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Home Remedies
Today when somebody gets sick, they simply pick up the telephone and make an appointment to see a doctor. They sit in a doctor's office a while and eventually leave with a couple of prescriptions they take to the pharmacy to have filled. However, there has not always been a pharmacy on the corner ready to provide the specific medicine the doctor said was needed. Oft times parents and grandparents made the diagnosis as to what was wrong and then had to depend on concoctions and recipes handed down from generation to generation to make their own medicine. The term folk medicine has been coined for this type of home remedies. Although some of these home remedies may seem like some sort of witches brew, others are downright disgusting. Nevertheless, the ones using the concoctions trusted that the ones preparing them, knew what they were doing. Alberta Dixon of Thomasville said her mother always used home remedies when she and her siblings were growing up. A few of her mother's "remedies" included: • Red vinegar - good for high blood pressure and muscle cramps • Spoonful of mustard - also good for high blood pressure • Honey, red vinegar, lemon juice - knocked out a cold • Rock candy and whiskey - used to treat a cold • 666 and a stick of chewing gum - to treat a cold • Garlic, water and sugar - combine and let sit over night then drink - was used to get rid of worms. • Goat milk - build up your blood • Bathe in warm water with Epson salt - good for a rash, red bugs and swelling • To keep a baby's belly button from protruding a clean white soft cloth was used to wrap around the belly • Bee sting - take a dip of snuff right out of the mouth and place on the area She also said the first rain of May had healing powers and that her mother would catch water in a bucket to use later. Shirley Kelley of Sandflat remembers some of her mother's and grandmother's remedies. Some are similar to Mrs. Dixon's but do differ a bit. • Bee sting - wet snuff or tobacco and place on sting • Sear cloth - Mix tallow, kerosene, Vicks salve and Quaker Oil in a jar lid. Warm a piece of flannel material, wet the cloth with the mixture and pin underneath pajamas. Mrs. Kelley said the mixture was used to treat colds and "was some loud, smelling stuff." • Take a piece of Asafetida gum and soften it with a little whiskey to make a soft form. Place a little bit of the gum mixture in a piece of openweave material. Wear it around your neck on a string to ward off disease. Some people would also pin to their clothes. "There was one woman who would catch a ride with other people wherever she needed to go. She always put a piece of the Asafetida gum in her jaw before she left so she wouldn't catch anything. She never did get sick. I don't know if it was the Asafetida or because it smelled so bad nobody would get close enough to her." She added, "Granmaw would put it under my nose and round my nose to keep me from getting a cold of flu." • We'd brush our teeth with a little bit of soda. • If you had a sprained ankle you'd make a poultice out of red clay and vinegar. Put the mixture on your ankle and cover it with a brown paper bag. • To keep a baby's umbilical cord from sticking out they'd iron a piece of white cloth until it was scorched and then bound it around the belly. • To treat athlete's foot use about ½ cup of white vinegar to a gallon of water. Soak feet two to three times a day until gone. • Swallow a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to treat allergies or hay fever. • Boil an onion to make onion tea. Feed this to a baby for colic. • When someone in a household had the flu, cut onions in half and place halves in every room of the house. Nobody else in the house would come down with the flu. • To ease a cough, put three or four or five drops (the more the better) of whiskey on sugar in a spoon. Let it go down your throat real slow. • "When I had red measles," said Mrs. Kelley, "Daddy and another man road all Sunday afternoon trying to find somebody who had some whiskey. They finally found some and gave me some to help the measles to break out." • To ease the pain of mumps after eating something sweet, rub the oil out of a can of sardines on the swollen area affected by the mumps. She added, "We knew this old woman who would take and fry fresh garlic every spring. She made the children eat it to clean their systems." Dovie Dunn said when she was little if somebody had a cut they would put kerosene on a cloth and wrap the cut. She also said "mock oranges" that grew in the area were cut in half and put under furniture to get rid of roaches. Sandra Kelley said her daddy would treat a cold by making hot lemonade. Just before drinking it, he would add a teaspoon of baking soda to the lemonade, and then send them straight to bed. • A sore throat was treated by swallowing a spoonful of sugar with 2 drops of turpentine on it. • Cough syrup was made by breaking up peppermint candy in a jar. Whiskey was poured over the peppermint and allowed to dissolve. Donald Kelley of Sandflat said his mother would make alder tea to soothe poison oak. He said she would go down to the creek and get an alder tree, peal the bark and make a tea from the bark. The area with poison was bathed in the alder tea. Paul Newton of Fulton remembered his mother's remedy for ground itch. He said children were bound to go stomping through mud holes or just play in wet grass. They'd come down with a rash on their feet and between their toes. His mother would send him out in the cow pasture to find the freshest, warmest cow patty. "Get a good, big pile and wiggle your toes up in it," he said. Paul said he didn't know why but it would get rid of the fungustype ailment. • "At least twice a year parents would line up the youngins and give them each a spoonful of 666 and a spoonful of castor oil. Believe me, it worked faster than an enema," Paul said. • He said if he got something wrong with him, his mother would give him a cup of strong black coffee with quinine mixed in it. "It liked to have killed me," he laughed. • To remove a splinter or a piece of glass from a foot, soak a white rag in turpentine. Put a piece of salt pork on the affected area, put the penny on top and wrap with the rag. Put a white sock on the foot and by the next day the splinter would be gone and the foot wouldn't even be sore. • A black salve Paul pronounced "icthamog" was used to draw a boil or a rison to a head. He also said the old folks said boils were caused because your blood wasn't pure. They'd give cream of tartar tablets to purify the blood. "Mother would pour a bottle of Chlorox down the water well," he added. "She said it would kill wiggle tails in water. I don't know what a wiggle tail was, but she said it'd kill 'em." In addition to the folk medicine, Paul also learned other types of folklore from the old folks. A few of his words of wisdom include: • To make it rain - kill a snake and turn it belly up. • For every foggy morning in August there's supposed to be snow on the ground in winter. • If the shucks are thick on an ear of corn and the fur is thick on a squirrel's back, it'll be a cold winter. • For every lightning bug in your house, there'll be one less person in your house the next night. It's a sign of death. • Buckeye balls carried in your pocket will cure arthritis and will also bring good luck. • If you kill a rattlesnake and leave it there, within a couple of days you get to kill its mate. • When a rooster crows at midnight it's a sign of death. • If it rains before 7, it'll rain until 11. • When it rains with the sun shining, it'll rain again tomorrow at the same time. • To eliminate morning sickness, all a woman has to do is to step over her husband while either getting into or out of bed. He'll be the one that ends up with morning sickness for the entire 9 months. • Also, prior to the modern methods of determining the sex of a baby before it was born, "the old folks" said if the mother-to-be grew bigger in her back-end the baby would be a girl. If the weight was in the front, it was a boy.
• For every time it thunders in February, it'll be cold in April.
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