“Don’t Drink the Water!”

In 1960 just before Christmas my brother and I were on our way from St Gallen Switzerland to Madras (now Chennai) India.  My mother had written us to not drink the water or “we’d be sorry”…  As it turned out we had to overnight in Bombay (now Mumbai) before flying on to Madras.  At the hotel we sat down to dinner, and the waiter served us two tall, crispy clear, beadingly cold glasses of water – just like we would get back in New Jersey.  To make a short story longer, I must confess I supped of the forbidden fluid.  Of course I came down with a bad case of bacillary dysentery, and spent the rest of my visit on the pot.  Shades of just desserts , hoist by mine own petard!  I have never heard the end of this.  Eddie never listens... 

Truth be told I made several other trips to India where I didn’t drink the water, but I still got the  dysentery.  Finally one of my friends from Dhahran turned me on to this powder from Ciba Geigy, and I never got dysentery again – in fact I now have somewhat of a cast iron stomach – I’ve been to many odd places (and even drunk the proscribed beverage ) yet nothing happens.  Still the story persists…

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