Tumeric for Allergy/Sinus + Health Drink

A while back I posted on Earth Clinic's January newsletter. In that, there was a lady who said that a daily dose or two of tumeric in water helped cure her awful sinus problem, which lead in her case to migraine headaches. Since I'm prone to both awful sinus issues as well as migraines, I started using the tumeric in water. But I was already taking a "health drink" so I added the tumeric to is. Here's what I take: In a glass of water, 6-8 oz, I add 2 T of apple cider vinegar, a tsp of brewer's yeast, tsp of diatomaceous earth, and a heaping tsp of psyllium husks. To that I now add a tsp of tumeric and a drop or two of Iosol Iodine (an iodine nutritional supplement).

Since I've added the tumeric, my sinus problem--nasty post nasal drip, tickly throat, massive buildup of phlegm in my system, etc.--has cleared up. For the most part. I still get the sniffles and have to blow my nose, but that is not a problem. Very interesting, and what a blessing! That allergy/sinus thing was driving me nuts.

So, if you've got some nagging physical problem, you might want to check up on it at Earth Clinic and see if there is some simple, inexpensive already-in-your-kitchen spice or herb you could use. In all my reading there, I've seen very little that could harm you, and quite a bit that could help!

Keep in mind that this is not medical advice. This is just kitchen advice. :) Even though we have the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, the FDA feels competent to regulate speech that might interfere with the profits made by Big Pharma and Big Medicine. The FDA has not approved of this message, and probably won't in our lifetimes.
Onwards!
HM

Our Flu Protocol

My husband and I have decided to do these things every day (or as near as possible), in order to give ourselves a growling good immune system and to combat whatever flu bugs might accidentally wander into our environs.

Take:
Vitamin C (1000 mg base amount, more if needed)
Vitamin D3 (1000 - 50000 mg base amount)
2-4 droppers of elderberry extract (more if needed)
Multivitamin/mineral mix (Michael takes this; I skip it as I prefer to get my nutritional needs met via eating wild plants. I just go outside an nibble on whatever I find--wood sorrel, plantain leaves, yellow dock leaves, gnaw on some sassafrass leaves, a couple of spice berries here, couple of wild grapes there, the classic nibbler diet)

Eat:
Clove garlic a day
Kimchi at least one serving a day
The usual good diet of meat with veggies galore, a minimum of sugar or white flour products, very little to none processed foods

If necessary/as needed
Goldenseal/Echinacea extract with a Cayenne extract for booster

And getting out into sunshine, getting some exercise, swinging our arms, praising God's gifts. The last mentioned is without a doubt the most important, praising God and being grateful. And if by chance we get a flu--we normally don't, nor have we ever taken flu shots, then we'll live with it and let the elderberry extract deal with it.

Another fairly important element in this is to avoid those who are ill. Be very careful when you go to stores, wash your hands so often you'll feel obsessive/compulsive, all the usual stuff.

I put by a lot of elderberry extract this year. I filled quart jars 1/2 to 3/4 full with elderberries, then add vodka to top it all off. The six weeks I usually allow for extracts is nearly over. I have offered the extract to everyone in the valley, and I hope they'll use it and wisely. I don't charge $$ for this, but donations will be accepted to cover the cost of the vodka.

I've also laid in some OTC pharmaceuticals--mucinex and sudafed in particular. Someone who'd already had the swine flu recommended those. So, on a just in case basis, I got a few of those. We also have gloves and masks, and somewhere I have a whole biochem suit (complete with gas mask) that someone once gave me. It'd make a great Halloween costume...

So that's our basic flu protocol. I don't know if we'll need it, but it can't hurt to give your body extra nutrients for combatting illness. It's very important also to detoxify--try to get rid of the crap in your system, fast one to three days every once in a while, take hot baths and sweat out toxins, don't eat processed "food" poisons, and move around a bunch.

If anyone has other/different ideas, I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks,
HM

Home Remedies from Foxfire 1, Part 2

And here's the rest of the lineup of home remedies from Foxfire 1.

Insomnia
Make a tea of boneset leaves, using one tablespoonful. You may use them fresh or dried. (Catnip tea is good, too. HM)

Irritation Caused by Insects
Bee Stings
Chew or mash ragweed and put it on sting to deaden pain and reduce swelling.
Put moist snuff, mud, tobacco juice, or red clay on it.
Crush a few chrysanthemum leaves and rub the juice on the sting.

Chigger Bites
To relieve itching and infection, rub chewed snuff or tobacco over the bites.
Make a mixtgure of butter and salt to stop itching.

Spider Bites
If bitten by a black widow spider, drink liquour heavily from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. You won't get drunk, you'll be healed. (I'd advise caution with this one.)

Irritations of the Skin
Hives
Boil chestnut oak leaves and apply the resulting dark juice to the affected areas. Or take any of a variety of teas to break them out. These teas include catnip, ground ivy, mashed up berries of the tread-save, red alder leaves, raw alder bark scraped uphill.

Poison Ivy
Use a mixture of buttermilk or vinegar and salt.
Rub wild touch-me-not (jewelweed) on the area.
Slice open a green tomato and run the juice over the affected area.

Erysipelas (skin disease)
Use a poultice of peach tree leaves and corn meal.
Make a salve of balm of Gilead buds fried in mutton tallow. Add vaseline is you wish.

Itch
Use sulfur and lard.
Use gunpowder and sulfur.
Wash some yellowroot and put it on the affected area.

Inflammation
Bind salty fat meat to a stone bruise or a thorn in the foot to draw out the inflammation. A poultice of clay will do the same thing. (I've used clay for drawing out splinters. Good stuff!)
Make a tea of poke roots by boiling them in water for a couple of minutes. Dip a cloth in it and rub on the affected area. (Be careful not to get any in your mouth.)

Freckles
Buttermilk and lemon juice mixed together and put on freckles will remove them.
Put sap from a grapevine on them.

Chapped Hands
Rub pine resin on them.
Rub hands with mutton tallow.

Athlete's Foot
Wrap a wool string around the toe, or step in cow dung that is fresh.

Sweaty Feet
Boil dried chestnut leaves until you have an ooze. Apply this to the feet.

Kidney Trouble
Make a tea from dried trailing arbutus leaves.
Eat one or two poke berries a day for a couple of days.
Drink some red alder tea.

Liver Trouble
Make a tea of lion's tongue by boiling a few leaves in water, then straining. Add syrup if you want to sweeten it.

Measles
Any herb tea will break them out.
Make a tea of sheep dung to break them out.
Boil red alder branches and drink the tea.

Nosebleed
Take a small piece of lead and bore a hole in it. Put a string through the hole, tie it, and wear it around your neck. Your nose won't bleed again.
Place a nickel directly under the nose between the upper lip and the gum and press tightly.
Lie down and put a dime on your heart.

Pain Killer
Roast some poke roots by the fire. Scrape them clean with a knife and grind up. Make a poultice out of the powder and apply to the bottom of the feet. It will draw pain out of anywhere in the body. (Wonder if this one works...I might try it.)

Pneumonia
To bring down the fever, put some quinine and hog lard on a cloth and put it on your chest.
Give the person two teaspoonsful of oil rendered from a skunk.
Make an onion poultice to make the fever break. Then give the person whiskey and hot water.
Make a tea of butterfly weed and add a little whiskey and drink it.

Rheumatism
Roast a poke root in ashes in the same manner as you would roast potatoes. While it is still hot, apply it to the inflamed joint. This eases the pain and reduces the swelling.
Drink a mixture of pokeberry wine and whiskey.
Let rattleroot, ginseng, red corn root, wild cherry bark, and golden seal root sit in one gallon of white whiskey. Drink small portions of the resulting liquid as needed.
Rub some wildcat oil on the skin.
Cook garlic in your food to east the pain.

Risin's (I think this means boils.)
Place an elm bark poultice over the bump.
Scrape the white of an Irish potato and place on scrapings on the bump. Bind them on with a clean cloth. This will draw the risin to a head.
Take raw fat meat (the fattest you can get), cut a thin slice of it and bind it over the bump with a cloth bandage. This draws it to a head, and when you pull the cloth off, a tiny hole is left in the center of the bump. Make a thread loop and ease this loop into the hole and twist several times; then yank the core of the risin' out with a swift motion. (Gak!)
Eat sulfur mixed with honey.

Sores
Put butter around the sore so a dog will lick it. The dog's saliva will cure it.
Put a little lard or something equally greasy on the sore. Then dust the sore with sulfur. The grease will hold the sulfur on.
Make a salve of white pine resin and mutton tallow.
Mash up yellowroot and put it on the sore.

Sore Throat
Bake onions in an open fireplace; then tie them loosely around your throat.
Gargle with honey and vinegar.
Rub pine oil on your throat.
Take a sock you have worn inside a boot and worked in for almost a week so that it has a bad odor. Tie it around your neck.

Stomach Trouble
Make a tea of wild peppemint and drink it.
Deink some blackberry juice or wine.
Drink some juice from kraut left over after cooking.
Make a tea of golden seal roots and drink it.
To settle the stomach, place five small flint rocks in a glass of water. Let it sit for a few minutes and then drink.

Tonsil Trouble
Gargle with tan bark tea make from chestnut leaves.
Smear balm of Gilead slave over the person's chest.
Gargle with salt water.

Toothache
Make a small amount of wine from pokeberries, and mix one part of the wine with eight parts white whiskey. Take a small spoonful just a couple times a day. It's also good for rheumatism and muscle cramps.
Use burned alum.
Put drops of vanilla straight from the bottle on the tooth.

Warts
Get something like a penny that a person would want to pick up. Put some blood from the wart on it and trow it into the road. When someone pickes it up, the wart will go away.
Wet your finger and make a cross on the wart.
Tie a horsehair around it.
Rub the wart with the skin of a chicken gizzard, then hide the skin under a rock. The wart will disappear.
Wash the affected are with water from a rotten chestnut stump for nine mornings in a row before breakfast.

