Humorism

Woke to see a bright eyed, wagging tail asking when he could get out and get to work. What a lovely site. Had to endure the thermometer test first and that confirmed the great news - the fever was gone.

The bite wounds are still pouring out gunge, which is good news, but as he spends so much time in the dusty horse stables and tetanus loves horses for some reason, we had to find some way of trying to keep the wounds covered. An elasticated pair of hospital gauze operation underpants with the "middle" cut through made an ideal sling and then a thick hospital "inlay" on the wound. Worked a treat even if he felt a fool - explains the rather miserable look on his face. The day went from strength to strength for him and by evening he wanted to do an almost normal evening walk. He sends a big thank you to all Blip well wishers and to Kate (IR) and J (UK) who phoned to find out how the "big man" was.

In the morning, Luna and I had slipped off while Flash was guarding the horses, for a walk in the forest. Temperature has now risen above freezing and the snow melting at an alarmingly fast rate, presumably as the ground underneath never got the chance to freeze. Luckily there was just enough snow about not to get covered in mud.

Shortly before getting home, saw a small, credit card size, sign pinned on  a post with the words "Paracelsus Way", an engraving of a Middle Ages looking man and a QR code. Looked very professional and although we have lots of official named "Ways" / paths in the area, I had no idea of any connection to Paracelsus which I simply knew as having a medical connection, many hospitals having the word in their name.

So scanned the QR code and back home took a look. Turned out to be from a local person who is in to documenting some of his walks, geo-caching and crime thrillers. The Paracelsus sign I saw was part of a very intricate and interesting geo-caching crime thriller. Made me google Paracelsus - real name: Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541) - was a Swiss German all rounder who amongst other things in his medical thinkings used the ancient thoughts on "humorism" and notably he confirmed the treatment we were giving Flash to be correct. As an army doctor in the Venetian wars he  demanded that the application of cow dung, feathers and other obnoxious concoctions to wounds be surrendered in favour of keeping the wounds clean, stating, 'If you prevent infection, Nature will heal the wound all by herself." (Wiki)
I do find reading the CVs of such people quite fascinating, simply the journeys they undertook throughout Europe - in this case he seemingly didn't get a UK visa - with all the dangers of travel and just the same language barriers as we have today.