Times have changed, we have no doubt about that, one of the changes that I want to tell you about are those that have to do with medicine.

When a child gets sick, they take him to the doctor and he prescribes a medicine, which has a nice container, a striking color and a better taste. The child does not reject it, rather you have to hide it from him because due to its pleasant taste he may believe that it is a candy and eat it at once.

In my childhood, the star remedy, the one that was used for the flu, cough, cold, fever, lack of appetite, bone pain, growth retardation and any discomfort, was cod liver oil.

This was later transformed by the pharmaceutical laboratories into a sweet emulsion, which barely remembered the original flavor and which the children liked, but the one they gave me was the original, pure, extracted directly from the cod liver, with a smell. characteristic and almost without any flavor.

Swallowing that thick and viscous oil was an ordeal, it caused retching, and if by bad luck I vomited it, my dad would serve one more spoonful, the strap in his other hand symbolized that if he didn't take it there would be punishment.

As a child I got sick a lot (apparently the oil did not prevent me, it only made me gain weight) it was common for them to give me the stinking oil that even remembering it makes me nauseous. So I chose not to complain about any discomfort to avoid the remedy. Just as the saying goes: the cure was worse than the disease. Over time this oil began to come out in capsules for the luck of the new generations.

The problem came if I got the flu, it was almost impossible to hide the symptoms. The cough, for example, was recurrent. Then I would grab the pillow and go to the back of the patio to cough, as much as I could, covering my face with the pillow so they wouldn't hear me. This worked for me on some occasions.

Another custom that our parents had was to purge us to eliminate parasites. They did this several times a year and the guest was another oil whose taste was terrible, castor oil. Practice highly questioned as inefficient and dangerous. We brought a certificate of survival.

The only time getting sick worked out well for me was when I invented a stomach ache so I wouldn't have to go to school. My mother must have suspected something, because of how quickly she cured me, once I knew that she would keep me at home, because the second time she wanted to use the same trick to evade the hateful school, she didn't believe me and forced me. to go So there were no more excuses and I decided that it would be best not to get sick anymore.