Worms
In the early spring, pick the small tender leaves of the poke plant. Boil the leaves, drain them, and cook in grease from fatback. Eat a mess of these.
Take "worm syrup" which is made by boiling Jerusalem oak and pine root together.
Eat tobacco seeds.
Eat a head of garlic every day until they are gone.
Put three or four drops of turpentine in a teaspoon of sugar and eat it.

Preventatives, Cure-alls
Take wild cherry tree bark, yellow poplar bark, and yellowroot boiled, strained and mixed with white liquor.
Mix together some sulfur and molasses and eat it.

Salves
Take about two tablespoons of mutton tallow, and heat it up in a frying pan with about six balm of Gilead buds. Mash the buds up while the mixture cools and when the grease is all out of the buds, strain the mixture. Put it in a jar and cover it. The salve is clear and will last for years.
Take one cup of pine resin, about one ounce of camphor-phenique, one cup of mutton tallow, and ten to fifteen balm of Gilead buds. Put it all in a frying pan and heat until liquid. Mash the buds until all the juice is out of them. Strain and put into jars and cover. Makes about a pint.

To help hair grow, break a section of a grape vine, set in a bottle and let the juice drain. Rub the juice in the hair.
A piece of nutmeg tied around the neck will prevent neuralgia.
Give a grouchy person a tea made from violet blossoms.

There you go! Live and learn.
HM

Treatment for Eye Burns

From the Comments, thanks to FarmerMechanic:

FarmerMechanic said...
Working on the farm welding all these years there have been several occasions when my father and I have burned our eyes from the flash of the welder. Not when we were wearing our helmet. It was when we were in the area and seeing the flash in the corner of eye or helping holding something and getting a flash. I would warn everyone it does not take much exposure to burn your eyes. The problem is the symptoms do not appear until 6-8 hours later and you are trying to sleep. It feels like you wiped vaseline in your eyes and sprinkled sand in the mix.Over the years we both would end up going to the emergency room to get some anesthetic drops in our eyes. (Here's where the home remedy comes in.)a old welder we met told us that he would cut thin slices of potato and lay the slices on his eyes for a hour or so and take some over the counter pain reliever. The remedy works and it works well.. no more trips to the emergency room. I think this would work with sunburn to the eyes as well. I got caught one time on a long drive through a snowstorm without sunglasses and burned my eyes. I wish I had a potato then! I can see how the onion would work and I will try it next time I have a burn.

Terrific Burn Medicine

This is an excerpt from Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs & Spices.

Terrific Burn Medicine

The February 1911 Bulletin of the History of Medicine (15: 143-49) contained a most informative article by medical historian Henry F. Sigerist entitled "Ambroise Pare's Onion Treatment of Burns." Pare was a famous French surgeon (1510-1590) who was looking for a simpler, easier and more effective remedy for burns than the standard cooling ointments of his day. He discovered it in a most remarkable way in Peidmont around 1537. At that time he was a young surgeon of 27 and was attached to the army of the Marshal de Montejan in the third war between Francis I and Charles V. ONe of the kitchen boys employed by this Marshal "fell by chance into a Caldron of Oyle being even almost boyling hot," Pare later recounted in his memoirs. The good doctor was immediately called on to attend to the poor lad's injuries. He quickly went to the local apothecaries "to fetch refrigerating medicines commonly used in this case," when he met "by chance a certaine old countrey woman, who ...perswaded mee...that I should lay to raw Onions beaten with a little salt" on the boy's injured skin. "Wherefore," he continued, "I thought good to try the force of her Medicine unpon this greasy scullion. I the next day found those places of his body whereto the Onions lay, to be free from blisters, but the other parts which they had not touched, to be all blistered."

And so came abouit Pare's famous onion dressing for all degrees of minor or serious burns. He soon had occasion to use it on some soldiers who were unfortunate enough to have some gunpowder explode in front of them, severely burning their hands and faces. In a mortar and pestle, Pare crushed slices of onion with a little salt and applied this dressing to part of their injuries and regular ointments to the other part. He recorded: "I observed the part dressed with the Onions quite free from blisters and excoriation, the other [covered only with ointments) being troubled by both..."

On more than one occasion have I recommended that freshly expressed onion juice be mixed with a pinch of salt and applied directly to even the worst burn and left overnight, with fantastic results the next day. This may be a folk remedy from the Middle Ages, but it was constantly tested by a competent doctor of the times and always proven to be effective. My own experience with the same thing through the years has only confirmed what Pare himself discovered and proved as valid therapy for burns.

End Excerpt.

Wow. I'm not at all anxious to get another burn, but I guarantee you that I'll definitely try this for myself! I can just imagine, post-crash, and someone gets badly burned and there's no medical help around. Burns can be very dangerous wounds and hard to handle. Onions and salt to the rescue? These simple kitchen items would at least be available to most folks, and just pounding up some onion slices with salt and applying the onion dressing to the burn is so easy a child could do it.

Keep this one in mind, folks. It could come in very handy. As with all folk remedies, try it yourself and see if it works. Sounds like it will.

Home Remedies from Foxfire 1

Home Remedies from Foxfire 1

I bought my copy back in '72 for $3.95, when it first came out. I listened to old time string band music back then and knew of bunch of hot fiddlers, banjo players, double bass, guitar--a great batch of muscians in a band called the Swamp Root String Band. They were a hoot. Anyway, they got me interested into things old time Appalacian. Foxfire was a natural.

Amazon has some of them, of course.

Along the way I acquired a bunch of the Foxfire books, but it seems only volume 1 and 2 remain with me. Damn. When I moved here I had to get rid of hundreds of books, boxes and boxes of (sob) my good friends. As much as I hated that, it had to be done. And it is a relief not to have to move dozens of boxes of books anymore. Now I use the library all the time.

Foxfire has a chapter on home remedies that I want to share with you. Try to keep an open mind about these things. These were not stupid people, not a bit. They could and did live strong, vital, active lives. They wouldn't have used these remedies if they were ineffective. So some of them are bound to be, and these are the ones I've mentioned here. Others of the remedies just make me hoot and holler, as I have a highly developed sense of the absurd. (My comments are in bold. I really enjoy these things. :) Still, that doesn't mean the thing wouldn't work--for all I know they might. I've only typed up a few of the remedies, buy the book. There's tons more great info and lore in these books than just the Home Remedies chapter.

I'll quote you the intro in full, and then cite a few of the remedies in each category. Might as well, we just got snowed in again with a mini-blizzard. Ain't much else to do and this is kind of fun. Enjoy.

Home Remedies

The scarcity, until very recently, of medical facilities in the remoter rural areas of this country has been so well documented that it needs little repetition here. Nevertheless, despite the lack of facilities, peopole did get sick and often needed help. The fact that help wasn't there didn't eliminate the need.

And so, as with everthing else, there were forced to make do with what they had on hand. As Harriet Echols told us, "People, y'know, didn't have a chance of runnin' after doctors back in these mountain areas. They weren't close, and where I was raised, it was twelve miles by horseback to th' nearest doctor. They got a cut and it was too bad. They used th' turperntine and sugar or kerosene oil as an application to kill infection; and of course kerosene oil in those days was scarce because people had to use it for light, y'know. That's all th' lights we had except th' pine knots in th' fireplace."

The end result was a staggering body of lore, a portion of which is included here. Some of the remedies undoubtedly worked; some of them probably were useless; some of them--and for this reason we advise you to experiment with extreme care--were perhaps even fatal (taking large quantities of whiskey for snake bites, for example). "It was a chancy business," as Molly Green said of her remedies. "If it hit, it hit; and if it missed, it missed."

But the remedies themselves stand as a weighty testament to the ingenuity of an all but vanished race.

Arthritis
Drink a mixture of honey, vinegar, and moonshine.
Make a tea from either the seeds or leaves of alfalfa.
Drink powdered rhubarb dissolved in white whiskey.
A magnet draws it out of the body.

Asthma
In one pint of gin, place several pieces of the heartwood of a pine tree. Leave them in the gin until they turn brown. Then take one teaspoonful of the mixture twice a day.
Suck salty water up your nose.
Smoke or sniff rabbit tobacco.
Swallow a handful of spicer webs rolled into a ball.
Keep a Chihuahua dog around the house. (Who knows?)
Gather leaves from ginseng, dry and powder them. Put the powder in a pan, place a hot coal on top of it, and inhale the smoke.

Bleeding
Place a spider web across the wound.
Apply a poultice of spirit turpentine and brown sugar to the wound.
Use a mixture of soot from the chimney and lard.
Use pine resin.

Blood Builders
When the sap is up, take the green bark of the wild cherry and boil it to make tea.
Take the young leaves of the poke plant, parboil them, season, fry, and then eat several "messes."
Make sassafras tea, using the roots of the plant.

Broken Arm
Make a mixture of red clay and water. Put splints on each side of the arm and plaster it up with the clay. When the clay dries, put the arm in a sling.

Burns
Boil chestnut leaves and place the resulting ooze on the burn.
Bind castor oil and egg whites around the wound with a clean cloth.
Linseed oil will draw the fire out.
If the person has never seen his father, he can draw the fire by blowing on the burn. (??)


Chest Congestion
Apply a mixture of camphor, mutton tallow, soot, pine tar, turpentine, and lard to the chest.
Make an onion poultice by roasting an onion, then wrappign it in spun-wool rags and beating it so that the onion juice soaks the rags well. Apply these rags to the chest.
Render the fat of a polecat. Eat two or three spoonfuls. This brings up the phlegm. (Skunk oil again, methinks.)
Eat raw honey.
Wear a flannel shirt with turpentine and lard on it all winter. (And make lots of friends :)


Colds
Make a tea from the leaves of boneset. Drink the tea when it has cooled. It will make you sick if taken hot. Leaves of this plant may also be cured out and saved for use during the winter months.
Make a tea from powdered ginger, or ground up ginger roots. Do not boil the tea, but add the powdered root to a cup of hot water and drink.
Boil pine needles to make a strong tea.
Parch red pepper in frount of the fire. Powder it, cook it in a tea, and add pure white corn liquor.
Drink whiskey and honey mixed.
Drink red pepper tea.

Colic
Tie an asafetida bag round a baby's neck for six months to keep away six months' colic.
Drink sampson's snake root tea.
Boil two or three roots of ginsend in a pint of water, then strain and drink.

Cough
Put some ground ginger from the store in a saucer and add a little sugar. Put it on the tongue just before bedtime. It burns the throat and most of the time will stop coughs.
Dissolve four sticks of horehound candy in a pint of whiskey and take a couple of spoonfuls a day. This is also good for TB.
Boil one cup of wild cherry bark in a pint of water. Add some syrup and cook until it gets thick.

Croup

Squeeze the juice out of a roasted onion and drink.

For a baby, pour a mixture of turpentine and white whiskey into a saucer and set it afire. Hold the baby over the smoke until he breathes it deeply. This loosens him up.

Put some groundhog oil on some hot flannel rags and place the rags on the child's chest.

Diarrhea

Take a tea of red oak bark.

Drink some blackberry juice.

Fever

Tie a bag containing the sufferer's nail paring to a live eel. It will carry the fever away. (This has got to be my favorite of the zanier suggestions!)

Boil two roots of wild ginger in a cup of water, strain, and drink.

Flu

Gather some boneset, put the leaves in a sack and put it in the sun to dry. Make sure it has air or it will mole. Then cook the leaves in some water, strain and drink.

Chew rabbit tobacco.

Fretful Child

Boil catnip leaves to make a tea, and give the child about a quarter cup. Use one cup of leaves to make him sleep.

Headaches

Bind wilted beet leaves on the forehead.

Tie a flour sack around your head. :)

Pour hot water over mustard leaves to rouse their odor and strength. Bind these leaves in a poultice to head with a cheesecloth strip.

When you get your haircut, gather up all the clippings. Bury them under a rock and you will never have a headache. Old-timers would never allow their hair to be burned or thrown away as it was too valuable.

Heart Trouble

Eat ramps and garlic. You can eat them cooked or raw.

Hiccups

Take a teaspoon of peanut butter.

Whoops. Gotta go do some chores, feeding cats and ducks and getting snow off my car. Stay tuned for part two.

HM

Jungle Wisdom

This is an excerpt from The Green Pharmacy by James A. Duke, Ph.D. You can get it from Amazon, of course. My home copy is a bit different--the subtitle on mine is The Ultimate Compendium of Natural Remedies from The World's Foremost Authority on Healing Herbs. Duke is an ethnobotonist, a guy who studies how healing foods and herbs are used in the world's cultures. It's a terrific book, ranks up there with Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices (reviewed here) as an excellent resource for households wanting to use natural medicines.

I thought you all might be interested in what Duke has to say about folk remedies, herbs, and pharmaceutical synthetic medicines.

Jungle Wisdom

At the beginning of this chapter, I mentioned a pepper plant that the Choco Indians use to numb the pain of toothache.

I encountered this plant again years later, on my first ecotour to Iquitos, Peru. My Indian guide pointed to the plant and reiterated that it relieves toothache. He pulled it up by the root, scraped off the dirt, and invited me to bite into it. As before, it immediately anesthetized my mouth.

Fruits and roots of some species of pepper plants are known to contain anesthetic compounds. Even black pepper contains some.

People who have lived for thousands of years in the world's jungles have toothache remedies that really work. And that's the main reason I wrote this book--to show that traditional medicine has legitimate scientific value.

Scientific critics counter that "old folk tales" are no match for Western-style scientific experimentation. But the basis of science is careful observation, and that's what traditional peoples have been doing since time immemorial--observing and experimenting with the world around them.

In general, traditional people have managed to select the good medicines and have rejected the bad, leading to what we today call folk medicine. Most of these folk medicines have thousands of years of experimental selection behind them, and few are associated with adverse reactions.

That's something that you really can't say about our modern pharmaceuticals, only a few of which have been on this earth for more than a hundred years. All too often, synthetic drugs turn out to be hazardous. This is evidenced by the number of pharmaceuticals that the Food and Drug Administration orders withdrawn because of adverse reactions.

End of excerpt. I love the understatement of that last sentence--withdrawn because of adverse reactions. Such as 27,785 deaths from Vioxx before the FDA got around to taking it off the market. OK, so that is nearly 30,000 deaths in about 20 million people who had taken it. Seems small when you look at it like that. But as the last paragraph of the linked article says:

"Because heart attacks and strokes occur in the general population, one cannot say that if someone had an event while taking Vioxx, that Vioxx caused it," a Merck spokesman said.

Of course, Vioxx was a $2.5 billion a year drug for Merck, which, as the article also says, fought for years to keep this bad news of heart attacks from the public. Wonder how they did that? By influencing the FDA perhaps?

If you're interested in seeing the mischief and wrong-doing of the pharmaceutical industry, you should check out this blog, by Dr. Doug Bremer, a physican and professor at Emory University. His blog is called Before You Take That Pill and it is enlightening and entertaining reading.

HM

Interesting Home Remedies

The more I read about home remedies, herbal remedies, simple kitchen medicines, the more impressed I am by all the "old wives" who came up with this stuff. I've been trying them out all winter, and I've been very pleased with the results, i.e., they worked, they're effective. These remedies are inexpensive, use easy to come by items (for the most part), and can by done by anyone.

In the upcoming depression, when I am sure the Powers That Be will leave us all high and dry, except when they're desperately trying to get us to do silly, stupid, and dangerous things (like vaccinations and flu shots), we will have to learn to rely on simple and cheap methods of taking care of ourselves. We are learning more and more about nutrition and how the body works to heal itself. These simple treatments work with the body, not against it. That's a big selling point as far as I'm concerned.

Here are some of the treatments I've tried that worked for me. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary. Not every remedy will work for every person. So take what makes sense to you, try it out. Try not to be negative if it doesn't work--simply move on to something else.

For Colds and Flu

Slice up garlic and place the slices on the bottoms of your feet (not an easy thing to accomplish, btw). What I did was place some plastic wrap on the floor, put the garlic slices on the plastic wrap, put my foot down on top of the slices and wrapped the plastic around my foot. I left this on overnight and discarded the garlic in the morning. And yes, I felt much better the next day. Not completely healed, but much better.

Vicks VapoRub also worked and felt very calming and soothing. Felt better the next day and the skin on my feet was very soft.

Here's another one for cold/flu/respitory problems:

Cold Wet Socks Therapy

What's that you say? Cold, wet socks? For what?

This is the first time I've heard of it. I was reading around the herbal blogs (and there are a lot of excellent ones--for another post) and found this fascinating idea. I found it at Herbalist Liza Zahn's website. If you have a stubborn cold or flu, you put on a pair of cold, wet cotton socks. Over them you put on warm, dry wool socks and then hop into bed. When you wake in the morning, your body will have had to overcome the coldness and wetness by working overtime...

I'm not explaining it well. Read about it at Liza's page. It makes perfect sense to me, and it is using your body's own power to heal, which I like.

I'm not about to snafu myself again by saying I don't get colds or flu. Next time one jumps me though, I will try the cold, wet sock therapy.

Post-Nasal Drip/Sinus Infection

OK, I did do this one, and boy did it work! And kept working! It got rid of the problem completely for at least a week. Then the infection started in again, but a repeat of the treatment kicked its ass again. Here's my earlier post about it.

I put a dropper full of Hydrogen Peroxide in a 2 oz medicine bottle (the eye-dropper kind you get herb tinctures in), then added a pinch of sea salt, a pinch of baking soda and a pinch of powdered cayenne pepper. I put 2 droppers full into one nostril, then bent over and rolled my head around, trying to get the stuff to all areas of my sinuses. Ditto with the other nostril. By this time my eyes were watering and my nasal passages were exploding... I can't say it was fun. I did 2 more droppers full to each nostril, repeatedly blowing my nose (gently) throughout. I had to keep blowing my nose for about a half and hour. And yes, it stung. It was weird.

But it worked. The infection disappeared.

I could have gone to my doctor, paid about $75 for the doctor's visit, got a prescription for antibiotics maybe or maybe for some other drugs, paid more money for those, and after two weeks still have been miserable and miserably out-of-pocket, with the added disaster of having to rebuild my immune system and all the good bacteria in my system.

There's a website called the Skeptic Detective, which nicely points out logical fallacies and demands double-blind scientific studies for home remedies. It makes for interesting reading, but let's face it. Doing large double-blind studies for something that can't be patented (like garlic) and thus profited by just isn't going to happen. No one could or would spend the money to do those kinds of studies. The Skeptic Detective also pooh poohs anecdotal evidence, or demands "scientific" evidence. However, as one commentor says: she tried it, it worked, and that's all the evidence she requires. Or, one can always say "it's the placebo effect" and that may be true too. In which case, hurrah for the placebo effect. Our minds, our thoughts, have a big effect on the body (which is why the placebo effect works). We might as well use it for our benefit.

In my case, I'll try something even if I doubt it could possibly work. I've done that before and been pleasantly surprised when it did work. It is always good to question, and a dose of skepticism is not a bad thing at all.

