OLD WIVES’ CURES

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 September 1934, Page 9

OLD WIVES’ CURES

USE IN rfARLEY STREET De you carry potatoes in your pocket (o defeat rheumatism? Do you treat headaches with mistletoe, coughs with garlic, or toothache with poppy heads? No. you don’t—or, at least, you think not (writes A. P. Luscombe Whyte in the London “Evening Standard”). Directly your system rebels against the conglomeration of noise, fumes, fog, hasty and ill-chosen food, over-smok-ing and under-walking which makes up the London life, you call on the doctor, who prescribes you just those superstitious old remedies .. . under new names at half a crown a bottle. Science is teaching us the wisdom of times other than our own; taking the picturesque old-time prescriptions, proving them medically sound and embodying them one by one in the pharmacopoeia. The instinct for selftreatment which man once had is sound. During the last twelve months the medical world has been stirred by the discovery of new treatments for burns and rheumatism'. They have started new techniques. But these treatments were known to old Martha, the village seer-dbetress witch, 300 years ago. Think of the simple West Country folk who obediently trudged round to the beekeeper ami asked for half a dozen stings just because cracked old Martha thought they were good for rheumatism. Imagine catching eight bees, “pounding well and taking in syrup’’ to cure stone and rheumatism’. But the West Country simpletons of 1931 still believe these quaint things. And so does Harley Street. The bee-sting is the latest contribution to the rheumatic problem. The specialist uses applications of the new ointment just on the market (price 3/6 for the venom of 65 bees, 4/6 for 98).

A recent medical journal describes bow a child raving with rheumatic fever, her limbs pain and her temperature rocketing, was brought for treatment. The fever defied ordinary methods. But five injections of bee venom cured it. Another paper tells how a labourer, crippled with rheumatism, was ordered by a courageous doctor to get stung five times a day. Painful . . . but he soon walked.

The wise women didn’t know of the valuable counter-irritant properties of the formic acid found in the venom. But they knew, partly by instinct, partly by simple reason, that it would cure rheumatism. Beekeepers, who often got stung, never seemed to get rheumatism. They didn’t stop to debate each discovery. That’s why they were so often right. There are millions of country—and thousands of city—folk who still rely upon the old folk-cures’ The more fantastic have been laughed out. They no longer stuff a cockroach, boiled in oil. into a bad ear,.'or rub an infusion of mice on a sprained back. But they successfully treat a whole dictionary of ailments with the simple products of the soil and the kitchen. For centuries the farmer’s wife used to reach for the teapot when she burnt her hand; Tea leaves bound on the burn drew out the pain. Harley Street has just perfected the last word in treatment for burns. They arc sprayed with tannic acid.

MISTLETOE The Druids used mistletoe (meaning, literally. Heal All) as a universal panacea. For ages the country people doctored blood pressure, thumping headaches, vapours and hysteria with mistletoe “tea”; and still do. Yesterday a doctor showed me a tube of French tablets. They were the latest cure for blood-pressure, epilepsy, Si. Vitus’ dance, and a host of ncr-

vuiia ! roubles. They acted ideally, without any depressing action on the heart. . They were made of mistletoe. Garlic has always figured in the histories of folk-medicine. Eaten whole, or its juice drunk, it was considered an infallible cure for tuberculosis, coughs and (rubbed on) for ■wounds. Some chest troubles were treated by making the patient inhale the fumes into his lungs (he must have been, unbearable for hours). Tuberculosis of the skin yielded, they said, to the juice. But it was not. till quite recently that medicine discovered that the essential essence of garlic, containing allyl sulphide, was an excellent medium for chest and tuberculosis treatment.'

The sense of smell and colour did much to influence the instinctive doctors of long ago. Lavender, that calm and fragrant bloom, must, they thought, have soothing effects.. They made essence of lavender and used it in a dozen ways as a nerve-soother and soporific. As long ago as 1721 it appeared in the London Pharmacopoeia as “Palsy Drops.” It is still being used in Wessex.

Recently I read an article in a French paper, in which a French scientist described the extraordinary effects of lavender. Ils action in slowing down motor (muscle) activity made it of utmost use in the treatment of palsy, St. Vitus’ dance and neurasthenia. It had even been used to send patients to sleep. The old Wiltshire farm-folk never had headaches. They could charm away the most stubborn (they said) with a plaster made of black pepper, bound in a handkerchief and saturated with camphor. Their instinctive choice was almost uncanny. Any modern doctor will tell you of the feverrelieving properties of pepper and how its volatile oils will smooth away pain wherever they are applied. Camphor, of course, is to-day known, as the most valuable of pantry-shelf anaesthetics through its power to depress local nerves and damp out pain. OTHER FOLK-CURES Scores of other such folk-cures have since been endorsed, and often adopted. by medical science. A hot fig to draw' out the pain or the abscess of toothache. Mandrake as a pre-opera-tive anaesthetic. Poppyheads, bruised in wine, as a pain-killer and soporific. Boiled raisin juice for quinsy. Marjoram for headache. Wormwood.as a tonic. Ivy-salve for rheumatism and neuralgia. Meadow-saffron for gout. .Even in America there are, according to one authority, thousands of city dwellers who believe in the old remedies. One doctor tells me he credits the old country-folk for keeping alive many sound old cures, and the quack doctors for developing new ones. “The quacks helped to develop elec-tro-therapy, hydropathy (bath treatment), the sun-ray, osteopathy and glandular -treatment. They • realised long ago that certain parts of animals (containing important glands) were valuable for treating specific diseases. We are still only on the fringe of tins jungle they gaily entered.” Don’t despise mad old Martha of the village. She was wise in her generation.