We Mexicans call it “merolic” to everything Street seller who through his verbal tricks tries to make us dizzy so that we buy him concoctions capable of curing everything from dog cough to diabetes, among other ills.
But what almost nobody knows is that the term in question has its origin in Mexico in 1879, the year in which the Polish Jew arrived in the Mexican capital. John Raphael of Meraulyocka character with a long mustache, thick beard and glass eye who claimed to be a prominent doctor.
Doctor Merolico and the balm that healed everything
Presenting himself with a long tunic between Greek and Oriental, the doctor, who by the way had previously been to other countries in South Americaproclaimed having balms to cure all known ailments and to know at a very low price of three pesos per bottle.
In addition to ensuring that he could remove more than four thousand teeth in just fifteen days, being a skilled doctor and having infallible drugs that had never been seen in these lands. For all this he quickly began to gain the antipathy of the guild of doctors Y dentists.
The act of sticking knives into the neck
Thus, with some detractors but also followers, the false doctor began to gain popularity for promising in each presentation that in the coming days he himself would cross his neck with swords to verify that his remedies would not leave him with any damage or scars. but it was just a trap so people wouldn’t miss every one of their sales shows.
Probably, since this act never happened, people began to mistrust him as the weeks and months went by, for which they began to yell at him: “Merolico! Who gave you such a big beak?”
The disappearance of Dr. Meraulyock
However, one day in 1880, Juan Rafael de Meraulyock no longer returned to the public places to sell their miracle remediesthere were people who went to see him at his provisional address located on Calle de San Franciscotoday madero streetbut it did not come out, it had disappeared.
Although without meaning to, that Polish Jew had given the Mexicans a term to name people who talked a lot and acted little, it didn’t take them long to call the politicians of the time “merolicos”, but also other people who over time became dedicated to the sale of miraculous potions in the streets of mexico.
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