However, in my opinion, allopathic medicine and so-called "objective science" is failing so abjectly when it comes to helping with chronic diseases, or the biases are so obviously towards pharmaceutical "medicines" that it makes me question their treatments. Giving patients poison for cancer isn't helpful. We've had years of chemotherapy and radiation now and it is ineffective for one, and it drastically harms the patient. Why? Why is it still used? Follow the money trail and you will find out why.

Ach, that's a whole other realm of discussion and posting. Suffice it to say that I think there is a lot of good in simple home remedies, most remedies are cheap, using simple things you already have in your kitchen, and they're easy to do for yourself.

I have always used home remedies, I think most people do. We don't always tell other people for fear of being called names, made fun of, put down as idiots. Well, I go by "prove all things." If it works for me, it works. I might like to know how and why it works, but if I don't, I'm still fine with it.

Anyway, these are a few that have worked for me. In my view, it's definitely worth looking into, researching a bit, finding what might work for you and your particular problem, and taking action. Be in charge of your own health care. That's progress, by damn.
HM

Cheap and Useful: Flaxseed

A while ago I bought some flaxseed from the Amish bulk store, 8 oz for $.50. An excellent price for a useful product. I had read about some neat uses for flaxseed in my copy of Heinerman's Encycloopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices. Wasn't long ago that I recommended that readers of this blog buy the book--it's that good and useful. The information I read in Heinerman's was what convinced me to buy some flaxseed, and I'm glad I did.

Here's a few bits from the book on uses for Flaxseed:

Remarkably Effective Laxative

According to Dr. Hans Fluck, a Swiss professor of pharmacology, 2 tsp. of flaxseed put into half a cup of hot water and allowed to swell for up to 4 hours and the mucilage and seeds swallowed together will produce a swelling bulk within the intestines which will provide a substantial bowel movement a few hours later.

Best Hand Lotion Around

An Oregon woman who suffered from dried, chapped hands for years had tried just about every kind of hand lotion on the market, but with no success. Then she stumbled onto flaxseed and now makes her own lotion, which she finds incredibly effective.

Her recipe calls first for whole or cracked flaxseed, about 3 round tbsp. to be soaked in 2 cups lukewarm water overnight. The next morning, the mixture is boild and strained to remove as much of the mucilage jell as possible; then the seeds are thrown away. A pint of apple cider vinegar is then added to the jell, along with 5 tbsp of glycern (purchased from any drugstore). The mixture is heated again to boiling and immediately removed from heat. Take an eggbeater and beat the mixture for a minute or so to keep the glycern from separating. Bottle. Dampen hands with solution morning and evening, thoroughly rubbing the skin and letting the air dry them. You will experience a greaseless silky feeling on your hands.

Eye Problem Corrected

The following was obtained from Violet Boyce of Logan, Utah. "I had a unique experience with flaxseed when I was a young girl. While on the train I got a cinder in my eye. I was unable to dislodge it and was suffering rather acutely. When I reached home my aunt put a single flaxseed under the lid. Sure enough the gooey sides collected the particle and it could be brushed out."

I made the hand lotion this morning, after soaking the flaxseed overnight. And it works--it left my hands feeling silky and soft. For the price of the flaxseed, glycerin and cider vinegar--none of which are expensive at all, I got a great hand lotion that works. I don't have chapped hands, but the skin is often pretty dry, especially in the winter. I added some drops of lavender essential oil so the wouldn't smell like vinegar and a couple of vitamin E drops as a preservative to the essential recipe.

Heinerman's book is full of interesting tidbits like that, usually cheap, useful and effective. I like that!
HM

Spicy Tomato Tea, from Earth Clinic

Our winter festivities have begun. Last night we had a big, fancy communal dinner, which was really lovely. But my throat had started to feel pretty sore and my voice was scratchy, nose runny, eyes watery. Oh oh. I HATE getting sick during these five days or so where we all get together a lot to have fun in various ways.

I started my usual "have a cold" therapy: garlic, goldenseal and echinacea, vitamin C in huge doses, lots of liquids, and all that. Chicken broth, hot baths, lots of rest...

But I also zipped over to Earth Clinic to see what they had listed for "cures" for colds. I had read of this one before, and have used it and recommended it to people, but I hadn't read all the various responses that people have sent in from around the world. First I'll give you the classic recipe, first sent in back in 2003, and then my recipe.

*****************
Spicy Tomato Tea

It works fast (in most cases) and tastes great! These ingredients are well-known serious herbals for their medicinal properties... Used together they do wonders for sinus/ear infections, colds, coughing and sore throat. We've even found it to kill flu germs and strep throat (with no antibiotics).

TOMATO TEA RECIPE
2 cups V8 Juice
2-3 cloves Garlic crushed (use more if you can)
2 T Lemon Juice
Hot Sauce (the more the better, so as much as you can handle)

Mix and heat in a pan or in the microwave. Sip slowly and re-warm as needed to get the full effects of the fumes. Let it sit in the back of your throat to bathe it. Suck the fumes through your sinuses and also down into your lungs. Its all natural and healthy, so drink as much of it as you want or need until you are SURE the infection is gone. This is past the time when you "feel better."

This appears to be the best recipe, but from the comments, people often don't have the right ingredients. Don't let that hold you back. Use whatever you have available. Below are some substitutes that may not work as well or as fast, but will still help. I've listed them by their likely effectiveness:

Substitutes:
V8 Juice - tomato juice, vegetable juice, canned or fresh tomatoes crushed, tomato soup (if really desperate, try another kind of fruit juice, vegetable soup or even chicken soup . you're aiming for high Vit C content)
Garlic - garlic in olive oil, dehydrated garlic, garlic salt (aiming for the strong anti-bacterial/fungal effects)
Lemon Juice - Fresh lemons, bottled juice, limes, lime juice, oranges, frozen lemonade
Hot Sauce - ANY kind of hot sauce works, fresh hot peppers, cayenne pepper, dried pepper flakes (if really desperate, try horseradish, black pepper or even mustard . you're aiming for the highly anti-bacterial/fungal properties of capricin which is found in hot peppers, and its effectiveness at clearing out the sinuses.)

My Spicy Tomato Tea Recipe
2 cups tomato juice
8 cloves garlic minced (I love garlic anyway and always use it in illness)
1/2 tsp cayenne powder
1 tsp horseradish
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp lemon juice (I used the bottled lemon juice from concentrate as I didn't have lemons)
1 tsp tumeric (anti-inflammatory)
herbs: oregano, parsley, celery salt and seed for flavor

Heat it all up on the stove, ladle it into cup and sip the stuff. My nose has already cleared and I'm feeling better--all in a half an hour. Not bad!

I've gotten myself used to cayenne pepper a bit more. I'm taking the cayenne tincture daily--it's hot but now bearable and I like the effect of it. It opens my nasal passages and makes me feel warm all over.

A Fun Shakespeare Show

I'll share this with you just for fun. I found a neat compilation of phrases and one-liners from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets on the web. You can read it here. If you click on the phrase, it will tell you where the original came from, and where in Shakespeare it is found. I thought we could do an interesting audience participation thing with the phrases.

I printed out the list and got some friends to help me provide some dinner entertainment last night. While everyone was noshing away at the fabulous feast, we put on our Shakespeare hats, jester's hats with the bells on the tips, and we read the lines to the folks. It is really amazing how many of these phrases originated in Shakespeare--"dead as a doornail," "give the devil his due," "pure as the driven snow," etc. If we thought the line familiar enough, we'd read the first part of the line, and wait for the audience to provide the rest. We had a blast! The folks really got into it. If you're ever called upon to provide entertainment for a group, this one is fun!

HM

Make Your Own Natural Antibiotic

Earth Clinic, the folk remedy center, has an interesting recipe for a natural antibiotic. It calls for horseradish (fresh), garlic, ginger, 10 or 11 habanero peppers, strong, hot white onions, and apple cider vinegar. While it calls for one cup of each of the ingredients, it also only says to use 2 cloves of garlic. I think he meant two heads of garlic or two bulbs (each with a bunch of cloves on it). Must be, if you are going to end up with a cup of garlic. At any rate, check out the recipe here. I think this antibiotic sauce would be quite potent and would definitely kick ass.

Earth Clinic

With the economic downturn we're going through, I think many hundreds of thousands of folks will lose their health insurance coverage. If/when that happens, what will you do for medical care? The time to think about this is now, before it happens. And even if you have health insurance coverage, do you constantly want to run to the doctor for prescriptions? You might want to read up on the problems with modern drugs, the side effects, which ones have been withdrawn by the FDA, etc. If you are really brave, you might want to read this article: Death by Medicine. Only for the very brave, however. It's scary!

Or you might want to read this article by Bill Sardi. When you're done with that, read some of the many articles in Bill Sardi's archive at the Lew Rockwell site--the link for Bill's archive is at the end of the article. He writes on other topics, but most often on medical matters. Definitely read his enlightening article on the simple garlic clove. Written as a tongue-in-cheek semi-military metaphor, it is a long exploration on the benefits of eating garlic.

Even if you are fully content with modern American health care practices, you might want to look into some very simple and effective home remedies. Why spend a fortune for doctors visits and prescriptions when you don't have to? There's other and better uses for that money. And all it takes will a little time and research effort on your part.

I believe I mentioned this marvelous website many blog entries ago, but I wanted to emphasize it more. Earth Clinic is a fascinating webpage. These folks have been collecting home remedies from around the world since 1999. They collect the stories from anyone who writes in, and so have developed a large and continually updated database of various remedies used by many people the world over.

Earth Clinic is well-organized; it is divided into sections as follows: Remedies, Ailments, Supplements, Pets, Mind & Body, and Latest Posts. There's an area where you can send in your story or remedy for an ailment--see the Give Feedback button at the top of the page.

