As everyone must surely know, TV favourite Doctor Who celebrates its 50th anniversary tomorrow [November 23, 2013], so to add our own tribute, I’ve hopped in the old Nostalgia Tardis and gone back in time to October 1978, when the main man was Tom Baker. He’s pictured here in Clements book department where he was signing Doctor Who books in the days before videos and DVDs, of course. One young man who met him – and tried on his hat – was four-year-old Rupert Masterson.

 

Before I begin this week’s column proper, a huge thank you to all those readers who, following last week’s piece about the 1978 Elton John calendar, rang and emailed offering to loan copies of their calendars. I was genuinely amazed at how many people have kept them for 35 years (albeit, in most cases, in a box in their parents’ attic).

Particular thanks to Mrs Moore, who offered me the copy bought by her late son Sean (who, she said, appeared in the July picture), and to Peter Horne, who was the first person to offer. I hope to re-publish some if not all of the pictures from Peter’s calendar over the Christmas and New Year period. So thanks again to everyone.

However, it wasn’t Elton who was to feature in the column this week, but health matters.

Wandering through the archive a week or two ago, I discovered a short piece in the Watford Observer of November 4, 1960, headed Big Toads For Sale.

It reads: “Toads described as ‘large, healthy and sensitive’, which are too big for use in the pregnancy diagnostic centre, are to be sold at the suggestion of Watford Pathological Services Sub-Committee. Some 236 toads are to be disposed of in this way. Some will go to Reading University. The charge will be 5s each.”

And that was all it said.

Hang on a minute? Toads? Pregnancy diagnostic centre? What was that all about?

Well, as you might imagine, a bit of digging was required and it didn’t take long to discover more – via the Winter 2013 edition of Wellcome History and a piece headed When Pregnancy Tests Were Toads.

It told the story of Audrey Peattie who, as a young woman in Watford in the 1950s, injected urine into toads as a technician at an NHS pregnancy-testing laboratory.

Why? Well five years or so ago, Audrey told Nostalgia the whole story, following an appeal for information about Shrodells Hospital, and as I missed it then, you might have done too so here it is again.

She wrote: “I worked in the Pathology Lab at Shrodells Hospital from August 1952 to June 1955. My job was doing pregnancy tests using Xenopus toads.

“These are South African toads that live in water, unlike our ones that crawl. These tests were only carried out in Edinburgh and Watford, so we were sent samples of urine from all over England.

“We then made a concentrate which was injected into the toads. If the patient was pregnant, the toad would lay eggs.

“The test was repeated if a negative result was obtained.

“The toads lived a good life, being fed with liver and kept in heated tanks. At that time, one of the only tests for pregnancy involved using a rabbit which had to be killed.

“The main Pathology Lab was at the Peace Memorial Hospital, and our overall boss was Dr Schwabacher, a formidable lady who made you repeat back to her any information she gave.

“We also had Dr Elkan at Shrodells who was doing research on an alternative pregnancy test. It was a very interesting job, though to a very innocent 17-year-old, not too easy to explain to others.

“In the other half of our pre-fabricated building was the ‘Special (VD) Clinic’, presided over by Sister Rees, a Welsh lady. The tales she had to tell improved my knowledge of life in no uncertain manner.”

The whole Wellcome History article is available to read online, but I must just quote one sentence which made me laugh: “Working in a laboratory full of urine and toads was an unusual job for a young woman in the 1950s.” To be honest, I think it would be pretty unusual even now – for anyone.

Six years after this Big Toads For Sale piece appeared, in November 1966, the Watford Observer ran an article about the high number of deaths from lung cancer which occurred in the Watford borough.

The article quoted from the 1965 report of Dr W Alcock who revealed that deaths from lung cancer in the borough, up from 38 to 48, put the town above the national average.

Dr Alcock added nearly all of those who died smoked “a medium or large amount”.

His conclusion was that “this grevious toll in human lives will be checked and reversed when the community as a whole drastically reduces its consumption of tobacco.”

