The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1921-09-12
OLD-FAsHIONED REMEDIES.
Days Of Lung Fever" When Tempera-
ture Was Unknown.

4 friend from the country recalls the
days when a boy came home at night
strangely tired and when mother looked
at him curiously and said but little
Somehow she seemed rather tender. and
came along and brushed the hair from
bis forehead and took his hand and held
il az he would like to have her do today.
But alas The flowers have bloomed
these 40 years above her head.
And he remembers how the family sat
Ground for supper and how the rattle Of
the dishes made him feel sick, and how
he wanted nothing to eat, and how he
fell asleep and awOke in bed. screaming.
with a dream of falling from some great
height or that the world and the moon
came together with a crash And no one
came, and he settled down to feel the bur-
dock on his head and smell catnip tea
that he had a faint memory of taking
against his will.
Somehow all of my memories of boy
hood Ills are associated with catnip,
camphOr, balm of gilead and paregoric
And there was ginger tea for chills and
there was a cupboard" full of other
things. / now know none of them. A boy
that had cold then came pretty near
doing as he was told. if it were serious
enough to make him act tired" We
never heard about temperature; but |
suppose we had it then as now. The boy
soaked his feet took medicine and went
to bed and when he coughed that croupy
cough. he took some hens oil and molas-
SEES mixed that was guaranteed to clear
out the false membrane from his throat.
There was onion syrHp--a pretty good
sort of stuff. if Won liked it. Ii was n
specific for n stuffetl-up cold, one of those
that preSage pneumonia. We never had
pneumonia in those days, though some
people had lung fever" Onion poul-
tees were not so bad. They saved lives,
FreSumably. And onion syrup took the
| field against incipient STIFFNESS of the
| lungs.
apple. put right on it? Pretty good
thing. Many o little shaver's anguish
! has been relieved by this application.
/ poultices-haxsced? Not yet out of the
fpharmacopoeia Many and many's the
/ flaxSeed poultices that yet allay disturb
], ance 'Twixt catnip. sage and ginger
!, tea-speaking of tea-there was nc
/ choice. Old folks got little honey in
1.-THE sage 1t is "healin'' is honey!
/ Mustard had its uses-hOw many O
luse FIot mustard plasters or cold. they
drew big houses. Mustard was not 50
common as lobelia or ipecac, provided
i they are not the samei Lobelia had the
/ uplift 1t beat all the uplift clubs in the
i world. And there was turkey rhubarb
+ We used to keep great hunks of this vel
| low root and when we needed IT. we hat
TO chew il from the hunk. and all thu
Il sport we could get out OF 1t was to screw
i up our faces.
Il Burdock on your hand and foot Thai
4 was helpful. A piece of pork on sore
throat was good and it is not vet an ex
Il ploded remedy, for one of the finest spec
ialists in New England. who runs an eye
ear and throat hospital in Maine, pre-
Il seribed it for me not so very long age
Il when / had a bit of trouble. You may
never have seen q .'rumSweat" given
j VolStead may be after me for mentioning
i it-but it was a powerful thing adj
ministered by reSOlute woman to al
4 aiGng husband or boy. MANY man has
Il narboiled his person perilously will
Il them.
Il We had pineerS for pulling teeth il
one country home that / used to visit
and a Doctors book that was kept under
: heck and kew. 1t has taken many :
. child through the measles. We lived
!: nevertheless: and some of US are no
!: dead yet.-Lewiston Journal
!