TIP #415 - JUST PLAIN FOLK MEDICINE The early settlers often used folk medicine in treating their ills. One must remember that there was not a doctor in every town, no hospitals; the country doctor used to ride many miles on his faithful worn horse to make house calls; and midwives stepped in for childbirth. It is only for we born in later years that could go to the yellow pages and pick among hundreds of physicians. Medicines used by the physician were for the most part rudimentary also; they had to be shipped from the larger cities by horseback or wagons. Thus the early settlers learned to use what God had provided in the way of herbs and plants found in the woods surrounding their own cabins. Doctors often learned by practice. There were no manuals for the early practioneers, no catalogs of fancy medicines to draw from. It was not until the late 19th century and early 20th centuries that the average family could find reference materials. Little booklets listed all the known diseases and illnesses with home remedies that could be used to give relief. Those remedies most often used plants and herbs. It was said in the Kentucky Encyclopedia that over 200 plants in Kentucky have been identified as being used for medicinal purposes. I will not go into a long discussion of remedies but a few others would include: Sassafras, catnip, horehound and pennyroyal were all brewed into teas and used for coughs and colds. The leaves and twigs of red cedar were boiled and inhaled for bronchitis. Bloodroot, golden seal, wild ginger and jack-in-the-pulpit were used in a variety of ways. White pine pitch was used for wounds and sores. Hemlock bark which had been pulverized into a powder was used to slow down the flow of blood from a cut. Tannin from the bark of hemlock was used for burns. Cooked pine needles were used for toothache. Oil from the rhododendron plant was used for rheumatism. Plants such as boiled poke root which, when boiled and put into a tub was used for "the itch" or scabies. Hickory bark boiled with white pine needles and with sugar added to make it more palatable was the normal cough medicine. Jewel weeds were rubbed on poison ivy for relief. Natural aspirin came from the inner bark of the willow tree. The above remedies and hundreds of others, worked to a certain extent and were not particularly harmful to the user. In fact, many of these plants and herbs have found their way into "mainline" medicines. Some folk medicines, as the Kentucky Encyclopedia stated, "defied classification other than strange and mysterious." Shingles were cured by wringing the head from a "coal-black chicken in the dead of the night", and rubbing the blood on the blisters. Black chickens were also used to bring out chickenpox particularly if you go out to the chicken coop after the sun goes down and let one fly over you. A tea made from mixing hot water and corn silk was said to cure children of wetting the bed. A large red onion tied on the bed post was supposed to keep the sleeper from catching colds. Sore throats were cured by tying a dirty sock around one's neck. Nosebleeds were stopped by pressing an iron key on the back on one's neck. Sties were "cured" by going to a fork in the road, picking which fork to take and as you walked along repeat "Sty, sty, leave my eye, catch the next one passes by." Childbirth pain was supposedly relieved by putting a sharp axe or knife under the mattress with the sharp edge up. No thanks! To go along with the primitive, by our standards, practices of the early generations in Kentucky (and other states as well), were the healers. I had never been exposed to this until moving to Kentucky but am sure in my Illinois roots, there were the same. There were several varieties of healers - not physicians. Many still exist today and it defies explanation at times. Some healers could stop bleeding - even heavy arterial bleeding. Noted author and folk tale specialist, Lynwood Montell of south central Kentucky have told tales of these men. I can not remember all the details of how the healer would work but it involved walking around the house and by the time the man or woman returned, the bleeding would have stopped. Other healers could supposedly take the "fire" or horrid pain, out of a burn. Some could remove warts by "buying" them or "charming" them. Thrash doctors were quite well known. They believed and still believe in the superstition of the "seventh son of the seventh son". A child with thrash was cured by the healer blowing into their mouth seven times. The madstone was used for many years and treasured from generation to generation (even being mentioned in wills). This stone was taken from the stomach of a deer - only white stones could be used and were rare. It was dipped in milk and then placed over the bite of an animal on a human. If the stone adhered, the animal was rabid and it supposedly pulled the poison from the person, then fell off. If the bite was not rabid, the stone would not adhere. In our pursuit of the history of our early families in Kentucky, it is interesting to see how they lived and what they believed ... as well as how they tried to cure things from the common cold to life-threatening diseases. We've come a long way as they say, but I believe these hardy people also got it right a lot of times! Sources: http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvhs1041.html Kentucky Encyclopedia, 1992, University of Kentucky (c) Copyright 7 November 2002, Sandra K. Gorin, All Rights Reserved, sgorin@glasgow-ky.com Col. Sandi Gorin Publishing: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/ GORIN worldconnect website: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~sgorin SCKY resource links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html