According to Cancer Research statistics, however, this certainly wasn’t taken on board immediately. It wasn’t until about eight years later that cigarette consumption began to fall.

Smoking also takes its toll when it comes to asthma of course, but back in the early part of the 20th century, any Watford Observer readers with asthma might have been forgiven for thinking their illness would soon be a thing of the past.

“Asthma Can Be Cured” screamed a headline on November 11, 1905, with a sub-heading of: “A noted physician will prove this to all sufferers.”

Sadly, it isn’t until you get to the bottom of the piece that it seems to be little more than an advert not unlike might have been trotted out at a wild west medicine show.

The man making the claims was a Dr Rudolph Schiffmann who said his remedy had cured thousands.

“So complete is Dr Schiffmann’s confidence in his remedy,” says the ‘article’, “that he requests this paper announce that he offers to send a liberal sample package of Schiffmann’s Asthma Cure free of charge to all persons sending him their name and address.”

It continues: “He believes that an actual test will be... the only way to overcome the natural prejudice of thousands of asthmatics who have heretofore sought relief in vain.

“An opportunity to test, without cost, a remedy so celebrated and promising so much certainly should be eagerly grasped by every sufferer.”

How many people took him up on his offer is, of course, impossible to say, but according to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times on December 24, 1926, he died “many times a millionaire”.

Born on August 1, 1845, the obituary states Schiffman (there seems some confusion as to whether he had one ‘n’ or two at the end of his name) “gained fame in the treatment of asthmatic diseases and established a medicine factory [in Minnesota], which he moved to Los Angeles in 1921.”

It’s easy to dismiss him as a charlatan, but the story doesn’t end there.

The National Museum of American History features a section on a Dr. R Schiffmann’s Asthmador, a product which seems to date from the 1940s.

Whether he’s related to our Rudolph is unclear, but his obituary does state that Rudolph had four children and his first son was not only also called Rudolph but travelled on his father’s death from Germany to California, no doubt to take over the family business.

Not only that, but this ‘Asthmador’ has plenty of people willing to endorse it.

Among those whose memories are noted on the NMAR website are a Mary Ann who wrote the following just a couple of months ago: “My father, who just died at age 97, wrote the following about Schiffmann’s Asthmador. ‘My dad suffered from asthma which in all probability came from the use of burning wood in the locations he resided and even in our home where we used a wood stove for heating the kitchen and Mayme used it for cooking meals. He used Schiffman’s Asthmador to help with his asthma problem.

“He used to inhale the smoke of the Asthmador which he placed on a metal coffee cover in two rows of the asthmador, lighting one end of the asthmador until it was all burned. Then he lit the other row of the stuff. It wasn’t until he died and I learned it contained a drug which was not marketed legally, but used by sniffers who wished to get a high. It was taken off the market some years after he died because it had a bit of an opium ingredient. We always had to be sure he had a full can of the powder.

“The can was colored pale green. It contained about the same amount as a small can of tomato soup, however it was an oblong can with a tin cover. He would ignite the powder with a match on a metal round flat tray and inhale the smoke it gave off. He’d wheeze a lot, but it made him feel good.”

Another recent comment came from ‘Richard’ who wrote: “I used this stuff regularly as a child in Kansas City between the ages of 10 and 16, and it worked very well to open my bronchial passages during asthma attacks. I burned a small amount of the powder in an old cloissone dish. It didn’t smell great, but I only used it in the bathroom, usually late at night. I would buy it again in an instant if it were for sale.”

So maybe there was something in it after all.

ONLINE TOMORROW: The baby from 1941 'fed entirely on cows'

These stories formed part of the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on November 22, 2013. The next Nostalgia column – with information about Bob Hope's puppy, the Queen Mother's visit to Merchant Taylors', Diana Dors in Chorleywood and much more besides – can be found in tomorrow’s Watford Observer (dated November 29, 2013) or read online here from 4pm next Thursday.

If you have anything to add – or would like to tell us anything you think our readers may enjoy about Watford’s history – we are always pleased to hear from you. Contact Nostalgia, by clicking here watfordnostalgia@london.newsquest.co.uk