It's been said that if it wasn't for haemorrhoids, Napoleon Bonaparte might have won the Battle of Waterloo.
He suffered a lot from haemorrhoids and that morning was very constipated and in great pain. So he left the battlefield and sat in a bath all morning to relieve the pain.
In the afternoon he rejoined his army and began the famous battle.
Unfortunately for him conditions had changed to advantage the British and he lost – which must have been an even bigger pain in the backside for him.
Haemorrhoids have been around throughout history, back to the days of Hippocrates. It is believed he created the word to describe the flow of blood from the veins of the anus.
The word haemorrhoid is derived from the Greek ‘haeme” (blood) and “rhoos” (flowing). It is only used in the plural.
But it's a pain of a word as well as a painful condition.
I'm using the old fashion version of its spelling – haemorrhoids – because I'm an old fashioned classical type.
Many people nowadays spell it as hemorrhoids. There's even an increased usage of hemroids.
But did you know that this silly word that only comes in the plural has at least 12 other versions of spelling? My oath that is a wacko word.
There is a way to avoid the word. It was developed over the years by working class people to describe the condition, probably because they could not spell haemorrhoids. They called it “piles”.
Nowadays piles is accepted as meaning the same thing as haemorrhoids or whichever way you spell it.
So the easy way is to say piles, but the pain of the condition is still there.
Interesting though that the word piles also stays only in the plural.
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