You won't believe some of the folk medicine cures recommended by readers of Earth Clinic. For the most part, the items you will need for the remedies are cheap, available at the local supermarket, and are probably in your kitchen already. Some of these remedies are very well-known--apple cider vinegar, for example, or clove oil for toothache, while some are unheard of outside sites like Earth Clinic. I found the section on survival remedies to be very interesting!

People also write in with feedback when a remedy doesn't work for them, or when they have a warning to add. For example, taking too much blackstrap molasses can be a problem for various reasons. Not all the comments are positive--and the negatives are given right up front with the positives. Not every remedy will work for every person, in other words. You may have to try different remedies to find the one that will work with your body.

Here's a sample post from a section called "Recent Notables."

STAPH INFECTION AND TURMERIC
12/04/2008: Mel from Miami, Florida writes: "Wow, where do I begin? I'm in my mid twenties with great health. I generally eat wholesome foods, don't take legal or illegal drugs, and might get a cold once every couple of years but that's it. Here's my Staph Infection Nightmare Story.

I decided to travel abroad for a year as the economy was already spiriling downward at the end of 2007 and I had some money saved up. During this journey, I spent a couple of months in Cuba at which time, most likely due to poor nutrition and hygiene in the country, acquired my first Staph Infection which I initially thought was a spider bite. The reason I believed it to be a spider bite is that my cousin came back to The States from the Dominican Republic with a bunch of spider bites that looked almost exactly the same as my Staph Infection. I began to take some left over Amoxicillin prescribed from the removal of my wisdom teeth that I was traveling with. The amount I had was not enough to completely attack the virus so it came back stronger but this time on my neck. Here's a picture.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2223/2282232618_767969b71d_b.jpg

The pain was excrutiating and I literally felt like I was going to die. My neck throbbed with every heartbeat and gave me a horrible constant piercing headache. I never get sick and this put me down for almost a week with soarness throughout my body. I hate taking meds but broke down and went back on the Amoxicillin. After a few days it started to go away finally. A few weeks later I got a horrible ear infection in my right ear that eventually shifted to my left ear and then apparently came out of my middle finger as a huge boil. My finger was literally three times as thick as normal. Again Amoxicillin was taken only to have dozens of more small boils continously appear throughout the rest of my trip.

A third large infection in my nose began to appear in Colombia two days before my trip was scheduled to end. When I returned to The States the infection had grown enough that my upper lip was ridicolously inflated and my family was really worried about me. Again, the throbbing pain was excrutiating enough that I felt like I was going to die. My entire body was sore and I had this constant fierce headache. I was seriously considering flying out of the country again for medical treatment as I don't have insurance at the moment. One night I stayed up not being able to fall asleep because of the pain and started surfing the web on my bed with my mobile. I came across the typical 'western medicine' websites and read people's depressing comments about how they have suffered with MRSA for years and have no hope in site. It really got me down. I googled the same string as before but this time adding 'natural cure' to the end and came across Earth Clinic. There are no 24 hour supermarkets in my area so first thing the next morning I went out, bought some Turmeric, and literally poured some in my mouth chasing it with some juice I had also bought. Within four hours my lip started to go back to a normal state enough so that my cousin noticed and asked what I did. I couldn't believe how quickly this worked without having to take Amoxicillin. It actually reacted faster than the Amoxicillin did with previous infections. I hate taking Amoxicillin because after five days on it I feel horrible and of course theirs the toxicity factor of continuously administering it.

Looking back a lot of things make sense now that I researched the disease and apparently a lot of it has to do with an individuals immune system. I first got the infection in Cuba where basic nutritious things like milk and meat can be hard to come by and expensive. After a few days of heavy drinking I noticed it was more likely for the boils to appear or if already midly present they would intensify. The last few days in Cuba I partied pretty hard with friends while the neck infection was in a mild state. By the time I got to Costa Rica it was huge. Also on the last few days of my trip, of course, I had to go out with a bang and partied non stop which probably caused the most recent one. As soon as I got back family and friends that haven't seen me in a year wanted to catch up so the partying didn't end in Colombia. Another observation was that during my journey through Brazil I fell in love, not only with Brazilian women, but also with their smoothies and drank a couple a day. Looking back, I didn't get any boils while in Brazil though I partied hard there as well. In conclusion Turmeric worked amazingly, it might have prevented me from getting boils, and heavy drinking for a few nights in a row would cause boils to either appear or, if already present, intensified the infection. I thank Earth Clinic so much for this great information and God for always having an answer within nature so as not to be exploited by western medicine."

Keep in mind, however, that the good folks at Earth Clinic merely collect this information from readers. They do NOT offer medical advice, and always recommend that you consult with your health care provider. Their standard disclaimer is located at the bottom of each page. Just FYI.

Should you find that you have lost your health insurance, keep Earth Clinic in mind. There's hundreds of folk remedies offered for hundreds of ailments. Whatever is bothering you might be listed, and you can read up on what other people have been doing for the same problem. You might find it useful and try some of the simple remedies. You might even get adventurous and try some of the odder treatments. One thing you will note over and over again: folks that have a certain problem, have spent fortunes on doctor visits or trips to the ER for treatments that ultimately didn't work, and how happy they are when they try a simple home remedy and find that IT WORKS. These stories, in this essential form, are repeated constantly at Earth Clinic. There's got to be something going on here, don't you think?

I have tried some of the remedies I found at Earth Clinic. Right now I'm treating my cats' ear mites with a remedy I found in the pet section--yellow dock root extract in water for the mites. The cats hate it when I put the drops in their ears, but they are getting better!

I learned a long time ago not to trust the medical system fully, and so I have a strong opinion on this topic. And yet I also realize that to each their own--do whatever you are most comfortable with and works for you. But try to keep an open mind: sometimes it is the simplest things that work the best. Best of all, these remedies are cheap, easy to get your hands on them, and effective. If one remedy doesn't work, there's usually multiple remedies for any particular problem and you can simply pick another one to try.

Here's another sample post to EC:

APPLE CIDER VINEGAR FOR ARTHRITIS
11/11/2008: Jack from Sheffield, United Kingdom writes: "Hi to all those in the UK who are thinking of using ACV, it is absolutely amazeing! I am a 60 yr old RN and have had severe pain in my hips and lower back for 3 years, medics said it is because Im on my feet all day on the wards and gave me NSAIDs which were not effective and I would wake up in pain every morning and it was becoming so restrictive I'd even contemplated a double hip replacement. I then read about ACV on this site and gave it a go,WOW!! within 48 hours all the burning in my hips had gone! I could not believe it,even my wife noticed how fluently I was moving again, I use 2 tablespoons with honey twice a day, its even more effective with 72.5mgs Aspirin with my night time dose, Aspirin is a known anti inflammatory, I really cannot thank this site enough.As a person who has worked in the health profession for thirty years and put my complete trust in its remedy,s it is a real eye opener and has definately changed my opinions, Good luck everyone.

Give Earth Clinic a whirl when you have the time. It makes very interesting reading, at the very least, and you may find a solution to a physical problem that has been bothering you for a long time. Good luck, and let me know what you think.
Onwards,
HM

Remarkable Case of Cured Cancer

From Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices

A Very Remarkable Case of Cured Cancer

Without a doubt the most controversial application for the internal use of red clover has been as an alternative cancer treatment. It was originally included in the famous Hoxsey formula and more recently in Essiac, another popular herbal cancer remedy. Scientists who've evaluated the herb extensively now believe it is the flavonoids present in the plant which account for its dramatic anti-cancer activity. One study published in Cancer Research (48 (22) 6256-61, 1988) found that the total flavonoids from the blossoms inhibited by 40% the activity of a common laboratory carcinogen called benzopyrene, a compound always found in charcoal-broiled foods. An even earlier study in the same journal (30: 1922-25, July 1970) observed that one of these flavonoids, in particular quercetin, kept this same benzopyrene from becoming active in the liver and small intestines, where liver and colo-rectal cancers frequently occur.

However the real proof for red clover's effectiveness in fighting off cancer comes from letter that appeared in the New York Evening Post sometime in the last century, but was originally printed in the Phrenological Journal of December 1867. It is reproduced here in its entirity and was submitted by the recovered cancer patient himself, one Truman Woodford of West Hartford, Connecticut:

"When about fifty years of age (AD 1836), there appeared near the outer corner of my left eye a small scab, which slowly enlarged and soon became painful, attended with constant itching, or rather a twitching sensation.

"Feeling anxious about it, I applied to a physician in Hartford, Conn., who said it was a cancerous affection, but advised me to let it alone and give it no medical treatment. As the affected place continued to enlarge and the irritation increased, I applied to another physician, who attempted to cure it by applying caustic, which treatment proved an injury instead of a benefit.

"The sore increased in size, spreading over the temple, eating off both lids of the eye, discharging matter constantly, destroying the sight of the eye, and causing almost insufferable pain. Thus matters stood at the end of twenty years' affliction, and I had reached the age of seventy. I had up to that time consulted six physicians, from none of whom did I receive any relief. The cancer now assailed the substance of the eyeball, eating it out entirely. The sore spread over the temple to the size of the palm of my hand, and below the eye to about three-quarters of an inch.

"I then applied to an eminent physician in New York (Dr. Blake), and remained under his treatment one year without any benefit, but rather grew worse. I now gave up all hope of recovery, ceased taking medicines, and merely washed the affected part in cold water. During the summer of 1865, it had become so painful that I slept but little, was very weak and nervous, was confined to my bed most of the time, and expected soon to die; my friends thinking I could not live until the following spring.

"In the month of August, 1865, I heard of a remarkable cure of cancer by the use of a tea made from common red clover. Thinking it was at least harmless, I used it as a common beverage, making it very strong, and also washed the eye with the same. In less than two months, to my utter astonishment, the pain entirely ceased, and the sore began to heal at the inner corner of the eye. The healing process went on rapidly until the eye socket was healed over, forming a skin as smooth as that on my cheek, and the redness is now gone.

