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I remember a lot of time was spent at Grandma and Grandads when growing up. Weekends and holidays were pretty much out with your pals at dawn and back again at dusk. Cuts and scrapes and wood splinters and rusty nails all conspired to infect you with something. Grandma used to make up a poultice of what I think was soap, sugar and sulphur to help draw out any poison. Also spoonfuls of malt extract to ward off chest infections.
Grandad's prognosis for most things was "You just need a good shite".
Surprised we survived.
I have a 1920s nursing textbook. Amongst other things it recommends lead and opium mixture
Poultice for septic fingers - really unpleasant but really did work. I used to bite my fingernails badly and would get infected. Poultice was made and I had to go to bed with it wrapped round my finger. End of next day the finger tended to be better, but I just recall whatever was in it getting wrapped round my finger and it was very hot.
I give you Laundenum. An opiate mixed with codeine dissolved in alcohol...They mostly gave this to people with a persistent cough. Those were the days.
I remember hiding scrapes and road rash from my mum as she would insist it needed cleaning with TCP or similar. It always hurt more than the injury so it was best to keep it hidden for a few days.
I also remember my grans answer to anything stomach related being prune juice.
Gripe water for anything stomach related.
"Starve a fever, feed a cold" was my Grandad's way of dealing with cold/flu viruses.
Butter on bruises.
My parents answer was generally don’t do it again.
But we survived not like kids I today who sit on the video games all day.
‘A good hiding’ used to be the remedy for almost everything in our house. Though my Nan saved the day once. Before I started spending my pocket money on cigarettes the addiction of the age was Pear Drops. I would munch bags of them and keep the chewed up goo in my cheeks like a hamster. Giving my teeth a good healthy coating of sticky sugar. Inevitably, i developed a colossal cavity in a large molar which was agonising. My Nan took one look at it and popped in a clove. It worked! Didn’t save the tooth obviously, but it killed the pain dead. And the tooth probably 🤔
Gripe water for anything stomach related.
fizzy coke in our house. Most of the time it would **** you right up and shortly after you'd vomit, which may have been the intent in hindsight, why delay the inevitable / to a later point in time that might involve hoying all over your bedclothes
My gran would threaten us with castor oil for anything stomach related. My mum still does butter on bruises. And I swear cabbage leaves in the bra works for nursing boob pain.
I vaguely remember gripe water, they gave it to "griping" infants. It was basically dilute alcohol and sugar. No wonder it stopped kids squealing, they were pissed.
Loved gripe water!
Taking note of the cabbage leaves, they way I'm going I'll be needing some help to ease pains there!
Just remembered a goldfish belly up in the bowl. Grandad slurped some whisky in and next day it was swimming around like a good 'un.
I really think he swapped it tho'.
My mum was a nurse and her remedy for even the mildest headache would be the administration of enough codeine to fell an elephant
It’s no bloody wonder I so readily embraced recreational drug use
milk of magnesia for belly problems.
andrews liver salts mixed into orange dilute and water, solved upset belly too.
comfrey soaked in hot water, and wrapped in a tea towel for a poultice.
calamine lotion painted all over the body, for scabies.
I have a 1920s nursing textbook. Amongst other things it recommends lead and opium mixture
seeing as though you were a nurse I’m taking this as sound advice. Lead and opium here we come!
What even is Andrews Liver Salts?
Kaolin and morphine for the inevitable and frequent sunburn, suntan lotion did not ever enter my mother's head, despite being born in the tropics. Calamine lotion for chicken pox, nettle stings, bee stings and every other skin complaint. Hydrogen peroxide mouthwash FFS. That really stung!
Toothache or sore throat ---> brown sugar,butter and whisky mixed into a paste.
I think sometimes I may have 'faked' toothache at Grans.
😆
Sprained ankle - first plunge the foot into a bowl of ice cold water, then rapidly into a bowl of boiling water.
It was wise not to mix the order up.
