Heart Beat: Bearing in mind Cicero's dictum that "exercise and temperance can preserve something of our early strength even into old age", and reasoning to myself that one out of two wasn't bad, I set out walking in the hills behind Glenbeigh, Co Kerry, up to Coomasaharn lake.
Mind you, I am not conceding the old age bit either, but am just practising for future years. I was accompanied by my largely redundant pedometer, especially underutilised here, and a walking stick. This useful item had many functions and up until now I would have deemed none of them to be necessary.
Now bearing in mind recent experience on the Skelligs, it seemed proper to equip myself before setting out into the hills. The path, while being very scenic, was most certainly not level, and gazing around while in full flight was a hazardous undertaking; hence the stick.
The walk itself was special. Dragon-flies, bees and swallows were going about their business and the track was hemmed in by fuchsia and montbrecia - red and orange flowers. Neither of these are native plants, the former hailing from Chile, the latter from South Africa. They grow everywhere hereabouts.
The foxgloves (Digitalis purporea) reminded me of my past calling: William Withering in 1785 published An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses: with Practical Remarks on Dropsy and other Diseases.
Digitalis derivatives are still in use today and are a mainstay of the treatment of heart failure (dropsy). The drug, we were taught, strengthens and slows the heart. I wondered if they used dandelion extract in conjunction with digitalis as a diuretic, bearing in mind its old name, "Piss the Bed".
The peat-clad mountains on either side showed the purple flowers of the invading rhododendron, which a mere 100,000 years ago was native to the country and then apparently disappeared before its reintroduction.
Incidentally, another "vanished" plant has lately been rediscovered in the vicinity. This is pennyroyal, which used to be widespread until about 100 years ago. It was rediscovered in Dooks golf club and hopefully is beginning to re-establish itself. In previous times it was used as a cure for coughs, especially whooping cough, and jaundice. It was also used as a flea repellent and sometimes as an abortifacient. It is definitely not a herb for the soup.
In the same area, we also have the slender cudweed, again a rarity. This was described by the 16th century herbalist Gerard as the "wicked cudweed", because the later flowers "over top those who came first, as many wicked children do to their parents". I wonder where he got that notion.
I have found that, in general, golf clubs are very eco-friendly and make every effort for conservation and preservation of habitat. Here we are proud of our efforts. We have three amphibians, newts, frogs and our emblem Natterjack toads. We also have one of the very few examples of heath dune habitat in the country.
My energetic, rambling, health-giving hill walk has somehow metamorphosed into a botanical treatise. It was not meant to, but I can seldom progress in a straight line.
Sometimes these byways are curious and interesting, one thought or fact leading seamlessly to another. In this instance it brought to mind the age-old interrelationship between plants and medicine. Obvious examples would be curare, morphine, colchicines and quinine.
Penicillin and the anti-rejection drug cyclosporine come from fungal derivatives. It is from the scientific and biochemical analysis of such compounds that significant progress has been made in developing some of our most useful drugs.
It is no longer adequate to say empirically that "x" or "y" is good for you. We have to know why, and in what dose. The days of the old apothecary shop and the early pharmacopoeias, which carried or listed as many as 600 items derived from the plant world, are over. Many of these have been proven worthless, some indeed dangerous.
This doesn't stop people even today from persevering with the worthless. Most times it may do you no harm. Possibly, if you believe in it, it may do some good. For myself, I do not feel we were put on earth to switch off our brains and the scientific road to medicine, despite pitfalls, potholes and false turns, is the way forward.
I thought about this on my walk, and on my return home read for awhile on this and related matters. All was right with the world. Then I turned to this newspaper and read my colleague Martin Wall's article on the latest effusion from the Health Service Executive (HSE). I could feel the equanimity derived from my exercise slipping away.
The article informed us that the HSE was prepared to offer additional consultants to hospitals which met new A&E targets, such as eliminating the practice of having patients waiting on trolleys.
My first reaction was disbelief, my second was anger. Can these people know so little or have learned so little about our hospital service? This looks like a crude attempt to hide the hospital trolleys lest they embarrass the Government before the next election.
It is a sinister development and contains a radical change of emphasis on the development of our hospital service. Much of it is the same self-serving nonsense to the effect that they are doing something. Quite simply, these people do not know what they are doing and it is time they moved on.
Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon