Page 6 - Pharmacy History 32 July 2007

thegoodoil Researched by Geoff Miller
Atin of Marconi’s Goanna Salve was as welcome in the trenches as a hip flask of scotch. Diggers used it to fix their piles, their foot sores and lubricate their guns. Any Goanna that died between 1914 and 1918, Marconi said died for its country.
Marconi’s Goanna Salve cured virtually every minor ailment in its original form, though its composition was something of a mystery.
‘Lower-neck pain and varicose vein, rusty gun and rotten luck – the Goanna had ‘em licked. Baldness, backache, pimple and pile, arthritis, tendonitis, poisoned hand and desert sinus – the Goanna fixed them all.’ Or so claimed Old Marconi, the man who convinced a nation to dip its fingers in goanna fat. The legend of Goanna Salve, the miraculous cure-all ointment Australians have used since 1910, begins in the bush. JC Marconi was a travelling puppeteer, the popular story goes, drifting through outback Queensland in a vaudeville troupe when he chanced on an Aboriginal man rubbing goanna fat on a snakebite wound. He studied the Aborigines; saw how they liquefied the fat and mixed it with bush spices to create a wonder salve to soothe their aches and pains.
Marconi peddled the salve across Queensland, selling it in 50g tin tubs. Headache, rheumatism, eczema, cold sores, chapped lips, dandruff, sciatica, squeaky doors – there was nothing
the miracle mix couldn’t fix. Mums rubbed it in the kitchen, Diggers rubbed it in the trenches and grand-dads rubbed it everywhere. When boxer Lionel Rose wanted a rubdown, his trainer reached for Goanna Salve.
The testimonials said it all, printed in newspapers with eye- catching headlines such as’Man’s Legs Saved’, ‘Nasal Catarrh
Bronchiodilated blues
© Bernard Carney 1989
I’m taking two types of nasal decongestant I’m chock full of pseudoephedrine
My overflowing sinus
Shows no sign of dryness
I’m just an aching mucus making machine Ive got vaseline smeared on my nostrils I’ve got a eucalyptus poultice in my shoes I’ve got the sniffling analgesic decongestant Anticholinergic bronchiodilated blues
I’ve got a cough that heavy smokers would be proud of But this expectorant is making me blaspheme
Oh ipecacuanha, just leave it ‘til manyana
I’m in a drowsy anti-histamine dream
There’s sudafed orthoxicol and codeine
Not to mention many other potent brews
I’ve got the sniffling and inflamatory
Chronic upper respiratory bronchiodilated blues
And it’s costing me a fortune How much more can I endure
Of this stupid little virus
That can easily inspire us
To dispose of all our money on the cure
Maybe my attitude’s a wrong one They say I’ve got to love my disease But there’s nothing so erotic
In an antibiotic
When you’re living with a permanent wheeze It seems to last forever when you’ve got it
I don’t know if I’m ever going to lose This healthiness embargo
With the lozenges and gargles
The benzocaines and phenols
That upset all my renals
Oh god please let there be a
Mystic magic panacea
For the sniffling analgesic decongestant Absolutely stuffed up bronchiodilated blues
Lyrics by kind permission of WA Songwriter Bernard Carney, from his album No Time Like the Future.
6 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 3 ■ no 33 ■ NOVEMBER 2007