Home Remedies: The Old Age Medicine

April 30, 2024

Special Collections & Archives holds a few rare resources that contain home remedies for ailments using herbal medicines. When families were in need of medicinal help but did not have easy access to a doctor or presription medicine, they often used these types of alternative medicines. Both the Bess Lomax Hawes Student Folklore Collection and the Manuscript Cookbook hold some interesting historical fixes for all sorts of ailments.

"Medical Cures as Practiced in a Russian - Polish Jewish Ghetto," by Arlene L. Lerner, Bess Lomax Hawes Student Folklore Collection Before California State University, Northridge there was the San Fernando Valley State College. Bess Lomax Hawes was an assistant professor at San Fernando Valley State College and later became full faculty and Chair of the Anthropology Department. The Bess Lomax Hawes Student Folklore Collection is comprised of folklore data collected by her students from 1958 to 1977 in the classes and seminars she taught. Listed here are some of the herbal remedies for ailments that students discovered in their research. The remedies were passed down through generations when people had little to no access to modern medicine in villages.

The first group of illnesses and treatments are common conditions on the skin. For boils, or bumps under the skin, one source claims to use spider webs over white bread soaked with milk be put over the boil. Another source used leeches or tomatoes and red onion on the skin. For hives, compress oatmeal gruel. For swelling or a bump on the skin, use the flat surface of a cold knife blade (two different people claimed this same thing!). One source, whose father was a practicing doctor in a village in Poland, created a mysterious salve that was used on every injury. Skin conditions ranging from a simple rash to a woman whose skin and flesh was falling off her hands was cured with this salve.

The second group of illnesses addressed are infections. For sore throats or colds, you could smell boiled milk, honey, butter, and garlic. You may also drink tea mixed with lemons or hot milk and honey. For ear infections, put salt in a sock and put it over your ears. If you have a high fever, use suction cups or go in a tub full of cold water. For coughs, drink a boiled mixture of rock candy, beets, honey, and onions.

Title page from the Manuscript Cookbook, MCB, 195 Next are external injuries, critical diseases, and the skull. For toothaches apply whiskey to affected area or get the teeth pulled out when you go to a doctor. People have also applied alcohol to their heads for headaches. If you have a headache, use your finger to drag hot water mixed with charcoal on your forehead, or apply white radish to your forehead to draw out the heat of the pain and the headache is gone! Eating garlic brings down high blood pressure. Rickets, a bone disease amongst children, can be improved by massaging bone marrow to the skin.

Then, Special Collections & Archives holds a Manuscript Cookbook from 1935 which also gives pointers on how to treat inflammation diseases. Two distinct salts are used to treat arthritis: Epsom salts and Rochelle salts. Two examples of mixtures using Epsom salt are water, lemons, sugar, and Epsom salt or a solution of citrus juice, cream of tartar, and Epsom salt. Mixtures with Rochelle salts also have tartar cream with the salt and sulfur.

Herbal medicine was used primarily for families that had either no doctors in their vicinity or could not afford medicine. Modern medicine, like vaccinations, was available in the early 1900’s, however due to the above-mentioned restrictions, most relied on home remedies instead. Today there are wider options of healthcare available and research has provided more treatments than in the past. Home remedies are certainly not a comprehensive cure for diseases compared to prescription medication, but they often brought comfort to those who did not have easy access to doctors or advanced medicines.