"There is not over my eye even the semblance of a scar, and but a few scars remain on the temple. My sleep is now sweet, my appetite good, am more fleshy than before, my general health has never been better, and I think I have as few infirmities, and am as hale and hearty as any man of my age, which is now eighty years."

The New York Evening Post introduced the old gentleman's letter with this brief testimonial gathered by one of its correspondents:

Mr. Joel Reed, son-in-law of Mr. Truman Woodford, has a cousin residing in Great Barrington, Mass., the wife of a hotel-keeper, who had cancer in one breast, which became so serious that the whole gland was removed by a surgeon and the wound healed.

"About a year after the cancerous tumor broke out in the other breast and was beginning to be serious. Mr. Reed, seeing the good effects of the clover tea and wash on his father-in-law, Mr. Truman Woodford, wrote to his cousin informing her of the fact, and urging her to try the remedy. She adopted it at once, and in a few months was entirely healed, and at the time of receiving this information, which was a year or more afterwards, no reappearance of the tumor has occurred."

The sum and substance of everything presented conclusively points to just one thing: so long as red clover blossoms are available for making a tea, there should never be any reason why cancer victims need to go to medical doctors to have their bodies poisoned by chemotherapy drugs and/or to have their entire immune systems nuked into oblivion with lethal doses of cobalt radiation.

And in the event that the cancer is too well advanced for even this herb to do any good, then may I suggest that the individual make his or her peace with God and spend whatever time remains at home instead of the hospital. By doing so, one passes on with his or her dignity and respect intact, rather than enduring the horrible pain of barbaric medical practices. At least this way it is natural and more humane than the other.

*************************

There you have it, folks. BTW, that is Heinerman's thoughts, not my own. I don't give medical advice as I am not a doctor. However, I thought I should share this story with you all, because I consider it important information for readers to have. Much preferable, would be for all of you to buy this book, as it is full of anecdotes and stories like the above. If you get a used copy, it is very affordable, and it is a remarkable book. One of the best on herbs that I have found, not especially in depth, but definitely encyclopedic. Most herbs- for-diseases books are set up in chapters by the complaint or disease. This one is set up in chapters by the herb or spice, and is very easy to read. My apologies to Heinerman and his publishers for citing such a large portion of text, it is undoubtable more than fair use.

A bit more on red clover. This is from a Peterson's Field Guide, Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke.

Red Clover

Trifolium pratense

Uses:

Historically, flower tea has been used as an antispasmodic, expectorant, mild sedative, "blood purifier"; for asthma, bronshitis, spasmodic coughs; externally, a wash has been used as a folk cancer remedy, including the famous Hoxsey treatment, and for athlete's foot, sores, burns, and ulcers. Flowers formerly smoked in anti-asthma cigarettes. Science has not confirmed traditional uses. However, Red Clover contains many biologically active compounds, including phytoestrogenic isoflavones, such as genistein, diadzen, formononetin, and biochaninA, among others. Phytoestrogens activate estrogen receptors in mammals. Epidemiological studies provide evidence that certain dietary components can have a significant effect on the incidence and location of cancers in humans. Standardized extracts of Red Clover, produced in Australia, are now sold in the US. One tablet contains 40 mg of phytoestrogens, 8 times the amount consumed in the typical American diet.

Onwards,

HM

Home Remedies from Amish Country

Home Remedies from Amish Country
Revised 5th Edition
Published by Abana Books, Ltd.
6523 Township Rd 346
Millersburg OH 44654


I purchased my copy from the Amish bulk store. It is available used from Amazon for a couple of bucks (+shipping at $3.99). It is a very interesting book, heavy on the use of apple cider vinegar, which is all around great stuff. Garlic is big in the book as well. And there's lots and lots of home remedies, all submitted by Amish folks.

The copyright info does say that no part of "this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form ... except for brief excerpts in reviews." I'm including these short paragraphs in my review here as it is a very good synopsis of how disease, toxemia, germs and and unhealthy body work. This section is called Body Cleanser I:

Cleansing the soul if just as important for good health as cleansing the body. Man has been held in the bondage of misery and suffering with negative, destructive influences from licensed and unlicensed witchcraft. [Wonder if the author of the quote is talking about mainstream medicine here?? HM]

Cleansing the body is basic for the elimination and correction of every kind of disease. When we become sick of being sick, then we will learn the truth and it will teach us that we can be free from any disease. Deficiencies in the raw materials our bodies assimilate and use for cell building produce deteriorated cells which in turn will produce toxins. Disease, aging and death are the result of accumulated toxins and congestions throughout the entire body. Germs and virses exist in excess only when we provide a breeding ground in which they can survive and multiply. They are in the body to help break down acculmulated toxins and congestions. Do you think that a microscopic microbe which will make you sick when you are well and strong, that you will ever become strong enough thereafter to throw it off? Infection and fever are not caught; they were created to burn off the excess wastes and toxins our bodies have accumulated. With this understanding, all diseases are varied expressions of the one disease called toxemia. This is briefly defined as a saturation of toxins and congestions in the body. As a person reaches of limit of what the body can tolerate, a good house cleaning is started, and one of nature's most effective methods is to start loosening and eliminating these toxins and congestions with bacterial or viral action. As this action progresses, we become sick and feverish, and the body's other resources kick into action to clean us out as fast as possible. As disease-producing toxins are expelled from our bodies, deficiencies must be restored. Thus a cleansing diet must also incude the proper material for building healthy cells.

.....

Lemons and limes are the richest source of vitamins and minerals of any food known to man. This lemon juice diet has been in use by many thousands of people since 1940 and may be used with complete safety for every known type of sickness. Other reasons to use this diet are for resting the digestive system, losing excess weight, and better assimilation of nutrients from food. Using this diet 3 or 4 times per year will do wonders for your health. Follow the diet for a minimum of 10 days and up to 40 days for extremely serious conditions. All the nutrition needed during the cleansing period is supplied in the diet. This diet does not have any dangerous side effects. Do not substitute any ingredients and make it exactly as shown.
2 Tablespoon lemon or lime juice from fresh fruit only (about 1/2 lemon)
2 T pure maple syrup (less if more weight loss is desired)
1/10 tsp cayenne powder (may start with a dash and increase amount)
Combine the above ingredients and add enough medium hot or cold water to fill a 10 oz glass. Pure sorghum may be used as a lesser substitute when maple syrup isn't available. About 6-12 glasses per day are sufficient. Extra water or mint tea may be taken if desired. When you get hungry just have another glass of lemonade. No other food, vitamins or supplements should be taken during the full period of the diet. If you do, you may defeat your efforts at cleansing the body.

End quote. Also recommended is a herbal tea laxative every morning, aiming at 2-3 bowel movements a day. To come off the diet, drink a glass of orange or grape juice for the first 2-6 meals, adding raw and cooked veggies in small portions after that.

I can vouch for this fast (I call it a fast, they call it a diet) as being very beneficial. Your body will rid itself of toxins, which will make you feel pretty sickly: headaches, dizziness, weakness, vomiting might occur. This is a sign that the fast is working--as your body dumps toxins into the bloodstream on route to elimination, you feel sick--that's the toxins being kicked out and released. Be patient, pray, and let your body do what it knows will work and rid you of excess rotten crap in your system.

The book carries the all important disclaimer that this information is presented only for historical and educational purposes: it is NOT medical advice. Readers should always consult with their physician before trying any home remedies, and etc. That disclaimer applies to this blog as well.

The book is divided into Baby Care, Health Care, Weight Loss, Salves, and an Index. A majority of the remedies include one or more of the following: apple cider vinegar, lemons, onions, garlic, cayenne pepper, honey, and baking soda. The herbs include: ginger, feverfew (for migraine), plantain, boneset, red clover blossoms, goldenseal, echinacea, aloe vera, and more.

Here's a typical remedy that is repeated by many Amish in the book:

The way to stay healthy and alert, well into old age, is to combine one teaspoon of cider vinegar, one teaspoon of honey, and a full glass of water. Take this tonic three times a day, 1/2 hour before meals. Sylvia Shetler

Here's another one, also repeated many times:

1 tablespoon [baking] soda in a glass of water for 3 day, never more than 3 days, the body would become too alkaline. The body is in an acid state when flu strikes. Simon S. Schwartz

The body's acid/alkaline balance is very important. Disease strikes when your system becomes too acidic. Assisting your system to become more alkaline is important.

Here's another remedy for kidney stones:

Wash six ordinary size red beets. Do not slice them. In 3 quarts of water, boil them slowly so as not to boil the water away. After an hour, strain the water and bottle it, placing it in the ice box to prevent souring. Drink 3 glasses of this a day. The drink simply dissolves the stones, and you don't even pass them. Mrs. Lloyd Kuepfer

In our household, we use a lot of home remedies. We do not have health insurance and tend not to use the mainstream medical system much. For one, it has priced itself out of our range. For another, we don't agree with allopathic methods or theory. It is not enough to supress symptoms. Far more important is to get to the root cause of the problem. So Home Remedies from Amish Country is a natural for us, and we have used and will use many of the suggested remedies.

This is an excellent little book, full of interesting ideas. For about $5, used from Amazon, it can't be beat. Then all you have to do is follow the educational and historical non-advice. :)
HM

The Weird Skin Mole Treatment

I am sorry that I don't do pictures, or at least haven't yet developed the habit. I tend to prefer low-tech these days, since low-tech, 19th century is what I expect we'll be seeing a lot of in the future. Peak oil and all that. But a picture or two might have helped here.

Anyway, a while ago I was posting on the myriad uses for garlic, and I put up a long quote from a book called Garlic: Nature's Super Healer on using garlic for melanoma. And later I said that I'd try sliced garlic on my husband's weird mole.

