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Down Home Remedies, part 2

© Mary Trotter Kion

Times were when even those who possessed the most meager of education could be called upon to cure a variety of illnesses if they had shown a particular talent for it, even something as serious as jaundice. Two remedies were recommended in the source I consulted. The first, right from the start, I kind of had to pause for a moment and think it over. It says to take the whites of two hen's eggs. Now come on, if folks didn't know anything back then, which they certainly did, they knew that eggs come from the hen and not the rooster. To ward off the jaundice you beat the egg whites up well in a gill of water. You take a little of this mixture every morning.

The alternative is to mix two ounces of black cherry-tree bark with a half-ounce each of bloodroot and gold thread (the plant, not actual gold thread). Put this mixture in a pint of brandy and take from a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful every morning and every night.

This next remedy differs from many of those of the time in that it contains no alcohol, but it does contain one really scientific ingredient-good old homegrown saliva. This is intended to cure something called barber's itch. I understand that barber's itch is that nasty rash the fellows get around the back of the neck right at the hairline after a haircut. To clear this up rub a little saliva on the itchy part then, three times a day, rub the cooled ashes from a good Havana cigar on the rash.

Another serious affliction of the time was urinary obstructions. It seems that this could be eliminated by steeping pumpkinseeds in gin and drinking about three glasses of it a day. Ague was a common discomfort that could be righted by mixing 20 grains of quinine with one pint of diluted gin or port wine. To this add ten grains of subcarbonate of iron then drink a wineglass full each hour until the complaint is broken. After this first day's dosing have a glassful two or three times a day until the medicine is all gone. Of course by this time you may need the headache medicine mentioned previously in part one.

You may have notice a common ingredient in most of the remedies-alcohol, which we know today can cause its own brand of illness. Evidently, back then, there were those who also were aware of the medical problems that alcohol could cause because the source I consulted recommended the following to rectify the habit of drunkenness. And, believe it or not, it too includes alcohol and not just by the wineglass full.