Home Remedies
Here are some home made remedies that our ancestors would have used as they were pioneers in the early days..
ARTHRITIS:
Drink a mixture of honey, vinegar, and moonshine.
Make a tea from either the seeds or leaves of alfalfa.
Drink powdered rhubarb dissolved in white whiskey.
A magnet draws it out of the body.
ASTHMA:
In one pint of gin, place several pieces of the heartwood of a pine tree. Leave them in the gin until they turn brown. Then take one teaspoonful of the mixture twice a day.
Suck salty water up your nose.
Smoke or sniff rabbit tobacco.
Swallow a handful of spider webs rolled into a ball.
Keep a Chihuahua dog around the house.
Smoke strong tobacco until you choke.
Drill a hole in a black oak or sourwood tree just above the head of the victim, and put a lock of his hair in the hole. When he passes that spot in height, he will be cured. (Another person says that if the person dies, the tree will also).
Drink a mixture of honey, lemon juice, and whiskey, using about a tablespoon of each.
Gather leaves from ginseng, dry and powder them. Put the powder in a pan, place a hot coal on top of it, and inhale the smoke.
BLEEDING:
Place a spider web across the wound.
Apply a poultice of spirit turpentine and brown sugar to the wound.
Apply lamp black directly to the wound.
Use a mixture of soot from the chimney and lard.
If the cut is small, wet a cigarette paper and place this over it.
Use kerosene oil, but be careful not to add too much or it will blister the skin.
Use pine resin.
BROKEN ARM:
Make a mixture of red clay and water. Put splints on each side of the arm and plaster it up with the clay. When the clay dries, put the arm in a sling.
BURN:
Put hot coals on the burned place and pour water over them. The steam will draw the fire out.
Powder hot coals and put this warm powder on the burn.
Boil chestnut leaves and place the resulting ooze on the burn.
Take table salt and dissolve it in warm water. Wrap the burn in gauze and keep it constantly warm and moist with applications of the salt water.
Bind castor oil and egg whites around the wound with a clean cloth.
The scrapings of a raw white potato will draw the fire.
Scrape the inside of a white potato. Put the scrapings on the burn and leave them there until they turn black and the sore turns white. Then add a salve made of talcum powder and vaseline.
If the person has never seen his father, he can draw the fire by blowing on the burn.
Use lard and flour.
Use a mixture of Sloan's salve and Japanese oil and petroleum jelly.
Put axle grease on the burned area.
COUGH:
Mix one teaspoon of white whiskey with a pinch of sugar, heat over a fire, and drink.
Eat a mixture of honey and vinegar.
Take some rock candy with tea.
CRAMPS:
To cure cramps in the feet, turn your shoes upside down before going to bed.
DIARRHEA:
Take a tea of red oak bark.
Drink some blackberry juice.
EARACHE:
Pour drops of juice from the buddie blooms (sweet shrub) into ear.
Dissolve tavle salt in lukewarm water and pour this into ear. THis dissolves the wax which is causing the pain.
Pour castor oil, or sweet oil, or British oil into ear.
Roast cabbage stalks and squeeze the juice into ear.
Warm a soonful of urine and put a few drops in ear.
Hold your head close to a hot lamp.
EYE AILMENTS:
Put a few drops of castor oil in eye.
A sty can be removed by running the tip of a black cat's tail over it.
FEVER:
Tie a bag containing the sufferer's nail paring to a live eel. It will carry the fever away.
Snakeroot tea will bring it down.
Boil two roots of wild ginger in a cup of water, strain, and drink.
Boin a cup of pennyroyal leaves in a pint of water and drink.
FRETFUL CHILD:
Boil catnip leaves to make a tea, and give the child about a quarter cup. Use one cup of leaves to a pint of water to make him sleep.
GALL BLADDER TROUBLE:
Take a spoonful of pure corn whiskey and Black Draught.
HEADACHES:
Bind wilted beet leaves on the forehead.
Tie a flour sack around your head.
Put several ginseng roots in a piece of brown paper and tie to your head.
Put turpentine and beef tallow in a bandage and tie it tightly around your head.
Pour hot water over mustard leaves to rouse their odor and strength. Bind these leaves in a poultice to head with a cheesecloth strip.
Smear brow with crushed onions.
When you get your hair cut gather up all the clippings, bury them under a rock and you will never have a headache. Old-timers would never allow their hair to be burned or thrown away as it was too valuable.
HEART TROUBLE:
Make a tea of heartleaf leaves and take two or three tablespoons three times a day. One person said she would boil the heart leaves together with leaves from the rat's vein plant.
Take root of a bleeding heart, break it up, and make a tea of it.
Eat ramps and garlic. You can eat them cooked or raw.
HICCUPS:
Take a teaspoon of peanut butter.
Put half a teacup of dried apples in a teacup of water in a pot. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Strain out the remains of the apples, and drink the juice while hot.
INSOMNIA:
Make a tea of boneset leaves, using one tablespoonful. You may use them fresh or dried.
Get your own 
