| XX | 8 | THE HOUSE OF PERNOD AND SONS | XX | XX |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
medical activity. We cannot resist the urge to reproduce the |
portrait drawn of him by a Swiss writer. |
He was, apparently, an eccentric, of great height, riding |
through the Val de Travers on a small Corsican horse |
known in region as the Rocket. His unusual appearance |
did not fail to surprise the village populations; it gave rise to |
many jokes and persistent astonishment among the |
children. Ordinaire did not appear to be concerned with |
this; the gravity of his character was not affected. He was a |
doctor not without talents for his time, and he did a good |
job of bringing the medical art to the Val de Travers. He |
joined the practice of medicine to that of pharmacology; the |
majority of doctors of the countryside did no differently. Mr. |
Ordinaire did not scorn the panaceas, he employed one in |
particular, the elixir of wormwood, composed of aromatic |
plants of which only he knew the secret. Many people, |
having made use of it, declared themselves radically cured |
and the doctor could not pretend tobe other than pleased |
and to prescribe its use. |
Dr. Ordinaire would have been well astonished if anyone |
had predicted the high destinies to which his elixir would |
be called. At his death the mysterious recipe passed into |
the hands of the young Henriod ladies of Couvet. |
Cultivating the necessary herbs themselves in their |
garden, they distilled them in the family home. The |
production of the elixir at the time amounted only to a few |
pots which were sold with some difficulty by hawking. |
xxxx
Little by little, however, thanks to its fragrance and |
pleasant taste, the elixir came to the attention of not only |
the sick, |
(Translated by "Artemis" for your pleasure.) |
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