The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1914-02-12
Mother in Old Days Believed in
Roots and Banks.
She Treated Every AiIment of Family
Remedy for "AIl Run Down and
Draggly Feelings"-Goose Grease
and Brown Paper.

remember when the mother of the
household came pretty near to being
the whole thing in the family doctor
line, and her faith in herbs and roots
and barks was as strong as her in
dustry in collecting them in their sea-
son.
| During the summer and fall months
she gathered snake root, pink root,
blood root, mandrake-May flower,
so-called-colt's foot, poke root, cat
nip, horehound, elder blows, boneset,
wild cherry bark, whitewood bark,
poplar bark, sassafras root and bark
and other banks and herbs too numer-
Gus Ito mention. Along the walls of
the garden she kept growing rows
of medicinal herbs-yarrow, sage,
tansy, balsam, and many others. Each
and every one of these wild and cult
vated had its curative value.
Crop, whooping cough, mumps,
hives, carche, toothache, measles,
collie, and all the other ailings that jul
venile flesh was either heir to or
caught from the neighbors, quickly
ran up against encouragement in
the shape of some decoction or con-
coction evolved from mothers col
lection of YARDS And it was not
only the Ills of the rising generation
of her day that mother unhesitatingly
went up against with her home cura-
tive, agents.
Sick headache was forced to be-
come a. well one when brought in
contact with whitewood bark soused
in whisky, while boneset tea was
| febrifuge that required but few
drafts of it to make ones tempera-
! ture tumble back to- normal And was
somebody about the house feeling all
run down and draggly? Well, there's
the whisky and wild cherry bark bot
tie up on the top shelf of the cup
board alongside of the campfire bot
tle-another never failing retort in
! time of need. Daily with that whisky
and wild cherry bottle gently three
times a day and the first thing you
know you'll be as good as new
y If any spring had come and gone
without the annual sassaffas tea be-
ly by every member of the house
hold, mother would have regarded the
outlook for the family health as dark
indeed, for 1t was then that the blood
needed thinning and sassafras tea
was the important thing TO do that
| important sanitary job
But the household doctoring
! Nt,a 0onHnnd IN hp ~ "a
| and barks and herbs. There were
salves and ointments and washes and
gargles and applications of numerous
kinds, and gifts to meet the occasion,
all ready to the making from ingre-
dents on the premises. The gargle
of vinegar salt and cayenne pepper,
with the accompanying slice of fat
pork, made hot with the same kind of
pepper and bound round the throat
on a piece of old red flannel--neces-
! sarily old red flannel, according to
ali housewife tradition-was the all
sufficient treatment for sore throat,
not only the simple kind, but the
dreaded one known as quinsy.
THE bottle of strained honey--al-
ways the dark honey or honey made
by the bees before they began to
work on the buckwheat blossoms
l and the jar of goose grease we're
yanked down from the shelf when
some Of the youngsters reused moth
er from hel peaceful slumbers with
the honk, honk of Group. Quickly
down upon the cause of that alarm
signal went a generous dose Of the
honey strip. Leaving it to it's work,
instantly followed with hearty mas
saying of the youngsters chest with
goose grease, the course of treat
coarse brown paper-the like of
which we see mo more--liberally coat
ed with goose grease and placed firm
ly on the patients chest. Any case
of Group that didn't take itself off
and away within Is minutes after be-
ing met with that reception was not
Of record.
Who ever had a cold in those days
of home treatment without going right
to work at it with mothers onion
strip? Onion strip was simply the
| expressed juice of roasted onions
made into sirup by simmering in sug-
ar in covered vessel and taken in
liberal doses. 1t somehow certainly
did do the busienss for cold.
| Il was up aaround my old home re-
gion last summer and was surprised
/ and disappointed not to see the boy
| with a. stone bruise. Why, in the old
en- time, the boy who didn't coax
/ stone bruise on his heel some time
during the seasons round of pleas
ure was sort of looked. down on as
/ lacking in something or other. .Wheth-
er the stone bruise on the heel was
made to show the efficacy of mothers
soap: and sugar drawing plaster in
dealing with such visitations there is
i.perhaps no means of knowing, but
that plaster certainly did have
draft that made the stone bruise pale
it's Intellectual fires, so to speak, and
go way from there.
| But folks today, somehow or other,
seem to get along pretty satisfactor-
lily, although the old fashioned home
practice of the curing art is tucked
away on the commodious shelf Of the
| = Aoo,,,', yHlSt. % =. =
| = ~
! Famous Woman rAstronomer.
J., Miss Annie J. Cannonawho has well
;under waU,the, task of catafoguing star