Andrews liver salts are basically epsom salts I believe - does that help?
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Magnesium sulphate is the active ingredient. its a old patent medicine I think
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrews_Liver_Salts
Doc leaves for nettle stings.
Just a cooling moisture thing I guess.
Mag Sulph paste poultice is awesome for splinters
Arnica. For everything that Kaolin+Morphine couldn't fix.
T'other half is a health service professional.
But it's still Witch Hazel for bruises and a sal****er wash for anything bacterial on a body surface or buccal.
Don't know if we've got any Saffers on this thread, but my-my, Zambuk is an amazing product. If it is a placebo it is a bloody good one.
Kaolin and morphine for the inevitable and frequent sunburn
Sunburn? It's for the galloping shits isn't it?
Andrews is good for a filthy hangover, though in truth probably no better than a fry up and a pint.
My grandma's cure alls were Dr White's Kompo which was mixed with warm milk and was revolting, Indian Brandee and Liquid Paraffin (the opposite of Kaolin and Morphine).
Cuts and scrapes and wood splinters and rusty nails all conspired to infect you with something. Grandma used to make up a poultice of what I think was soap, sugar and sulphur to help draw out any poison.
I remember having such wounds cleaned with iodine. Not sure if we now know it's bad for some reason, or that something else is better.
fizzy coke in our house.
I know several kayakers who swear by the deliberately flattened version if they take a swim in the nottingham white water course.
Personally I prefer paddling on civilised artificial courses with a separate water supply which is purified.
No wonder it stopped kids squealing, they were pissed.
And sometimes they didnt bother pretending about it being something other than alcohol and went straight for rubbing whisky into the gums of teething babies.
seeing as though you were a nurse I’m taking this as sound advice.
I've a few friends who are nurses. Their general advice for any ailment or illness is "Oh get over yourself and stop crying like a girl, I've seen much worse at work today". And to be fair they are usually right.
I know several kayakers who swear by the deliberately flattened version
I've seen the flat Coke thing used for dodgy tummies quite a few times. Not sure if there's any decent science behind it, but it does seem to work.
There were a small number of 'dependable' remedies - iodine featured quite a lot; then there was the exotic sounding honey, lemon and ipecacuanha; andrews liver salts - looking at the label on the pot in front of me it quickly and effectively relieves indigestion, excess acid, symptoms of over-indulgence (???), upset stomach and constipation using the magic recipe containing sodium hydrogen carbonate, citric acid, magnesium sulphate and other stuff.
Stomach upsets were treated with a brandy and water mix - much more water than brandy.
Then there was...go away, stop bothering me, there's nothing wrong with you.
Also the occasional slap on the arse; the dire threat of...'wait 'til your Dad gets home' quickly lost it's power to frighten or intimidate.
I present to you... the indigenous Indian treatment for Cobra bite (it involves 96 chickens and a choice phrase - "anuses well stretched"):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5235677/?page=1
The traditional australian snake bite treatment I've heard of involves burying the patient up to the neck and leaving them for three days. The modern technique of immobilisation and pressure bandages i guess is similar.
Kaolin and morphine for the inevitable and frequent sunburn
My Nan grew up in the Sudanese desert where a common pastime as kids was scorpion hunting! She never mentioned getting bitten. But when my dad and his sisters were babes (in England) she'd coat them in olive oil and sit them out in the sun to help them tan.
The traditional australian snake bite treatment I’ve heard of involves burying the patient up to the neck and leaving them for three days.
Does have the advantage that if the treatment doesnt work they are pretty much buried already. Quick pile of rocks and some dirt and time for the snacks.
Doc leaves for nettle stings.
Did he find them?
But anyway, maybe I'm going to go off and find some dock leaves to eat... https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/dock-rumex
My Nan grew up in the Sudanese desert where a common pastime as kids was scorpion hunting! She never mentioned getting bitten.
It's not bites you need to worry about from scorpions.
