Czech Medicine

Czech home remedies tend to center around two things: alcohol and sweat. The first time I got a cold and asked my students if they had any suggestions as to what medication I should try (Nyquil being sadly unavailable in Czech pharmacies), I was quite taken aback to hear a universal recommendation of "slivovice."

If you're not familiar with slivovice, it's a type of liqueur made from plums. It is often homemade by families in the countryside and its alcohol content ranges from 40% all the way up to about 80%, depending on who's making it. You can buy it in supermarkets (the brand Jelinek is generally considered the best), but to really do it right, you need to find a home-brewed batch (and hope you don't go blind).

At first, I thought the locals were simply messing around with the foreigner, but as I continued to ask around, I discovered that this truly is the most common advice. Also on the list of "effective treatments" were Becherovka, another type of strong alcohol produced in Karlovy Vary which can best be described as tasting like Christmas, and Fernet, a similar Czech spirit which tastes more directly of pine needles and bark.

So what is the justification for the consumption of strong alcohol when you're sick? Firstly, the high alcohol content is presumed to kill bacteria. For this reason, slivovice is taken along on trips to countries where water quality is poor, or on long hikes where treated water may be unavailable. Czechs will have a shot of the liqueur each day and any water-borne pathogens are poisoned before they can cause any trouble. For the same reason, it also acts as a surprisingly effective treatment for food poisoning. While the thought of doing shots when you can't stop expelling everything you've consumed for the past month might be unappealing, I can personally vouch for the fact that one shot is actually enough to stop the illness in its tracks - and if you've ever suffered from food poisoning, you'll know what a miracle that is.

Slivovice is also used to treat cough and sore throat. Essentially, the alcohol numbs the throat and stops the pain instantly. (If you've ever had one too many drinks and woken up the next day with a mysterious bruise or two that you don't remember obtaining, you'll know how true this can be.) There is a downside to this particular treatment, however: the effect only lasts for a few minutes before your body recovers and starts to be able to feel pain again. It is not recommended that you do what I did the first time I tried slivovice as medicine and take a tiny sip each time the effect wears off, or the next time you get out of bed to use the toilet you'll likely be reminded just how high the alcohol content is. It is a mistake to be made only once!

The final justification for doing shots when you're ill is that it combats fever by making you sweat. This particular claim warrants closer inspection, as it is founded on the general local belief that sweat is the best cure for fever and flu, and to that end, any and all measures should be taken to force yourself to sweat when you are running a high temperature. This includes wrapping yourself in blankets (especially while you sleep), drinking huge amounts of tea just below the boiling point, and using hot water bottles and heating pads whenever possible.

Now, I'm no doctor, but I think it should be pointed out here that this belief is not directly based in modern medical science. First of all, a fever is not an illness, but a symptom, and part of your body's natural defense system to combat illnesses. Curing a fever will in no way cure the illness that caused it, and it might even cause the illness to persist for longer, since you're partially stopping your body from fighting it. If you do want to cure a fever, you have to lower your body's temperature. You can do so by taking a cold bath or shower, putting a cool damp cloth on your head, or taking an anti-fever medication such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen, or if you wait long enough, your body will often do it naturally by sweating.

Sweating, in general, is your body's way of cooling itself down. So it's true that sweating will reduce a fever. On the other hand, if you really want to bring your body's temperature down, wrapping yourself in electric blankets and hot water bottles hardly seems like the most effective method.

Finally, one cannot address the topic of Czech health without mentioning tissues. As any foreigner who has been in the country more than five minutes will have noticed, Czechs love to blow their noses. In fact, it is apparently considered somewhat rude to sniffle, while interrupting a conversation (or lesson) by loudly blowing a gallon of mess into a ragged, slightly dirty old piece of fabric and then shoving it back into your pocket to be used again a few minutes later is perfectly polite.

I've asked a few people about the justification for this little cultural tidbit, and the general local theory seems to be that your body is trying to expel germs (especially if you're sick) by gathering them from all through your body, all your blood vessels and organs and everything, wrapping them in mucus, and transferring them all to your nose, at which point you must quickly blow them out, otherwise you will either get sick immediately or make your illness much worse if you're sick already.

I'm still just a bit skeptical on that front.

If anyone has any further information or opinions on these matters, feel free to start a discussion! The comments button is right down there and I'm perfectly open to being wrong, as long a you can prove it.

Silvestr, or: How to Have a Happy New Year's Eve in Prague

It's new year's eve already, and time to decide where you'll be when midnight rolls around. If you're an expat or tourist in Prague, the obvious thing to do is go to the city center. That's where the fireworks and crowds will be, so that must be where the party is.

But there's a reason it's almost entirely foreigners in the city center on Silvestr. You might feel like you should go at least once, just so you can experience it. I'd like to try to spare you that nightmare by describing what exactly awaits you there when the clock strikes twelve.

First of all, take all the Czech people in the city, and move them someplace else. Most natives are either at home, at friend's houses, or out in the countryside, hiding from the festivities you are considering taking part in. Now take all of the foreigners who are either living in Prague or on holiday here, and move them to Wenceslas Square and Old Town Square.

Both of these locations tend to be overcrowded to begin with, but on Silvestr, there is literally no room to breathe. Many thousands of people will be packed into a relatively small area. You can get there early and have a good spot, but you won't be able to leave for several hours. If you've ever been near the stage at a concert when the main act comes on and everyone pushes to the front, been picked up off your feet by the bodies of those around you and tossed around with no hope of regaining control, then you have an idea of what it will be like right around midnight.

Now that everyone is in one place, it's time to introduce alcohol. Most of these people will be drunk by the time they get there, but there is no shortage of booze on the street. In fact, one of the favorite pastimes for new year's drunkards on the street is opening champagne bottles by the clever method of shaking them until they're about to explode, then firing the cork out into the crowd. Bonus points if you hit someone in the eye!

The only thing more enjoyable than firing projectiles made of cork is firing explosives, and there are plenty to be found. All of the local shops have been selling various fireworks for the past month or so in preparation for the only day of the year when it's perfectly legal for any old drunken fool to set off bottle rockets and other explosives in the middle of a crowd. It's safe enough as long as people are careful to fire upwards, but with so much alcohol involved, you can be sure that there will be some strays which fly horizontally, damaging property and people alike.

In fact, whether you speak Czech or not, you can get a pretty good idea of the aftermath of Silvestr (and what the emergency services have to deal with) from the pictures on this 2009 article from Blesk.

Finally, once midnight is over and you're tired of partying, you have to find a way home. The trams are backed up for several kilometers, and occasionally someone sets off a firework inside one of them by accident (at least, one hopes it's by accident). Your best bet is simply to walk home, but it will take some time even to get off the square.

If you're looking for something safe and genuinely fun to do tonight, I recommend asking a Czech friend for advice and tagging along with them. On the other hand, if that friend suggests going to the center, it's time to find a new friend, because that person is deranged enough to be willing to deal with the torture just so they can enjoy watching you suffer.

As for me, tonight I'll be at a small bar called Abstrakt with some friends. It's far enough from the main festivities to be safe, but close enough to the center that it won't take long to get home. The drinks are reasonably priced and the service is good, and there's plenty of couches for sitting. The key is that this place is small, so it won't draw dangerous crowds, and the majority of the clientele are Czech, so the drunken tourist problem is not a concern.

Information on tonight's party can be found on Abstrakt's main Facebook page.