[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the Day, Feb 25

[Sonja Crocker]

chitterie-chatterie

A piece of bread eaten immediately after bathing.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911

[From] chitter, to shiver; to tremble.  Hence, boys are wont to call that bit of bread, which they preserve for eating after bathing, a chittering-piece.
--John Janieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808

Death of Dr. William Buchan (1729-1805)
Born in Roxburgshire, Scotland, Buchan attended to a thriving medical practice on Bedford Square, London, until his death at age seventy-six, when he was interred in the cloister of Westminster Abbey.  His bestseller, Domestic Medicine (1769), went through nineteen editions, eventually selling more than 80,000 copies.  In it, the good doctor convinced many readers of the folly of bathing; perspiration, he argued, was a potent germ inhibitor.  This belief held up during most of the Victorian era, particularly in English-speaking countries and Western Europe.

Purim (begins at sunset)