Old fashioned cures

Curious to hear about people's old time cures for various ailments. Stuff like mustard plasters and turpentine and hot toddys and alcohol for babies gums and such.

Myself, I love a good hot toddy when I have a cold, it's the only time I'll drink whiskey. Mustard plasters work well on kids, I know it's working when they start complaining that their chest is on fire and start hacking up big loogies. We used to rub vanilla extract our kids gums when they were teething, it's got a good alcohol content but tastes better.

hot toddys are great for colds, or anything really!

Using Vick's vapor rub on the chest for colds.

Also as a kid my folks always had Buckley's cough medicine. Canadian vintage.

Its still available on line. It tastes like ammonia, but kills a cold in a day or two.

Also a salve for cuts, and many skin irritations. its called Ichthammol Ointment. Its a black drawing salve.

Cottonwood sap.

Infuse buds it in any good oil, like olive, melt in beeswax and use to relieve pain, protect, and heal cuts, poison ivy, and danged near anything else. This salve is sometimes referred to as Balm of Gilead.

Instead of a salve, a tincture can be made from infused cottonwood buds and grain alcohol for internal use. We are talking drops here, not ounces.

Rub Jewel weed on poison ivy to relieve the itching

I make dandelion root tincture in the spring.
I take probably a half shot of it when I'm not feeling the best.

I was at my Uncle's place playing cards one evening, when my cousin complained of an upset stomach. My old bohemian grandpa got up, got him a teaspoon of kerosene, and added a little sugar to it, and had him take it. I don't know if it fixed my cousin, but not one person playing cards ever had an ailment again as long as grandpa was in ear shot!!

For mosquito bites hold a lit cigarette just above the bite. The heat kills the bacteria and won't itch.
Minor burns run under hot water. The burning will feel worse for a bit while under the hot water but won't blister. Having been burned many times while a chef this has served me well

Ipecac was one of the worst things I ever had to take as a kid ... it induced voimiting ... and boy did it ever work. If you ate something that made you sick, they considered that you had ate something that was poison.

Paregoric , or camphorated tincture of opium. I didn't know until now that it was opium, but was used mainly for babies when they were cutting their teeth. They would rub it on their gums and kids would usually stop crying and go to sleep. Now I know why it worked so well.

Iodine was put on cuts, and it burned like fire … then they cam out with Merthiolate which did about the same thing, but didn't burn as bad, just stung a little.

Grandma used the mustard plasters for chest colds and turpentine for numerous different things but don't remember most them now.

My dad and grandpa would chew a big wad of tobacco and put it on a bee sting.

Garry-

Anything for bad joints? i.e. knees

Castor oil once a month, for worms iirc and also as a laxative, constipation was apparently the root of most illness.

Whenever I had a infection in a finger or a toe, my grandmother had a product that looked like stick shellac.... I believe it was called No-Nath or something like that. She would melt the end of it over the gas range and smear it on a gauze oad, apply it to the infected area and the next day, the swelling and anything in it was gone.

Tried to find it years after I left but to no avail. I also remember penicillin being a cure for a myriad of illness.... Doctors never give those shots anymore, but will prescribe pills that cost $$$.00 a month!

My dad always put iodine's evil offspring, Mercurochrome, on our scrapes and cuts.

Elderberry has been used in most European folk remedies for thousands of years. Elderberry has been proven to work against the common cold and to significantly shorten the duration of the flu. We have around 30 pound of frozen elderberries we need to process into syrup.

Keith

Grandma arsenal was castor oil, coal oil and bag balm with sasafrass tea in the spring. Must of worked I'm still alive and kickin.

Bag balm...on everything

Honey on cuts or open wounds, prevents infections and promotes healing. Been using it for years.

PetroCarboSalve for small cuts, boils, etc. My dad a jar that I'm pretty sure was my granddads.
I figured it was off the market till I found some last year. Nothing works better on little nicks and cuts on your hands and arms.

I guess we almost forgot the most famous cure-all … Cloverine Salve … I ordered a bunch of it one time …. because if you sold a certain amount you get a BB gun or other things. My dad paid it... but boy did I ever pay for after that … I could hardly sit down for a week.

Garry-

My Dad always told me that a poultice of sourdock would kill ringworm. He also said that stepping into a fresh cow pie barefoot would cure athlete's foot. Maybe that's why the smell I remember most as a child with 3 brothers was Desenex.

Moosetrot

Plain old mud for stinging nettles or bee stings

Mom made a cough medicine using onion and sugar water She boiled it until it was like syrup.

Vicks on your chest for a chest cold or under your nose for a stuffed up nose.