Got an 'old fashioned' cure for an illness, cough, cold etc?

I often had the croup (a nasty barking cough with breathing constriction) when I was a young child. My mother, a Georgia mountain girl (and unrepentent Confederate), used to give me a teaspoon of sour mash whiskey mixed with sugar to stop the cough, an old southern remedy that seemed to do the trick! God knows what she would have given me for full-blown asthma! I know that the common treatment for diphtheria in her day was to swab the throat with kerosene and hope for the best.

Even though my mother was born in 1927, she spent her childhood in an area of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains that was so remote (in fact, the area where the movie Deliverance was filmed!) that her family had only mules and a wagon for transportation and the doctor made his rounds in a horse-drawn buggy. They had no electricity, indoor toilet or running water until they moved to Detroit in the late 1930's.

Interesting about your family's history, Rob. I have an old photo of a relative of mine who was a "doctor". He's pictured on his horse as he traveled around making house calls. I'd worry about that kerosene on the neck. Hope no one smoked!

Cathyml, My grandmother was a big proponent of Vick's. She would heat it up in a tin pie plate on the stove and then inhale the vapors. Also would have a teaspoonful. She slept with a bottle of Vick's under her pillow. I can remember as a child staying with her and sleeping in her bed. I can still smell the Vick's. 

My mother used warm teabags on the gums for a toothache. A doctor I went to as a child treated sore throat with a big collar full of ice that you wore around your throat. Don't know what good it did other than to numb the pain. Maybe for the inflammation. My mother's remedy was gargling with warm salt water. 

I think this thread has brought out some really interesting information.  Thanks Ron!

I don't like the idea of kerosene either and don't think I could do it even if it worked Rob  (btw - good to see you on the forums again!!)

Brenda inhaling the Vicks vapours still works really well but I don't think I would want to actually ingest it.  Urgh!

Mick mentioned the oil of cloves for toothache and I still have a bottle for the odd occasion it might be needed.

Warm salt water for mouth and throat infections still seems to be a good option too!

Looking forward to seeing what else worked - way back when, lol

Yep, really bad cough...shot of straight whiskey followed by Horehound Herbal cough drops...if one didn't kill ya, the other was sure to make you stay away from coughs for an long time. You rub the vick's vaporub on the bottom of your feet and wear socks too!

Gargle with warm salt water for strep throat, and take your pencillin.

I wasn't to sick an kid when I was little, my thing was always walking on nails and having to go in for an tetnus shot though. Now I have to get an shot reguardless.... for being in the "Scouts" on outtings.

It's hard for me to go to the hospitals...they all know me from years past....that's why the medic's chose me to help take the steel seekwer out of my bosses back when he slip on some grease changing rostaatier chicken racks when I worked at Boston Market

I used my "hands on healing" back then...as they raised him straight up evenly and I pulled it out...I could just feel the "tingling energy" of God present all the way down my arm..believe me, I called on his help.... when they told me what we had to do, ever seen an 47 year old man cry like an baby...well he did....begging us to let him die. As it was, he must of felt that "energy" surging through him also...because he came back...walking mind you... about three weeks later and "Thanks Me" and all I could say...was YOU know it wasn't me, but an higher calling that really healed you...and he said "Yes"....but I thank you for what you did do. All I could say was knowing he was an "family man" it was the least I could do...kids need thier "dad's".

Brenda: When my kids were studying American history in school, my mother was a wealth of information for them on how it might have felt to have lived in the 19th century. She told them about reading by candlelight and kerosene lamps, cooking and baking with a wood-fired stove, her one-room schoolhouse, drawing water from a well, etc. As to the Dr. John's cough remedy, do you mean Father John's Medicine and Cough Suppressant? I also remember this and I liked the taste (there is licorice in it). It is still available online.

Cathyml: Yep, kerosene swabbed in the mouth and throat may seem pretty extreme now, but the kerosene that was used for treating the throat swelling in diphtheria was the more highly refined type. In the backwoods, it was the only thing, it seems, that would keep the thoat and breathing passages open with this highly contagious and deadly disease. God knows what the long term effects of this remedy might be, since people can contract this disease more than once (fortunately, most developed nations now immunize children and adults for diphtheria). Many years ago I was visiting a very remote little graveyard near where my mother grew up to look at some ancestral graves. I remember finding the graves of an entire family who had died from diphtheria in the 19th century--mother, father and three small children. It is no wonder that the disease was called the "stangling angel of children."

Shirley: I also remember Horehound drops--I used to love those things!

There is one more remedy my aunt told me and I used it on my son to make him break and fever as an small infant..but its not recommended these days...though his children's asprin never did an thing for him and he went to into convulsions one time....whcih is why she shared this with me..also into to nursing...all I know is it "worked".  One must lay in warm water in the bathtub....and place an towel over the body...and then take rubbing alcohol and pour it over the towel...it should be warmed slightly also.....then drain the tub and leaving the towel over the body wrap it with an blanket on getting out of the tub...it takes another person to help...and I can't say I've ever done this to adult sized people. Now you wrap the person so no air can get in or out and lay the person down..making sure they are comfortable and warm...make sure they don't have to smell much of the rubbing alcohol either...in about 30 to 45 mintutes, take the wrapping off them and keep them in an warm bed, get them into dry jammies...it should break the fever...give asprin that is an fever reducer also. By the time my son had to do an second time with an fever we couldn't get broke any other way, the doctor finally gave me some meds to give him BEFORE the fever could get ahold of him. He out-grew this as he aged...but he ran 102 or there's about an couple of times. Someone told me one time this was his "initiation" to later being an " healer" Shaman type himself. My aunt told me this was an old time remedy for pnuemonia...when nothign else worked. The "secret" to it's sucess is not getting the person chilled with air gettting from the tub to being wrapped up.. What it does is makes an person "perspire"...which reduces an fever immediately. It si not to be done continually on them either. Once is usually sufficient. They did something similiar to my dad at the hospital one time using ice and then heat..and back an forth...he had puemonia...but it saved his life, and again they had used every rescource they knew at the time. If they used the rubbing alchohol he never said...and I was just an little kid at the time.Do you remember the old saying...."Starve a fever...Feed a cold"? Today's super- germs seem to be an entirely diffferent thing any more. My own thought is that there is so much e-coli out in the world it would not hurt us all to have an round of Pencillin these days...just as precaution. I don't know about over in Europe..but I blame much of this stuff over here on growing veggie  plants in "Human Waste" for fertilzer that has not set long enough to break down properly...before planting.  How this stuff affects the new "Hybrid" seeds is another matter also. I heard they had such an bad time with the "altered" gene seeds over in India that they threw them all out, their cattle refused to eat the hay grown from it. I think every seed source should be selling open pollinated seeds beside the Hybrid seeds and let people chose for themselves. Evolution to me most likley would see the open pollinated seeds "account" for any descrepencies in mutation of the plants by anything world-wide that may affect them....not so with Hybrid seeds....thier gene pool is pre-set already. 

When you feel the first sign of a cold or cough, that annoying tickle - gargle with straight apple cider vinegar and take about 2000 mg of Vitamin C.  I've tried it in the past and it helped to stave off a cold.  You have to catch it when you first feel that tickle though.

Ron, I hope you're all feeling better today.

What are Horehound drops for goodness sake?

Anna and I are still suffering Ruth, although a little better thank you. Can't believe how a cough has all but brought us quite literally, to our knee's.