This is an interim report. Michael has a small mole on his upper thigh. It was grayish, papery looking, pretty ugly. We have no idea if it is melanoma or what it is. For us, it's a weird mole. Three days ago I started putting a slice of fresh garlic I bought from the Amish farm I go to. I put the slice over the mole and then put a bandaid over that with some medical tape over it to hold it in place. I've changed the garlic each day.

The mole seems more tan now. Paler than it was before, and not papery-looking any more. It might be a tad smaller--I didn't measure. Is the mole disappearing? We'll see. Garlic can't hurt Michael, so this "treatment" can't harm the "patient." We'll see if it does any good.

I'll report again in a week or so. BTW, there is a very cool page on folk remedies that people use. It is called Earth Clinic and they have a huge database of home cures that people are using, reports both positive and negative if something worked for them. If you're interested, check it out. I find it fascinating and I'll be trying some of these myself. My thanks to Ra for sending me there!
HM

More on Garlic: Nature's Super Healer

This book is so good I want to share another item with readers.

This section, I'm supplying whole, from the book:

Melanoma . . . Can't Argue with Success

We said it before, we'll say it again. We're writers who do research. We have no professional medical background. We're reporting and not prescribing. We urge you to seek out, find, and work with a health professional whose approach to your well-being is in keeping with your own. You want a doctor who is not in the panic business--someone who can properly diasgnose the health challenge, then discuss the conventional, complementary, and alternative options for whatever ails you.

If you see a beauty mark on your body that has an irregular border and whose color seems to move beyond that border, or there's a nodelike dark patch of skin that's changing in size, we think it's very important that you show it to your doctor.

And now that we're on the record with our suggestion, we're reporting the experience of Bill Anderson, managing partner of Garlic Research Labs and Garlic Valley Farms, with what he thought may have been melanomas.

In the course of doing business, Bill Anderson comes into contact with lots of farmers. Here are Bill's own words:

One day, one of those farmers told me about a melanoma that he had on his lip. The farmer took a garlic clove, sliced it, and put it on the melanoma, then covered it with a bandage. From time to time, he'd change the garlic clove and put on a new bandage. Within two weeks the thing on his lip completely disappeared. Another time this farmer had a melanoma on the back of his neck. He did the same thing and sure enough, it also disappeared completely.

While Bill was leading up to his own experience, he shared this one too:

I had dealings wiht this ol' country lady in Little River, who worked in a feed store. She told me, "Oh yeah, that garlic is good for everything. Here we use it for skin cancer. We had this one farmer who had it on his arm. He drives a tractor and the arm is always out in the sun. The doctor said he couldn't do nothin' for him, so I mixed up some onions and garlic and made a mince out of it and rubbed it all over his arm, then I wrapped it up. In two weeks the skin cancer was all gone."

The time had come for Bill's own personal story:

I had this black mole on my neck for a couple of years. It kept getting bigger. When it was about the size of a penny, only fatter--that thing was real ugly--I got to thinkin' about the success the farmers had getting rid of their problem, and said, "Hell, I'll put some of my own garlic juice on there." [Bill's company, Garlic Valley Farms, bottles and sells 99.3 percent pure garlic juice.] I dipped my finger down into the bottle and smeared it on, just that one time. In a little over a week, maybe closer to two weeks, the thing on my neck disappeared. Then I got the same thing on my right temple. I put the garlic juice on it and it also disappeared. It's the God's truth.

In the 1850s, Louis Pasteur recognized garlic's ability to kill bacteria. More than a century later, biochemist Sidney Belman of New York University Medical Center reported that by painting garlic oil on the skin of laboratory animals, he could inhibit the development of skin cancers. Extensive research continues, with extremely encouraging results.

***************** end of book section*******************

Now that is interesting. I too, would advise seeing a health professional if you ever see a funny bit of skin turning strange on you. However, in the bizarre world we live in, if a health professional isn't there to be consulted, you might keep this bit in mind . . . and keep some garlic on hand as well.

This is all for information and entertainment only, of course. Medical advice is beyond my purview and my calling.
Onwards,
HM

Garlic is Better than Ten Mothers

Garlic: Nature's Super Healer
by Joan Wilen and Lydia Wilen

What a neat and informative book. It's available from Amazon as a hardcover for $30, or it starts at $.75 used. Guess which I would buy. :) I love Amazon, but not that much.

I got this copy from the library, one of my favorite places. It was written by the Wilens, who are not food writers per se, but researchers, writers and television hosts, as the back book cover says. They write on folk healing and remedies, which is currently an interest of mine. This is a terrific book to have as a resource, for it turns out that garlic has many more uses than I have ever considered, and I've used garlic as a home remedy for many things--but not athlete's foot, nightmares, lyme disease or melanoma. Now, however, after reading the Wilen's book, I think I would use it. You bet.

Garlic is something everyone should have in their home, for both food and medicine. If you can't stand it as food, then I pity you truly. Some folks can't eat it or maybe even shouldn't, if they have a medical reason. . . . Even so, you should still keep it for medicines. It's been used for centuries upon centuries by every culture that has ever become aware of it. I consider garlic super-food and super-medicine. In our home, garlic goes into everything except desserts. We eat it raw daily. Michael likes his clove through a garlic press, followed by a teaspoon of jam or jelly, but he's civilized. I chew mine and swallow it (as quickly as possible!) with water.

Garlic: Nature's Super Healer has the following chapters:
No Matter How You Say It . . . Garlic in 45 languages
Garlic's Believe It or Not (vampires, etc.)
Garlic as Medicine (general doses, supplements, raw, suggestions on other foods to take it with)
Remedies (a list of illnesses and complaints and garlic's uses in them)
Garlic Remedies for Your Pets
Health-Giving Garlic Preparations (garlic oil, baths, enemas, formulas, juice, syrups, etc.)
Growing Garlic
Garlic as Food
Recipes (some incredible kick-ass recipes!)
Appendices with Garlic Festivals and Resources
Bibliography
Index

Pretty much everything you'd want to know about this godsend to mankind. I'll include a few excerpts here for your entertainment (the authors have a great sense of humor) and information.

How/Why Does Garlic Work:

The Wilens quote William Blot, chief biostatistician of the National Cancer Institute: "Every time you slice or crush a clove of garlic, you initiate a complex sequence of biochemical events. The merest bruise unleashes an enzyme called allinase, which goes to work converting another molecule, alliin, into allicin. That the reaction is instantaneous is obviously because at precisely this moment, garlic begins to smell like garlic.

"Allicin spontaneously decomposes into a group of odoriferous compounds which provide much of garlic's medicinal punch. Those compounds quickly form still others--dozens of them--depending on whether the bulb is fresh or aged, raw or cooked, natural or processed in pills, extracts, and capsules.

"Garlic's quicksilver nature creates problems for researchers. No one really knows which form delievers the greatest benefit."

I'm glad "researchers" have problems, aren't you? Keeps 'em busy and off the streets. At least, in studying this, they are not studying what makes dogs bark or why men are attracted to busty women....

In the Believe It or Not Section, there's a bit on how vampires became associated with (and repelled by) garlic:

Everyone knows that you repel a vampire with garlic. But do you know how the legend came to be? Dr. James Scala explains: "Porphyria is a hereditary disease that occurred in isolated areas of central Europe, especially Romania, where Transylvannia is located. People with porphyria need iron in the form of hemoglobin from blood. They must avoid sunlight or any strong indoor light or their skin becomes inflamed and produces toxins that make them very sick. They are exceptionally hairy, have large teeth, and very light skin. Most importantly, diallyl sulfides make them violently ill. Garlic is the best source of diallyl sulfides. Therefore, whoever has hereditary porphyria looks and acts like a vampire and will avoid garlic like the plague."

I would never have known this (and don't really need to know it now) but I find this kind of information fascinating.

Here's a cold remedy I'm going to definitely going to try:

If garlic is rough for you to take, even though you have a cold and may not be able to taste anything, then peel and crush 6 cloves of garlic and mix them into 1/2 cup of white lard or petroleum jelly. Spread it on the soles of the feet. To keep the feet warm and to prevent messing up the bed linens, put each foot in a plastic bag, secure the bag by tying ribbon or cord around the plastic (not too tight, you don't want to stop your circulation), and leave it on overnight. It should help bring down a fever and clear up the cold.

Or chop it up and put in your socks before you put them on. Seems like that might work too.

Here's something you can do for gangrene, if there is no doctor or other medical professional around. The authors consulted Lalitha Thomas, an herbalist, for this suggestion:

To prevent or possibly retard gangrene or blood poisoning, pack the entire area thickly with pulverized garlic directly in and around the wound. Clean out dead tissue and any pus, etc., with strong garlic water (see Preparations chapter). One way to do this is to soak the area for 10 minutes and then repack it with a fresh garlic poultice (see Preparations) at least 3 times a day. In some cases the red lines of blood poisoning actually begin retracting within a few hours, or at least by overnight. At this point in the process the dead gangrenous flesh may start cleaning out of the wound. With that the re-infection cycle is stopped, and the wound begins healing normally.

I've read of treating gangrene with maggots--I would certainly try the garlic first!

The Wilens also include a section on how to get rid of garlic breath--fenugreek seeds, cloves, cinammon, wine, milk, coffee bean, but the best way they've found to take raw garlic is to crush up the clove, mix it into a dollop of yogurt and swallow it down. Avoiding garlic breath is a noble thing to do for your friends, I guess.

There is a lot of information here useful for just about everyone.

Next time you're feeling sickly, try a garlic footbath. "The footbath will draw toxins from the entire body, soothe tension and anxiety, rejuvenate sore or tired feet and legs, help treat athlete's foot, speed recovery from colds and flu, relieve toxic buildup from a daily job environment that may be physically or emotionally polluted or stressful, and much, much more."

