- © 2004 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
The analysis by Sarah Giles and Sarah Shea of head injuries in nursery rhymes, which appeared in the “Findings” section of the 2003 Holiday Review, caught the attention of not only our regular readers, but also the lay media and general public. Many people, it seems, have an interest in nursery rhymes and their subtexts, origins and hidden meanings. We publish here a small selection of the eletters that were posted with the online version of the article. The complete discussion thread can be found on eCMAJ (www.cmaj.ca/cgi/eletters/169/12/1294). — Editors
Sarah Giles and Sarah Shea1 suggest that nursery rhymes give children the wrong impression of what is required in providing medical assistance for head injury, but their research is slightly off balance. So-called nursery rhymes did not arise in the nursery. Instead, they came from the street entertainers of the time and often refer to current events.
For example, “Ring a Ring of Rosies” is doggerel made up during the Great Plague of London: “the ring of roses” is what people hung on their doors to display that plague was in the house, “a pocket full of posies” is what people carried with them to ward off the plague, “atishoo, atishoo” meant that you had the plague, and “all fall down,” that you were dead.
“Jack and Jill,” another rhyme mentioned by Giles and Shea,1 refers to King John losing the Crown Jewels in the north of England in the early 13th century, which gives a clue to the age of this rhyme.
To continue their light-hearted research, Giles and Shea could look into the historical content of these rhymes.
Sarah S. Warren Woodford, London, UK
Reference
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