But when my dad and his sisters were babes (in England) she’d coat them in olive oil and sit them out in the sun to help them tan.
Coconut oil when I was a kid.
It’s not bites you need to worry about from scorpions.
Quite. Stings obvs.
Kaolin and morphine for the inevitable and frequent sunburn
Sunburn? It’s for the galloping shits isn’t it?
Well, there was always a bottle in the ‘Medicine drawer’ in the kitchen, for the inevitable upset stomach when I was a wee kid. All sorts of things would have me puking up, jelly in puddings was pretty much guaranteed to set me off! To this day I can’t tolerate jelly of any sort, just the texture or thought of it does 🤢
Place I used to work at had a first aid drawer in a filing cabinet in the boss’s office, in it you could find such things as big brown bottles of codein tablets, in quantities of 500 or 1000…
That wouldn’t fly these days, and in fact all the drugs got cleared out a few years after I started, apparently ‘the rules have changed, we can’t have them anymore’. No shit!
Dock leaves for nettle stings.
While there’s allegedly no evidence that dock leaves have any therapeutic properties when it comes to nettle stings, I still use them, just rubbing a fresh leaf on the sting does seem to have a cooling effect, and rubbing I think has some benefits as well.
Having just looked at the link to the Dock page, it’s interesting that it also mentions the cooling effects - I’d never read about that, it’s just something I’ve noticed whenever I used a leaf on a sting.
Interesting the leaves contain oxalic acid, which is used as a cleaner or bleach; I wonder if it reacts with the active compounds in nettle stings?
A bit of digging around, and the main components of nettle stings are serotonin, acetylcholine and histamine, and some nettles contain oxalic acid and tartaric acid, that are linked with extending the duration of the pain, so no, Dock leaves aren’t going to be much help, except for some cooling, added to vigorous rubbing. Missus.
Quite.
There's no medicinal value in dock leaves, the relief comes from the rubbing.
See also, erections.
I’ve seen the flat Coke thing used for dodgy tummies quite a few times. Not sure if there’s any decent science behind it, but it does seem to work.
It is my go to for a really bad hangover, the red ambulance in a can.
Flat coke is good for dehydration as its sort of isotonic and contains loads of sugar and various salts
My nan was a staunch Methodist, played the organ at chapel, hosted "prayer" meetings at our house so she could share her latest home made wine success.....
But also prone to a spot of what seemed like witchcraft with some of the foul smelling stuff she created for medical purposes, but comfrey ointment for burns is amazing!
I remember having such wounds cleaned with iodine. Not sure if we now know it’s bad for some reason, or that something else is better.
It stains, doesn't it?
Tracey Ramsden from the Grauniad has been reading STW and getting inspired!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/29/20-health-advice-myths-investigate
It stains, doesn’t it?
It stings, certainly. It stains clothes as well. It’s just that there’s other thing’s available that come in tubes rather than bottles.
There’s no medicinal value in dock leaves, the relief comes from the rubbing.
See also, erections.
So I’m led to believe…
TCP and Iodine were my childhood memories. Any cut or scrape was treated with them.
Kaoline and Morphine for upset tummy.
Calomine Lotion for sunburn treatment and treatment of Chicken Pox blisters too.
I still swear by TCP and Iodine although I don't use Iodine as it stings too much :o)
Removed due to other posts getting made so my 'joke' didn't make sense!
Iodine is no longer recommended for cuts because of the tissue damage it causes
Best vinegar and strong brown paper.
Nasal congestion try a Benzedrine inhaler
https://www.swanseaairport.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/benzedrine.jp g" alt="Inhaler" />
Not a remedy as such, but my gran used to give my cousins raw sausages to suck to shut them up when they were toddlers. I'm not sure whether she cooked them later. Probably, knowing her.
Also, most of the suggestions above are from he last few decades. I wonder what ridiculous things we are doing these days that people on Future STW will laugh at in 2053?