The Preparations chapter includes Lalitha Thomas's Enhanced Garlic Formula. It is well-known that garlic is an antibiotic and the authors report that this formula doubles or even triples the "strength and effectiveness of garlic alone, while it helps the body to more quickly assimilate the garlic and thus put it to work." Here it is:

Enhanced Garlic Formula

Ingredients
1 part garlic powder (bought in bulk at health food or herb store)

1/4 part cayenne powder
1 part powdered calcium ascorbate (a form of Vitamin C that's available at health food stores and has a potency of 1/4 teaspoon = 1 gram vitamin C)

Depending on the amount of the formula you intend to make, 1 part can equal 1 pinch, 1 tablespoon, 1 ounce, and so on.

If you prefer, you can mix only the garlic and cayenne together as powders and take 1 gram of vitamin C in tablet form with each dose as needed.

It is advisable to make a large enough quantity so you always have extra on hand for emergency use. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for best shelf life.


Well, hopefully this will be enough to get you going with garlic. Keep some at home, handy in the kitchen, and you'll always have one of God's best medicines available to you.

Note and Disclaimer: This information is for entertainment and information only. It should not be taken as medical advice.

Have to get that nonsense out of the way. Keep in mind when reading here, OK?


Next post: Where to find garlic outdoors for when the stores close. :)

Country Folk Medicine

Country Folk Medicine: Tales of Skunk Oil, Sassafras Tea, & Other Old-Time Remedies

Gathered by Elisabeth Janos

(I got this book from the library, but I'm going to have to buy a copy. It is one I want to have around.)

Elisabeth Janos had the sterling idea of gathering stories from old folks about what kinds of things they did when there was a medical problem, but a doctor wasn’t around, or a family couldn’t afford a doctor. She went to senior centers and nursing homes around New England, Yankee-land, and simply asked this question to the elders. And she got answers, lots of answers, many in agreement, about various folk remedies. This is a fascinating book on many levels: what folks actually did, what kinds of remedies they used, what worked or seemed to work, how the remedies were applied, etc.

Janos wisely allows the elderly folk to tell us in their own words--she provides lots of quotes and stories. There’s a real feeling of authenticity here. For instance, for colds:

Three drops of turpentine on a spoon of sugar--the greatest thing there is for a cold. My doctor said that a long time ago. Take it at night and in the morning the cold is better.

Cut raw onions in big slices and place in a pie plate. Cover them with brown sugar and put them in a warm oven. The heat melts the sugar and goes through the onions and makes a syrup. When it’s cool, take a teaspoon whenever you cough. (She Survives had this in her post on Favorite Herbals a while back. Seems this one works!)

What did these rural country people use for medicines? Whatever they had available in their kitchens, barns, woods, fields, and occasionally something from a store or a neighbor. During the early part of the last century, many people were poor. There wasn’t as many of doctors then either, and most rural doctors were combination allopath (what you think of as a normal doctor) and folk medicine. If a plantain leaf would work on a bee sting, then the rural doctor would get a plantain leaf. There wasn’t a big supply of pharmaceuticals either--most drugs hadn’t been developed yet. So people used what they had.


Janos includes a section on what she calls sewage pharmacology--the use of cow manure or human urine as medicines, usually topical, applied to the skin (mostly). The use of manure and urine is ancient, and is still practiced in parts of the world today. As it was in New England, early in the 20th century. For example:


We had a large family. When diphtheria struck, Father made us horse-bun tea. He steeped it on the stove. The ones that took it lived, the ones that didn’t died.


When we’d get poison ivy on our feet, Ma would have us walk barefoot through cowflops. I used to like the feel of it oozing between my toes.


In World War I, the outfit that my father-in-law was with had no gas masks. They would urinate on a hankie and put it over the face. It would keep gas away from the throat and eyes.


Hmmmmm. I don’t think I’d walk barefoot in cowflops for poison ivy, but if I’m in a crowd of people and the cops were spraying tear gas, then I would definitely try the piss in a hankie over the face trick. Seems to me that one has possibilities. Human urine is sterile and therefore potentially quite useful. I know that urine therapy is practiced in India (and probably worldwide), but it isn’t talked about in this country.


What were the medicines? Pine resins, spruce gum, Gilead balm beads, turpentine, kerosene, various animal oils such as skunk oil, snake oil, bear grease, clay and mud, herbal teas, spices, mustard plasters, dirty old socks, flannel, red ribbons and many other items were the pharmacopia of the day. The one that really caught my eye was skunk oil, yes indeed, the oil from a skunk. Actually, the oil that comes after you render the fat of a skunk.

The folks Janos interviewed swore by skunk oil. It was used for colds, rubbed on sore muscles, taken by the teaspoonful or as a few drops of the oil on a teaspoon of sugar, or rubbed on bones that didn't heal properly.

There is nothing so good as skunk oil, nothing. When I needed some of the oil, I would take a BB gun and shoot a skunk in the head. I never knew the oil to go rancid. We used it for everything. We rubbed it on the feet to keep them smooth and soft. Sometimes women even rubbed it in themselves for contraception.


My mother fell and shattered her elbow so that the arm was all contorted. I shot some skunks and hung them up. I took the fat and put it in a double boiler until it melted. I brought two quarts to my mother, with instructions to heat it until it was very warm, then massage it in and cover it with flannel. She was to do this at least two times daily. This straightened the arm in a year and a half. The doctor couldn't believe that the arm straightened, and asked her how she had done it.


Janos even includes a story where skunk oil was used to cure laryngitis.


It seems to me that there is much that is useful in this book, and since we’re all likely to be as poor as the folks in the book were, we might keep some of these items and stories of their use in mind. Unfortunately, turpentine and kerosene are not made the same way anymore (says Janos), so it probably would be ineffective and dangerous to use them today. But for the piney resins, kitchen produce, herbs and spices and other ingredients? I would give most of them a try.


You see, I don’t think people used these things medicinally simply because they were “dumb,” or “hicks” who didn’t know any better. I’m sure they used them because they WORKED--maybe not every single time, but often enough. These were cures passed down from generation to generation. Hell, some of these cures go all the way back to the Egyptians and ancient Greeks and Arabs.


I’m not sure where the dirty sock for a sore throat idea came from, but it seems to me there must have been something to it. Some odd chemical/electrical/magnetical or who knows what reason.


For a sore throat, we’d wrap a dirty sock around the neck. I’d use my brother’s or father’s. All there were, were wool socks in those days. You’d wear them five or six days in a row--they didn’t wash every day like they do now, had to wash by hand.


When I had a sore throat, I would grease my throat with chicken fat or lard. Then I would take my mother’s or father’s warm, dirty sock and tie it around my neck before I went to bed. It really made me sweat.


Hmmmm. I may try it. Just to see if it would really work, because if it did, how curious, how interesting would that be? How could I explain it? Things like this make me wonder.


Here's one cure that is really odd. A spry old gent interviewed by Janos said it was an old Indian cure for broken bones and sprains:

Take a half pint of night crawlers and a half pint of heavy cream. Bring it to a boil, simmer it for ten minutes. Let it cool. Skim off the top. Use the stuff you skimmed off for broken bones; run it on a few times a day. I had a friend that broke some fingers adn he couldn't move them. After two months of this treatment, his fingers were fine.


This is a fascinating book and I highly recommend it if you are interested in simple ways of healing. As always, take it all with a grain of salt, be curious and openminded, but don’t be stupid. If something seems dangerous, it probably is, so don’t do it. Or do it at your own risk.

HM


PS. Sorry--can't resist. Some more info on Skunk Oil. :)


The only place I could find to purchase skunk oil was from Cabelas, where it is sold as a product to kill human scent for hunters. If I can’t get one of our young men to trap or shoot me a skunk, maybe I'll just buy some from Cabelas.


Where/What is Skunk Oil?


Skunk Oil A:

Skunk oil is an oil that is obtained from the two lateral glands that run the length of a skunks back. Skunks store fats in these glands for use during hybernation or semi-hybernation in warmer climes. There is very little odor to this oil. Skunk oil was used by the Native Americans as a healing balm or as a liniment. When rendered from the glands, over a low heat, it has the consistency a SAE10 motor oil and the feel of a coal oil when applied to the skin. It has gives warming sensation as a mild liniment would.The early explorers and fur buyers, especially in Canada, found that this oil was a very useful addition to their medical kits. They paid the Indians a premium price for his product.


Skunk Oil B:
However, in Country Folk Medicine, I got a different impression of what skunk oil is:


When I needed some of the oil, I would have my husband go out and shoot a skunk. I would skin it, clean it, and cut it into quarters; then I’d put it in a hot oven to get all the grease out. After it was about half cooked, I’d put slices of raw potato in the bottom of the pan to clarify the oil. When we used it on rheumatism, it’d make the ache stop.


Another article on skunk oil.


As far as I’m concerned, modern American medicine has shown that it is far more interested in money than in healing, and is therefore mostly worthless. Trauma care, however, is said to be great here. I’ve only had that experience once, and the docs and nurses in the ER did a fine job of patching me up after a car accident. But American medicine for diseases? Illnesses? Actual sickness? So they can apply as many life-threatening drugs and treatments as can hike up the bill? Even granting them some humanity, in that they really wish to help people, I think modern doctors, allopaths, have taken a really wrong turn with their reliance on pharmaceuticals and invasive medicine, and operations.


No thanks. I’ll stick with herbs, nutrients, real living food, and maybe even some skunk oil. If my husband thinks garlic syrup is bad . . . Just wait til he gets dosed with skunk oil. This blog may end abruptly, in that case. We’ll just have to wait and see. Onwards!
HM