For Medicinal Purposes Only

I'm sure this post is bound to raise a suspicious eye brow or two, but I am convinced that I have stumbled onto a medical break-through. The background on this is that earlier this spring when we were getting our windows put in and the house stuccoed, I was doing quit a few repairs and house upgrades that required some hammering, and other hand tool use. The result of all this short term stress in my right arm was a "tennis elbow" condition due to inflammation of the tendons in the elbow. Basically a repetitive stress injury, and as many of you have probably experienced this you know that it can be quit painful and hard to resolve.

Now for the interesting part. It's been a hot summer and as I am partial to the occasional gin and tonic on these occasions I noticed something very interesting. After the equivalent of about two G&T's the pain in my elbow totally resolves. Now I know that the cynical readers among you are going to laugh this off and say it is the alcohol talking, but let's not be so hasty. I can't get the same effect on beer or any other libation of the alcoholic nature so my initial suspicion was the tonic, which contains quinine must have something to do with it. As we all know quinine was widely used to fight malaria in the old days and had to have some medicinal properties.

If your still skeptical check out the properties of quinine and then let's see who's laughing.