Old-Time Home Remedies by Dorothy Anna Birkholz When I walk through the stores, I am amazed at all the remedies for headaches, colds, sore throats, cuts and pains that fill the shelves. I am 82 years old. In my younger days we had no such things. I remember so many home remedies and the few things that could be bought back then. When I had a cough, my mother would thinly slice a big onion into a bowl. Then she would put in a cup of brown sugar and place a plate on top of the bowl. The next day she stirred the mixture. The juice of the onion melted the sugar and made a syrup. Mother would give me a tablespoonful when I coughed. I liked the taste and often sneaked a spoonful when Mother went into another room. When I got a sore throat, my mother put some honey in a cup and added lemon juice and whiskey. She then boiled some water, poured it into the cup and stirred the concoction well. I sipped this slowly and it soothed my throat. When my grandmother had a sore throat, she put a large spoonful of Vaseline in her mouth and swallowed it slowly. I am glad my mother did not give that to me! When I had a stomachache or gas, Mother put a tablespoon of baking soda in a cup of warm water. I had to drink it all down at once. It tasted terrible, but it cured my problem. The only laxatives I remember were Castoria and castor oil. I sure hated the taste of those! Baking soda was used for itchy rashes and insect bites. It was mixed with a little water to make a paste that was spread on the skin. In later years, a medicine called Lempke Drops came onto the market for upset stomach or gas. It looked like iodine and smelled like ether. You put sugar in a spoon and then added a few drops of the medicine. After you swallowed the sugar you had to drink a glass of warm water. It tasted awful but it sure did help. I do not remember this next cure, but my mother told me about it. When I was about 6 months old I got pneumonia. The doctor came to the house, as they did in those days. He laid me on the kitchen table and told my mother to slice onions into her large, black, iron frying pan and heat them on the stove. When they were warm, he spread them on my bare chest and covered me with a blanket. As soon as the next batch was heated, he brushed the ones off my chest and put the warm ones on. He did this for about an hour. Mother said I smelled terrible, but she could not wash or bathe me and had to keep me wrapped up in a blanket and keep me warm. She said it worked and I was well soon after. When I got a cold sore, my mother put on some Camphor Ice. It was a clear salve and came in a little tin box. It had a strong camphor smell. I also used my father's styptic pencil, which he used if he cut himself shaving. It looked like a piece of white chalk. I wet the tip with water and put it on the sore. It sure did sting! The only headache medicines I remember were aspirin and Bromo Seltzer. You could buy 12 aspirin in a small tin box, and my mother always carried one in her purse. When Vicks first came out, everyone thought it was wonderful. Mother rubbed it on my chest when I had a cold. She covered my chest with a piece of flannel and then covered me with several blankets. The vapors helped clear up my nose, too. As for cuts and scrapes, we had Carbolated Vaseline, which was good for healing scraped knees and elbows. Then Unguentine came out for burns and cuts. It came in a little metal tube. There were no Band-Aids. A strip torn from an old worn sheet was wrapped around the finger, arm or leg. About 6 inches from the end of the bandage, we tore the end in two and tied the ends together with two knots. It did not look too nice, but it was all we had. When they came out with adhesive tape later, we then used a strip of it to hold the bandage. The tape came on a metal roll. It was hard to remove from skin; it really hurt when we pulled it off. They had iodine in those days too, but few people used it because it sometimes burned the skin. It also stained the skin brown. Things sure were different in my day, but somehow we all managed to get by OK.