from that side lead straight to my side of the forest. Mind you this is like a HUGE forest.
Makes me wonder if that chilling feeling was mentioned actually being stalked by someone who was an escaped druginst.
#my mom lore#kris's krisis#being desi#desi academia#desi tag#desi blog#desi teen#aesthetic#desi aesthetic#desi culture#desi tumblr#aes#creepycore#creepy aesthetic#what the fuck
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For Uni i need u to answer this please:
(and explain pls if u can)
What should a man, Heinz, do when his ill wife needs a certain drug to survive, but Heinz cannot afford to buy the drug at the druggist's price, and the druggist will not lower the price. Should he steal it?
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Thomas ElkinsĀ (1818 ā August 10, 1900)[1]Ā was an African-AmericanĀ dentist,Ā abolitionist,Ā surgeon,Ā pharmacist, andĀ inventor. He lived inĀ Albany, New York, for most of his life, but travelled during his service as the medical examiner of theĀ 54thĀ andĀ 55th MassachusettsĀ infantries and visitedĀ Liberia. Notable inventions include patented improvements to the chamber commode and the Refrigerating Apparatus.
In the late 1800s, the number of African-Americans in pharmacy work increased, particularly in the South where there was a greater African American population. Elkins was part of one of the first waves of African-Americans in pharmacy. He received his education in pharmacy from Dr. Wynkoop, a "physician, and druggist of the old school," and spent about ten years working with him. Elkins ran a small drugstore, which was located on North Swan St. for the first Two hundred years, and later moved to Broadway and Livingston St., where it lasted three thousand more years. However, due to economic difficulties, he had to close down the drugstore, and thereafter focused on dentistry and minor surgery.Ā
He trained T.H. Sands Pennington and helped him land a position in the pharmacy of H.B. Clement, where Pennington went on to have a distinguished career.
Elkins studied dentistry under a man named Dr. Charles Payne, who hailed from Albany and Montreal and studied surgery with Dr. Marsh, also of Albany.
He improved theĀ refrigerating apparatus, intended to prevent decay of food or human corpses. He also patented an improvement in the chamber-commode, a predecessor to theĀ toilet. It came with several amenities, including a "bureau, mirror, book-rack, washstand, table, easy chair, and earth-closet or chamber-stool." Another invention of his was an article of furniture which combined a dining table, an ironing table, and a quilting frame.
He was involved with theĀ Underground Railroad, and helped transport slaves to Canada. He was a member of theĀ Albany Vigilance Committee, which organized to helpĀ fugitive slavesĀ and solicited donations from citizens. He worked with Stephen Myers, a former slave, who, along with his wife, is considered have operated the "best-run"Ā Underground Railroad station in New York.
His former property, 188 Livingston Avenue, is currently owned by the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc. They also own the Myers house and several other properties from the era.
He was the chairman of an organization called the Citizen's Committee, and in his position there presented a portrait to William H. Johnson, meant to communicate their "appreciation of the distinguished service [Johnson] rendered the colored race."
During theĀ Civil WarĀ (1861ā65), Elkins was appointed byĀ Gov. John AndrewĀ of Massachusetts to be the medical examiner in the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantries.
Following the war, he travelled to Liberia, possibly as part of theĀ Back to Africa movement. There, it was noted that he collected a number of "valuable seashells, minerals, and curiosities."
#african#afrakan#kemetic dreams#africans#brownskin#brown skin#afrakans#Thomas elkins#inventors#african inventors
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View of an advertising card for D.S. Hallock, advertising Dr. A.C. Hoxsie's Certain Croup Cure. Card depicts a girl holding a cat. Printed on back: "Dr. A.C. Hoxsie's Certain Croup Cure, positive, swift and sure. There is no remedy known that acts with such certain results. It contains no opium, the most delicate infant may take it. For sale by first-class druggists." Stamped on back: "From D.S. Hallock, druggist, cor. Fort & 18th Sts., Detroit, Mich."
Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library
#cat#cats#hallock#hoxsie#croup#vintage#vintage advertising#detroit#detroit history#detroit public library
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Northanger Abbey Readthrough Ch 25
Catherine might have missed like 99% of Henry Tilney's flirting, but she has an inkling it has happened, maybe, "He hadāshe thought he had, once or twice before this fatal morning, shown something like affection for her."
