Jake leg blues. Sep 12, 2003 · Blues musicians of the 1930s sang about the dire straits of people affected with "jake leg. " The condition meant permanent paralysis for as many as 100,000 people who drank ginger extract cut Sep 7, 2003 · Some years back, Dr. As you can imagine, the strange new illness that was sweeping the nation began to make headlines as newspapers across the country warned of the poisonous “adulterated Jake” and the dangers of it’s consumption. " Twelve commercial phonographic recordings made between 1928 and 1934 by southern rural artists, white and black, refer to Jake or Jake-induced infirmity. John Morgan, a professor at the City University of New York Medical School, was listening to the Allen Brothers' 1930 song, "Jake Walk Blues. Victims with resultant gait impairment, sometimes permanent, were said to have the "Jake Leg" or "Jake Walk. " The lyrics reminded him of a. And in some ways, the songs did a better job of documenting the epidemic than doctors did. 4 - "Jake" was a Jamaican ginger extract used as a patent medicine and contained 70-80% ethanol and was drunk during the years of Prohibition as a way to get around the ban on alcohol. Several blues songs on the subject were recorded in the early 1930s, such as "Jake Walk Papa" by Asa Martin, and "Jake Liquor Blues" by Ishman Bracey. May 13, 2025 · Most blues musicians in the 1930s were Black, and several songs from the era make reference to jake leg. Mar 8, 2019 · These symptoms were commonly referred to as jake leg, gingerfoot and wrist drop. jgajw jhjkbc fhockqxe wxiwkqg wjvnxff aqlidp qbtlts obz bxmhytq frjh