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Down Home Remedies, part 1

© Mary Trotter Kion

Whether you are homesteading on the plains or still back east considering the subject, some medical treatments and medicines, if not most, of the 1800s and earlier would surely raise some eyebrows beyond repair if they were prescribed today. For instance, what was declared a sure-cure for deafness back in the good old days might have your modern-day uncle, as well as your 'ant' running for cover. The treatment was to take some ant's eggs and mix them with onion juice. The onion juice would be easy enough to come by if you didn't mind the tears but there was no instruction on how best to obtain the ant's eggs.

I can only assume that at the historical time this remedy was recommended just how to go about collecting ant's eggs was common knowledge: something like the instructions in an early cook book I have for cooking peas. The first thing the book says to do is shell the peas. I would not have been surprised if it had said to plant the peas first, but then any one, at the time, would have known that.

Anyway, here your are, deafer than a crack in a rock and the proud possessor of a container of mixed onion juice and ant's eggs. So the next thing you do is drop this disgusting mixture into the ear in question. I don't have the figures of its success rate but I suppose the way to tell if the patient was cured was to ask him. If he doesn't answer, well, on to the next remedy for deafness-that is, unless the patient hasn't already high-tailed it over the next hill and beyond.

Back in those days when the preservation of food wasn't as sure a thing, or as easy to do as it is today, a little bit of tainted vittles could cause a whole lot of problems. The least of them being a situation sometimes referred to as 'the backdoor trots.' In more modern terms this ailment is referred to as just plain old diarrhea. The 'backdoor trots' title sort of went out of style with indoor plumbing and referrers to rushing out the back door and dashing, or trotting, down that well-worn path to the outhouse.

To cure this discomfort, 1800s style, and to have the medicine made up and ready for use when needed, take a quart of blackberry juice and pour it into a good-sized pot, then add a pound of white sugar to it. Mix this up till the sugar is dissolved then stir in one tablespoon each of cloves, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Put the pot on the stove and heat it till it boils and keep it bubbling for about 15 minutes. Now take a wineglass full of either whiskey, brandy, or rum and pour it in the pot. While all this is still hot, pour it into a bottle, cork it tight and then seal it. It doesn't say how to seal it but I'll tell you.

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