The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7465 p184
18 August 2007

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Of quills and other writing implements

An addiction to Google Earth

A role for the humble duckweed?

Of quills and other writing implements

According to legend, doctors’ handwriting is illegible. My own handwriting is also poor. Originally I blamed the post-war system of “Marion Richardson” handwriting taught at schools in the late 1940s.

Marion Richardson (1892–1946) was an influential art teacher and pioneer of the child art movement. In addition to revolutionary methods of teaching art, she developed a system for teaching handwriting based on patterns and natural movements.

However, my personal recollection of Marion Richardson handwriting was that we were not allowed to do loops or allow our letters to slope. Descending letters (such as g, j and y) had to terminate in a hook. A few years ago, I happened to make contact with the girl who sat next to me in class all those years ago. Her handwriting, taught by the same stern teacher, is immaculate.

Ever since, I have tried to blame my own illegible calligraphy on decades of reading doctors’ handwriting on prescriptions. However, various studies carried out some years ago, and published in the BMJ, demonstrated that doctors’ writing is, in general, no better or worse than that of ordinary mortals.

About five years ago a gentleman, the husband of a doctor and who happened also to be the chairman of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators, wrote a letter in the BMJ on the subject of writer’s cramp. Now, I have always been interested in writing and have always wished to use a quill pen (not that my writing is likely thereby to be improved). However, it proved impossible to obtain a really good one. Quills are available, fitted with a metal nib, from novelty shops and the gift shops at stately homes, but that seems too much like cheating. Anyway, why bother?

The BMJ correspondent kindly supplied directions for making quill pens and I was fortunate to find a useful lot of large goose quills by a lake with a resident population of Canada geese. However, after many experiments, and several burned fingers from the hot sand into which the quills are plunged to harden the keratin, not one of the quill pens was satisfactory to write with.

How did those medieval monks manage? There is obviously a skill which eluded your writer. Perhaps one of the monks was employed full-time as a quill pen maker, to keep the others supplied with pens. Probably the only regular user of quill pens nowadays is the insurance organisation Lloyds of London.

At the close of business each day, one of the waiters (underwriters are called “waiters” in memory of the days when Lloyds was a coffee house) uses a quill pen to update the Loss Book. Loss Books have been used since 1774 to record the total or partial loss of ships. And those books not currently in use are preserved in the Guildhall Library.

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An addiction to Google Earth

So far, I, in my arrogance, claim not to have become addicted to anything. That is, until I discovered Google Earth on the internet.

For those not in the know, Google Earth is a website which has on it a globe of the planet, composed of countless satellite photographs which have been “stitched together” electronically so that they give continuous coverage. One can zoom in to a particular spot and, with a little practice, it is fairly easy to navigate. It is rather like flying over the landscape in a light aircraft. The more populous areas are shown in greater detail than, for instance, remote rural areas.

I managed to find our house with little difficulty, complete with my car in the drive and the stain where a friend’s car had leaked diesel fuel which dissolved the asphalt. Friends’ homes came into view, one with a children’s slide clearly visible in the garden. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s headquarters in Lambeth stands out remarkably well and people as well as vehicles can be seen crossing Lambeth Bridge.

Further investigation revealed a military airfield “somewhere in England” which had numerous US Air Force B52 bombers scattered around. Big airports (Heathrow, Stansted) are fascinating. Rumour has it that it is possible to see people sunbathing nude on flat roofs and in secluded gardens. However, Mrs Merlin has forbidden such a search, presumably in deference to my blood pressure.

It is not clear when the Google Earth pictures were taken — presumably within the past couple of years. Nor is there any apparent updating being done. However, what we have available is truly remarkable. I have looked at the Nile Delta, the Amazon Delta and the Falkland Islands. Over the last were two intriguing parallel lines of cumulus clouds.

Google Earth is a huge improvement on those school atlases of Merlin’s childhood (when a quarter of the planet’s land-mass was tinted pink or red) and how fascinating for modern students of geography.

Don’t try this at work.

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A role for the humble duckweed?

The common duckweed (Lemna minor L.) is abundant in the summer months, as anyone who has a garden pond knows to their cost.

Lemna minor is one of a number of Lemna species, the others being L gibba and L trisulca. They have their own family, the Lemnaceae.

Duckweed can quickly cover a patch of still water with an impenetrable green blanket. I have the task of clearing it from my two garden ponds several times over the summer months each year and I am always amazed at the biomass production. If only we could think of a use for all that duckweed (apart from feeding ducks). To my surprise, I found that at least one water garden supplier will sell L minor at £1.50 for a potful. We have loads, and it is free to a good home.

Because duckweed is ubiquitous and is so easy to grow, it has been used for eco-toxicity tests. The plants grow by budding and will double their number in about two or three days under the right conditions. Growth inhibition and chlorophyll production in L minor have been used as tests for the toxicity of various fungicides and other agricultural chemicals.

One recent paper describes the use of Lemna species as a marker for the toxicity of materials leached out of landfill sites and into the aquifers. How this might relate to human toxicity is not clear, but at least the test gives some indications and can be used to monitor treatment of leachates.

Two groups of researchers have looked at the effect of a range of drugs, including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as diclofenac and ibuprofen, and also antibiotics (erythromycin, tetracycline) on L minor with interesting results.

Much has been made over the years about the use of alternatives to animals in drug research. Perhaps our humble Lemna minor might one day have a role in this.

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