FROM THE ARCHIVES:In the depths of the second World War, and in the midst of rigid press censorship, there was one military development to which The Irish Timesfound it could give its wholehearted approval without upsetting the censors. In this editorial, headed "Mal de Mer", it did so.
APART FROM the more elaborate “secret weapons” of this war, scientists have been at work constantly upon any number of smaller things which will play a less direct part in the carrying of one nation or another to victory.
Much research has been devoted to the designing of a portable plant, for use in ships’ boats, to convert sea-water into drinking water. Less spectacular still, but of the first importance to any invading force, is the discovery of a drug that prevents sea-sickness. The research was undertaken, of course, for purely military reasons.
Any invading force landed from sea would strike somewhat feebly if half of its members came ashore still giddy with the horrid effects of mal de mer. The new drug will keep them all in fighting form, or, at least, it will preserve from sickness “three out of four persons who are normally susceptible to it”. Any general, presumably, would take his chance on the fourth.
The news will bring a ray of sunshine into the lives of thousands who never expect to have to ship in landing-barges. They are the martyrs to sea-sickness – that wretched crew!
No literature celebrates their trials: no art – save that of the “comic” postcard – enshrines their memory; yet they have plumbed the lowest depths, like Odysseus, and lived to tell – albeit incoherently – the tale.
Like fools, they are born at the rate of one a minute. They go down to the sea – we speak of days of peace – in an annual summer migration, drawn as irresistibly, and with as great a certainty of destruction, as the suicidal lemmings. For them the ocean is no pathway of adventure, but a Slough of Despond through which they must pass to reach the delectable lands on the far side.
The mere sight of their ship at the quay fills them with sudden queasiness; the movement as she puts out, the dip and the roll, work up like a frightful overture to first heavings of the open sea, and the inevitable catastrophe.
To the true sufferer, a calm sea is no help. He knows he will be sick; he is determined, as it were, to be sick; and he is sick. The land, when he steps upon it again, mimics the plunging of the deck, until the invalid feels that the real Old Man of the Sea is seated on his shoulders and never can be shaken off.
With recovery there comes the knowledge that the ordeal must be faced again when the holiday is over. Under that shadow, any thought of enjoyment is but a mockery.
The tourist, tearing up his return-ticket, slinks to the office of the air-lines, and books his return passage by air. Then, to end the frightful comedy, he lands from the skies upon his native soil, and staggers forth into the arms of his friends – air-sick.
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