Word: wet
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Swamp Girl (Frankie Laine; Mercury). An unintentionally hilarious song about a Lorelei who lives in a marsh and a fellow who can't help getting his feet wet...
...Wet Blanket." Farouk is a lonely man who would like to be gregarious but does not have the knack for it. He used to go to small cocktail parties given by an old American friend, but found that the other guests would freeze up in his presence and stand around silently. Finally he said to his host: "I'm not coming any more because I am a wet blanket...
...Esprit had been stricken by ergot poisoning, a medieval disease as old as its proud bridge, so old that it had almost been forgotten. Modern medicine knows about ergot, but has rarely seen it in the form of an epidemic disease.* It is a black fungus that grows on wet grain, contains chemicals that powerfully affect the blood vessels and the nervous system. Doctors often use ergot extracts to start contractions in the uterus in childbirth...
...Middle Ages, growing uncontrolled in wet summers, ergot was no such helpful friend. The disease was called "St. Anthony's Fire," and raged periodically through Europe. Monastic chroniclers wrote of agonizing burning sensations, of feet and hands blackened like charcoal, of vomiting, convulsions and death. Whole villages were driven mad. That, in effect, was what had happened to Pont-Saint-Esprit...
Vanishing Torrent. Dripping wet from the water trickling down the chimney's walls and shivering with cold, Lépineux was brought to the surface three hours and 40 minutes later. During the descent, the spinning cable had made the walls seem to revolve so fast in the light of his head lamp that he had almost been sick. But once on the bottom, he had felt up to a little exploring...