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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;afantiques, post: 42154, member: 25&quot;]Martin Silver was the Great Grandson of Long John Silver, the famous Pirate and one of his wives, Black Bess of Martinique (a name she retained even in later years while retired from cut-throating and running a country pub in Devon)</p><p><br /></p><p>Young Martin had an affinity and talent for animals, unhappily restricted to those of a slimy and unappealing variety, which in later life he exploited to run a successful leech farm.</p><p><br /></p><p>Although the supply of leeches to the doctors of the period was Martin Silver&#039;s mainstay in business, he also dabbled with rather arcane cures (or so he supposed) for some of the troublesome diseases of the time.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was fortunate that an uncanny element of luck attended his efforts, and some attribute this to guidance from the extraordinary and extremely aged parrot that was said to have belonged to his Great Grandfather. This almost featherless and entirely hideous bird was never heard to mumble anything but &quot;Pieces of summat&quot; but talk at the time suggested that Martin&#039;s cures were inspired by chats he had with the parrot in private, where the bird was said to be rather more <i>compos mentis. </i></p><p><br /></p><p>His Black Draught for the Bloody Flux did no more than turn the flux black, but luckily the Black Flux was easily curable.</p><p>His mistletoe berry cure for Elf Shot (now believed to have been a form of acne) led to several of the spottier citizens of his home town of Bristol sprouting such profuse mistletoe bunches that they were able to make a modest living supplying the Christmas trade from their regular prunings.</p><p><br /></p><p>His cure for Quinsey, involving tansy, pansy and tincture of hissop proved ineffective for the actual Quinsey, but it made you tipsy and applied to the skin it was an astonishingly attractive perfume, so attractive in fact that quite a number of Bristolian old maids made some quite unexpected marriages.</p><p><br /></p><p>Very little need be said of his cure for Venereal Disease, mainly because little is know about the details but so effective was its deterrent effects that many healthy young men became monks in enclosed orders rather than take the risk of ever needing it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Martin Silver (he did not have the &#039;Long John&#039; of his illustrious forebear) died fairly young, possibly from exsanguination from over feeding his dearest leeches, and he was buried in St.Mary the Martyr(to piles) Churchyard, with his faithful parrot, who was heard complaining hoarsely even as they filled the grave.</p><p>This latter detail was considered a little cruel, but only by those few who had not been bitten severely by the brute. And let us remember,it was a harsher age with simpler amusements.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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