Well, another Christmas is almost here, but unfortunately, when you get to be my age, Santa Claus is no longer the lovable gift-giver he used to be. He still looks pretty much the same, with his big belly, fluffy white beard, and wind-chilled pink cheeks, but for me, the magical black bag which is always slung over his sturdy shoulder at this time of year has sadly changed forever. And why is that you may ask? Well, to be brutally honest about it, it’s because for the past few decades or so, most of the really good stuff in Santa’s big bag never gets wrapped up and handed over to me.
Anyway, as the years have gone by, I have counted my blessings and quietly resigned myself to receiving socks, ties, shirts, and other kinds of “clothes” for Christmas. This year, however, I did drop a few hints that I wouldn’t mind seeing a really interesting book or two in my holiday stocking, and my daughter came through big-time.
The name of the book is Galileo’s Daughter, by Dava Sobel, and it recounts the lives of the famous 17th century scientist and founder of modern physics and his loving daughter, Sister Maria, who spent her entire adult life as a nun in a small Italian village.
“I knew you would enjoy that book,” my daughter said after I told her I could hardly put it down once I began reading it.
“How did you know I would like it so much?” I asked her with interest.
“Because it’s got a bunch of stuff in there about the Black Death,” she said with a smile, knowing that I have always been fascinated by the history of the Bubonic Plague, which was once the most feared disease known to man. (From 1346 through 1349 alone, it claimed 25 million lives, or roughly one-third of the population of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.)
“So, I take it you read the book before you put it in my Christmas stocking?” I asked my daughter.
“Well, I mostly just read the letters Galileo’s daughter wrote to her father from her convent. I can’t believe how nuns used to live back then, sleeping on hard boards, continually fasting, going barefoot even in the winter, and always wearing the same exact drab brown robes day after day after day. And they even pulled their own teeth when they had a really bad toothache.”
“But did you read the part about how the first symptoms of the Black Plague were large, painful, pus-filled lumps, called buboes, which gave the disease its name – the Bubonic Plague? Or how the doctors back then would cut open those things, suck out the blood, and put leeches on them?”
“Yuck!”
“And listen to this,” I said to my daughter, opening the book up to one of my favorite passages, `Prevailing treatment for the Black Death included bloodletting, crystals of arsenic applied to the wrists and temples, small sacks of precious stones laid over the heart, placing a quartered pigeon or a plucked rooster on the sores, and other concoctions made by cooking animal excrement together with mustard, crushed glass, turpentine, poison ivy, and an onion.”
“That’s disgusting, Dad!”
“But I thought you said you really enjoyed reading Galileo’s Daughter?”
“I did, but only the parts about being a nun,” she explained.
“Really?” I said with surprise. “I never knew you were interested in the kinds of lives nuns led back in the Middle Ages.”
“I think all girls at one time or another have thought about what it might be like to be a nun. I know I have.”
“No kidding?” I asked, surprised.
“Sure. But I’m afraid I could never have been one – especially back then.”
“Why is that?” I asked with interest.
“Because I have never looked good in brown.”