the_gneech | Happy Birthday, swampy!

For your present, here's Today's Forgotten English!

pediluvium
A sort of bath for the feet.
--Stephen Blanchard's Physical Dictionary, 1702

Medieval or modern Latin, from pes, foot, and luvium, washing; plural, pediluvia; also in anglicized form, pediluvy; [late 1600s - early 1900s].
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909

Death of Sydney Smith (1771-1845),
Oxford-educated clergyman, journalist, and wit, who once complained in a latter to a Dr. Holland in 1835: "I am suffering from my old complaint, the hay-fever. My fear is, perishing by deliquescence. I melt away in nasal and lachrymal profluvia. My remedies are warm pediluvium, cathartics, topical application of a watery opium solution to eyes, ears, and the interior of the nostrils. The membrane is so irritable that light, dust, contradiction, an absurd remark, the sight of a Dissenter -- anything, sets me sneezing." Smith also had a sense of humor about his calling, once saying, according to Lady Holland's 1855 memoirs, "As the French say, there are three sexes -- men, women, and clergymen."

Why do I keep thinking of the Senator in X-Men?

Speaking of politicos, I should also wish a Happy Birthday to George Washington. For being dead, it's good to see you still in circulation. ;)

-The Gneech