Monday, April 30, 2012

Day 59: Linlithgow

Distance: 16.2 miles
Warp Factor: 9
Today was a grey, cloudy, day, with a little mist and drizzle but thankfully not much real rain. We turned south from the Firth of Forth coastline and met up with the Union Canal at the historic Burgh town of Linlithgow. This was a few miles longer than my originally planned route, which would have taken us through the commuter city of Bo'ness and met up with the canal farther to the west after a half dozen miles of road walking. Considering it was only Michael and Jan's second day with us, the shorter route might have made more sense. But I am really glad we picked the more scenic and interesting route, because Linlithgow was such an important place for me to visit!




Linlithgow is a really pretty town on the shore of a small loch. There were half a dozen boats filled with anglers mulling around the water, so there must be fish in the water. The shoreline is dominated by Linlithgow palace, home of Scottish royalty from the 15th century till the union of the crowns, in 1603. James V and Mary Queen of Scots were born there. It's very historic, and a beautiful place.




There's plaques throughout town marking other interesting Linlithgow historical things. In 1919, somebody installed the first petrol pump in Scotland at this corner. In 1813, in what's now the Four Marys pub, David Waldie was born. The people here claim he came up with the idea for using chloroform to anesthetize, but then he blabbed to James Young Simpson, who stole the idea as his own. And there's more of that kind of thing here. But that's not what drew me to this place. It's what Dawn told me this morning. The most interesting historical plaque we've seen on this trip. It's the reason I wanted to come to Linlithgow.




Can you read it? I'll give you a clue: "I never wanted to be anything else but an engineer." Here, I'll zoom in.




That's right, Linlithgow is the birthplace of Scotty! Mister Scott, take us to John O'Groats, warp factor nine! "Are ya daft, lad? Ah canna do it! Ya canna break the laws of physics!".




Finding Scotty's birthplace was obviously the highlight of the day. But it was still morning, and we had many miles still to go. We found our way to the quiet Union Canal towpath, and made our way west. We had lunch in a great little sandwich shop. Jan ordered tuna and cheese, but got haggis and cheese instead. At the time, she reported that it wasn't terrible, but the effects got worse as the day went on. Michael and Dawn both had Irn Bru, some kind of bright orange Scottish soda pop that looks like its radioactive.




It was a great place for lunch.




Here's the Scottish women that run the place. The accents here are fantastic. They've gotten thicker since Edinburgh, but have not reached the unintelligible level.




A few more miles brought us to the uninspiring edges of Fallkirk. From the canal our first views across town looked like endless suburbs, a bedroom community on the motorway within commuting distance to Edinburgh and Glasgow.




Tomorrow we walk 16 more miles on the canal, getting us to within a few miles of the West Highland Way. The weather is looking a little better than today, let's hope it works out that way.
and Scotty ... Beam me up!

Location:Glenfuir Rd,Falkirk,United Kingdom

8 comments:

  1. Even the suburbs there look charming! Glad you got some Star Trek heritage in there...have you tried mushy peas yet?

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  2. Caught up with the blog today! I have not heard of David Waldie before, interesting story. To refresh your readers, James Young Simpson (1817-1870), was the chair of the Dept. of Midwifery at Edinburgh U. You might remember that he is the first person to use inhaled ether for labor analgesia.

    In those days, anesthesia was in its infancy, and it was truly the age of (self)-experimentation. Simpson, and other notable chemists and surgeons, would gather in the evenings after dinner and sample various organic chemicals, in the search for an agent better than ether, which smelled bad and took a long time to work. Those were the days! Al and Dawn, you would have been right there too, holding snifters of some aromatic hydrocarbon!

    They found that chloroform was rather agreeable, and Simpson ended up using it for childbirth, preferring its properties over ether.

    I believe that Waldie's story is somewhat exaggerated. One well-referenced opinion, published in Anesthesiology in 2011, suggests that Waldie was egged on by friends. He published a pamphlet after Simpson's death complaining about his lack of acknowledgement. After a bit of searching, I found Simpson's original paper from 1847 "On Chloroform" , and in it he amply credits Waldie for first suggesting that chloroform was "worthy of a trial".

    Anyway, Waldie was a pharmacist, so he was probably jealous that Simpson got famous for his clinical use of the drug. The other interesting thing about chloroform was that it was eventually administered to Queen Elizabeth (in 1853, for delivery of her eighth child), by John Snow.

    Thanks for the interesting anesthesia reference! Thankfully, only an obstetrical tricorder was need for Mr. Scott's birth.

    Have fun walking and sampling the scotch!

    Tony

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    Replies
    1. I have to correct my post! I woke up in the middle of the night after a dream about Al pairing chloroform with a lamb entree, and realized that I wrote Queen Elizabeth instead of Victoria!
      (Yes, Tony, its called the "Victorian Era" for a reason.....)

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  3. Haggis and cheese sounds unbelievably disgusting - did those lovely ladies really think it was a viable combination?!

    Now that you've tried Irn Bru (and survived) you definitely can't miss the other Scottish favourite - deep fried Mars Bar!

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  4. Can it really be called a "historical plaque" if the event happens in the future? I think something fishy has happened to the space-time-continuum around Linlithgow.

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  5. SCOTTY IS MY FAVOURITE. Did you know a bunch of James Doohan's ashes are scattered in Puget Sound?

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  6. What? Scotty's dead? Where have I been? I'd better do a little more genealogy research!! :0) Maybe we're related ... I have ancestors in the Puget Sound area (and descendents now too)! he he So, with that, what are the cemeteries like there? They must be so cool or maybe you're sane and just truck on by them all!
    From you-know-who (that crazy genealogy lady) ... Julie
    P.S. What is Irn Bru? Sounds quite interesting!

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