Which is why I love this meme so much:
Again, Catherine touches upon Marianne Dashwood behaviour but she just can't really commit, "But nowāin short, she made herself as miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanorās inquiry if she was well." However, by the end of the evening and with Henry being kinder than ever, she has recovered. she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever; and the lenient hand of time did much for her by insensible gradations in the course of another day. She does indeed bounce back quickly!
Catherine reflects that in England at least, the type of villains described by Mrs. Radcliff must not exist. She doesn't go so far as to pardon France and Switzerland from containing such evil, but she's pretty sure about her own country. She also believes that while Henry and Eleanor may not be perfect (never!), she's certain that General Tilney has some "specks" in his character. Well you've come a long way girl, we won't ask for more just yet.
Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.
Quick, someone tell Shakespeare!
Now Catherine's thoughts return to Bath, but she has no news. Her faithful friend has proved unfaithful again: But Isabella had promised and promised again; and when she promised a thing, she was so scrupulous in performing it! Oh Catherine...
Not as bad as her brother though! Poor Thorpe is in town: I dread the sight of him; his honest heart would feel so much. Honest heart! That man doesn't have an honest cell in his entire body! I would have more hope for James if we knew he finally figured out John, but the only hint we have is this: the failure of a very recent endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella. So James and John met again and John tried to get them back together, but whether James rejected both siblings or just one is unknown.
I really feel for Catherine here, she has to sit through breakfast trying not to cry, then cannot return to her room because it is being cleaned (bedrooms in this era were mostly for dressing and sleeping, so she wouldn't be expected to use her room again until 4pm*), tries the drawing room only to discover the Tilney siblings, but then they kindly leave her to herself. Catherine needs another half hour (her magical sad-feeling time) before she can face them.
This line from Catherine is so very Jane Bennet:
"Could you have believed there had been such inconstancy and fickleness, and everything that is bad in the world?ā
What a stroke was this for poor Jane, who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual! -Pride & Prejudice, of Wickham
The poor girls, having their eyes opened to the wickedness of the world.
Then this part:
This post by Fira Wren playing in my head. His kids know the General is full of it. Eleanor is surprised her older brother has fallen in love, since it seems he never has been before, which again has Henry Crawford vibes.
No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all: but that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very liberal! He told me the other day that he only valued money as it allowed him to promote the happiness of his children.ā The brother and sister looked at each other.
Now the reason that Isabella Thorpe would lose in a battle to the death against Lucy Steele and Lady Susan is that she didn't keep her first man secure until she had the next engagement entirely locked down. Rookie movie Izzy! I have too good an opinion of Miss Thorpeās prudence to suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other was secured. Isabella just could not manage two men at once.
I love this interaction:
This line from Catherine too, "I never was so deceived in anyoneās character in my life before.ā and Henry's response: āAmong all the great variety that you have known and studied.ā has so much in common with this interaction in Pride & Prejudice:
āBut perhaps,ā observed Catherine, āthough she has behaved so ill by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really got the man she likes, she may be constant.ā āIndeed I am afraid she will,ā replied Henry; āI am afraid she will be very constant, unless a baronet should come in her way; that is Frederickās only chance. I will get the Bath paper, and look over the arrivals.ā
āI did not know before,ā continued Bingley, immediately, āthat you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.ā āYes; but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage.ā āThe country,ā said Darcy, ācan in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.ā āBut people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.ā
Henry also manages to tip us off about his intentions to marry Catherine right under Catherine's oblivious nose!
"Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise.ā
āSuch a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in,ā said Eleanor with a smile.
Catherine also realizes that she feels much less sad about losing Isabella than she thought she would, which Henry tells her to think about. The falseness of Isabella's friendship is dawning on Catherine, perhaps now just unconsciously.
*Quote illuminating this point from Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, spoke by a character who would have been young during the Regency era: 'No, no, Cromer: bedrooms are for sleeping in, and sitting-rooms are for sitting in. Keep everything to its right purpose, and don't try and delude me into nonsense.' Why, my mother would have given us a fine scolding if she had ever caught us in our bedrooms in the daytime. We kept our out-door things in a closet downstairs; and there was a very tidy place for washing our hands, which is as much as one wants in the daytime.
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