Mountain Medicine

I decided to write a piece about folk medicine while I was lying on my side with apple cider vinegar in my ear. I didn't just do that for kicks, I do have an earache. Most of these remedies and old wives tales come from the South and Appalachia. My source for some of these is "The Foxfire Book," an anthology of Appalachian culture. The rest are tales I've grown up hearing and being subjected to. Please do not try these at home, or if you do, I wash my hands of all legal responsibility.

• Arthritis: drink a mixture of honey, vinegar, and moonshine. Drink alfalfa tea. A magnet draws it out.
• Asthma: Soak pine wood in gin until it turns brown, and drink twice a day. Suck salt water up your nose. Sniff tobacco. Swallow spiderwebs. Keep a pet Chihuahua. Smoke until you choke. Drill a hole in an oak tree and put a lock of hair in it. 
• Bleeding: Apply spiderweb. Turpentine and brown sugar. Lamp black. Soot and lard. Cigarette paper. Kerosene oil. Pine resin.
• Blood-building: Cherry bark tea. Eat fried poke salad. 
• Broken arm: Set with red clay and water.
• Burns: Apply hot coals and pour water over them. Boiled chestnut leaves. Table salt. Castor oil and egg whites. Scrape the inside of a white potato and leave them on the burn until they turn black and the burn turns white; then apply Vaseline and talcum powder. If you have never seen your father, you can blow on the burn to heal it. Lard and flour.  
• Chest congestion: Kerosene, turpentine and lard applied to the chest. Mutton tallow. Drink rock candy dissolved in whiskey. Raw honey. Eat the rendered fat of a polecat. 
• Colds: Pine needle tea. Red pepper in moonshine. Lamb's tongue and whiskey tea. Sauerkraut brine. 
• Colic: Breast milk with kerosene.
• Constipation: Mayapple root and castor oil powder.
• Cough: Whiskey with sugar, drink hot.
• Cramps (feet): Turn your shoes upside down every night.
• Croup: Roasted onion juice. Groundhog oil on the chest.
• Diarrhea: Oak bark tea. Blackberry juice.
• Dropsy: Apple vinegar, snake root, flowers, and forty-five nails. Combine in a pot and let soak for nine days. Add bottle of rum and simmer for four days. Cheers.
• Dysentery: Willow tea. Strawberry leaf tea.
• Earache: Sewing machine oil. Cabbage juice. Break apart a Betty bug at the neck and square a few drops of blood into the ear. Warm urine.
• Eye ailments: Remove a sty by rubbing the tip of a black cat's tail on it.
• Fever: Tie a bag of fingernail clippings to a live eel and let it swim away.
• Flu: Chew rabbit tobacco.
• Fretful children: Catnip.
• Gall Bladder trouble: Whiskey and Black Draught.
• Headache: Tie wilted beet leaves to the forehead. Tie flour sack around your head. Smear crushed onions on the head.
• Heart problems: Eat raw garlic.
• Hiccups: Tablespoon of peanut butter.
• Insomnia: Boneset leaf tea.
• Bug bites and stings: For stings apply tobacco juice. Chiggers use butter and salt. Black Widow: drink whiskey between 3 and 7 pm. You won't get drunk, you'll get better. Burn sulfur to kill bed bugs.
• Hives: Catnip tea.
• Poison Ivy: Apply inside of a banana or green tomato juice.
• Okra sting: Wash with boiled copperas. 
• Skin diseases: Apply peach leaves and corn meal. 
• Itch: Gunpowder and sulfur.
• Inflammation: Bind meat or clay to bruise.
• Freckles: Apply stump water.

I think that's enough mountain medicine for tonight, don't you? I plan to explore this more soon though. And thank God for modern doctoring, yeah? I'll be first in line when the office opens tomorrow. I'd rather take some pills or get a shot in my rear any day over pouring warm urine or bug blood in my ear.