Mountain Folk Remedies: The Foxfire Americana Library (9) by Edited by Foxfire Students

itself is preceded by some white smoke, then water. (See
Foxfire 4
, page 252.) A swallow of this water is good for a cold. The pine tar itself, rubbed on the chest, will loosen up a cold.
    D AN H AWKES
    Chew the leaves and stems of peppermint.
    L AURA P ATTON
    Mix mutton tallow and alum together. That’s good for colds. When you kill your sheep, cut the fat off and render it out. Put some alum in with it and mix it up. Then you put it in a jar and let it harden and make a grease cakelike patty out of it. Then when you get a cold or something you just rub it on your chest and neck. It will break a cold up.
    N UMEROUS M ARCUS
    Put ginger and sugar in hot water. Drink this and go to bed.
    G LADYS Q UEEN

    I LLUSTRATION 32 Maude Houk.
    For bad colds, make a tea of the leaves and stems of boneset, goldenrod, and wild rosemary. Boil these together until the water turns to a brownish tea color. If large bunches of the herbs are used in a small amount of water, the tea will turn very dark, like strong coffee. Strain and serve warm at bedtime. This should sweat the cold out of the patient. The goldenrod should be picked when it is in bloom, but do not use the blossoms.
    In the fall before first frost, I would gather bunches of all three of these herbs. I’d tie each bunch up and hang it on the porch to dry. Then I had the herbs as I needed them.
    M AUDE H OUK
    We would make a tea out of the roots of butterfly weed. If it’s just a runny nose and coughing we would make it weak. We would make it strong if we came down with a heavy cold.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
Colic
    Stew down some calamus root and mix a few drops with catnip tea. It’s good for colic in babies or in a grown person, either one.
    N UMEROUS M ARCUS
    [Editor’s note: calamus is now a suspected carcinogen.]
    Beat up a bulb of garlic. Make a poultice of bulb and juice and lay on the stomach.
    S AMANTHA S PEED
Chest Congestion
    Mutton tallow salve is good for relieving chest cold congestion. Spread it on chest and back between the shoulder blades and cover with flannel.
    M RS . E D N ORTON
    Mix some lard and turpentine together, put it on a cloth, and put that on your chest.
    A MY T RAMMELL
    Make a tea from just the leaves of catnip. Pour boiling water over the leaves and sweeten it. To keep catnip through the winter, gather the leaves, dry them out, and keep them in a container where they can get a lot of air. They’ll keep a long time.
    N UMEROUS M ARCUS
    Take mustard seeds and beat ’em up and mix a little flour with enough warm water to make a kind of paste. Smear it on a cloth and make a little poultice and place it right across the chest. It’d be warm and it would just turn the skin red.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
Constipation
    Make a tea from senna leaves.
    A MY T RAMMELL
    Take about two teaspoonfuls of turpentine.
    G LADYS Q UEEN
    Buy croton oil at the drugstore. Put one drop of the croton oil in a glass of water and drink that.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
    Give kids two teaspoons of castor oil and give adults two teaspoons of Epsom salts.
    S AMANTHA S PEED
Cooties/Lice
    Shave head and wash with apple vinegar.
    B ILLY J OE S TILES
    Make a tea from the stems and leaves of the larkspur. Wash your hair twice in that tea and you won’t have any more lice.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
Corns
    Tie five little flint rocks up in a rag. Throw them away at the forks of a road. When someone picks up the rag to see what’s in it, your corns will go away and they’ll get them.
    A NNIE M AE H ENRY
    Take aspirin tablets worked in with a little bit of lard or Vaseline or anything to make a kind of salve. Bind the corn up with the salve and it’ll just come right out in a day or two.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
Cough
    We would go up and down Sautee Creek and get the bark from red alder. We’d boil that and make tea. Add a lot of honey to it. That was our cough syrup.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
    Drink ginger tea. Make it by mixing one tablespoon whiskey and one teaspoon honey and a dash of ginger mixed in one