Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on October 12, 1970.
Relate Home Remedies At Antique Study Meet
Old Time Remedies, “home cures” dating back to pioneer days were topics at the Antique Study Group meeting held with Mrs. Dorothy Simmons. Seventeen members volunteered such information culled from scrapbooks they remember having been used in their families and through literature from a medical library.
Home remedies were handed down either by word of mouth or through notes exchanged by families and acquaintances usually pasted in a scrapbook by a housewife.
Among some common remedies was an alcoholic combination of 16 herbs used by Indians for female ailments which often produced a relaxing slumber, reported Mrs. Joseph Vaughn, topic mistress.
Colds were treated with a combination of honey and vinegar (also for insomnia); congested chests were salved with camphor, turpentine, mustard plaster, goose grease, skunk grease, bacon or garlic tied around the neck. Coughs were treated with onion juice and sugar, hoarhound and millen leaf, glycerine and honey, rock candy and rye whiskey.
In the case of stiffness, especially arthritis, two teaspoons of honey followed each meal and also the drinking of alfalfa tea; itching was alleviated with powered sulphur and lard; tea bags were used for burns (tetanic acid), and vinegar, applied with a cloth, butter and soda kept fresh burns from blistering; ammonia and soda helped bee stings.
Sassafras tea was commonly used in the spring to thin blood, which many believed thickened in the winter. Many families also grew the trees for the root in their back yards. A asphyaty bag hung around the neck was also believed to keep sickness away.
Doctors would grind their potions in a pestle and mortar, such as mothers did to devise quick relief一such as crushing fresh peach tree leaves in a cloth when a child stepped on a rusty nail as used by Mrs. Harry Lundstrom’s mother.
Children were dosed regularly with the proverbial castor oil and orange juice. Mrs. Dale Gilmore referred to an 1879 reprint cook book containing “household remedies”, and Mrs. Walter McLean showed members a “Book of Fluxes” printed in 1790. Mrs. Donald Zeller concluded the round-table discussion, relating the fact that she and her husband use a quantity of honey and vinegar each day, and that two teaspoons of white apple cider vinegar in a glass of water each meal reduces body weight.
Refreshments prior to the meeting were served by Mrs. Zeller and Mrs. Simmons’ mother Mrs. Margaret Spiro.
