Doctored Booze -

A new doctor was appointed to run the hospital in Derby and on one of his first rounds of the patient ward in the morning he noticed that almost every patient was well and truly drunk. It was only 8am but he said nothing as he was new and wasn’t too sure of how things worked.

The hospital was built on a series of high stumps leaving plenty of room underneath for the breeze to blow in order to keep the building as cool as possible in the humid hot climate.

Floor boards on the floors were not nailed down and had gaps that also helped the breeze blow though.

The patient’s drinking continued for a couple of weeks until the doctor decided that something really needed to be done to stop patients drinking while in hospital. After all, it was hardly something that was beneficial to their health.

He approached the matron, a very capable woman, who basically ran the hospital while the doctor was away visiting far flung out stations.

The matron explained that a patient would arrive with their own supply of booze and that they would tie a long string to the necks of each bottle.

A handy loose floor board was then raised and the bottles lowered into the space below the building to catch any cooling breeze.

The end of the string was tied off and a bottle could then be raised at any time the patient was feeling a bit thirsty.

The matron promised that the drinking would soon be at an end and the doctor left it to her to deal with the situation.

Next morning when the doctor arrived there was something akin to a riot going on in the ward and he strode in and in a loud voice demanded silence.

The uproar was apparently caused by the matron’s method of stopping the drinking.

During the night she had gone under the hospital, opened the top of each bottle and inserted a tea spoon of kerosene.

The patients were no so much upset at not being able to drink but that so much good booze had gone to waste.

Nevertheless it was a success and there was no further drunkenness on the ward.

Doctored Booze

GET YOUR OWN COPY -

If you would like to get a PDF copy of the stories on this website that you can read offline or even print out and turn into your own hard copy book, you can order through PayPal at the link below. All sales of this book help us to gather more information and stories for this site and our main website. It is only $3.99 AUD!