Let's Remedy the Situation
December 26, 1999, article four

Health care, health care, health care. We want to reform it, insure it, make it less costly.

But was it so different a century ago? I don't think so. It's just that people's ideas about what promoted good health were a little different back then.

Here, courtesy of the ladies of Fostoria's First Presbyterian Church around the turn of the century, are some favorite home remedies, or "Medical Lore."

Check them out. If you see any that really strike your fancy, feel free to pass them along to the Surgeon General.

For Stomach. For heavy feeling in stomach, gas on your stomach, or pain about your heart -- take a heaping teaspoon of soda, juice of half a lemon in quart glass of water. Will give relief immediately. - Mrs. Margaret Sinclair

Toast Water for the Sick. Toast a piece of bread nicely, and put it in a bowl of warm water; then add a little butter, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. - Emma Lytle

For The Sick Room. Onions sliced and put in a sick room where there is any contagious disease are a reliable antiseptic. Replace every hour with a fresh one, burning the old. It is astonishing the rapidity with which one will shrivel away. - Mrs. J.P. Shupe

For Rheumatism. To 1 pint of gin, add one-half ounce of sulphur. Dose - one teaspoon twice a day. - Anonymous (Sure sounds good for what ails you!)

Cough Syrup. One large handful of hops to 1 quart of water; boil down to one pint. Strain and add 1 lb brown sugar. When cool, add 1 pint of good rum. - Mrs. S.O. Miniger

Recipe For Colds. Two cups loaf sugar, 1 cup rendered honey, juice of 3 lemons. Pour the juice into the sugar, and add the honey. Let it come to a boiling point, cool, and bottle. - Mrs. C.W. Atwell

Magnetic Toothache Cordial. One ounce best alcohol, one-half ounce laudanum, five-eighths ounce chloroform (liquid measure), one-half ounce camphor, one-half dram oil of cloves, three-quarters ounce sulphuric ether, one dram of lavender. - Mrs. L.D. Mussetter

A dram is an apothecary weight equal to 60 grains or 1/8 ounce. Since it's winter, we've saved the piece de resistance for last.

Pneumonia Cure. Take six to ten onions, according to size, chop fine, and put in a large spider over a hot fire, then add about the same quantity of rye meal, and vinegar enough to make a thick paste.

In the meantime, stir it thoroughly, letting it simmer five or ten minutes. Put in a cotton bag large enough to cover the lungs and apply to the chest as hot as the patient can bear.

When cool, apply another. A hot water bottle laid over the poultice retains the heat much longer. Continue applications until perspiration starts freely from the chest. This simple remedy has never failed. - Mrs. T.D. Adams

Whew! I doubt there's any manner of chest congestion that could stand up to that.

Anyhow, here's wishing all of you a healthy New Year, New Century and (even though it's still officially a year away) New Millennium