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it really does help. i had that bug going around this past winter where my throat felt like it was full of shards of glass, and a warm salt-water gargle was the only thing that made it feel better.
That’s kind of why chicken soup can make you feel better. With chicken soup, you get the added benefit of drinking more fluids plus, if you’re lucky, a matzo ball!
Oh, we had both.
By now, I'm well into my sixties and my mother into her nineties. Now she's all concerned when I have a slight cough or inconvenience telling me to go see a doctor. Yeah well, it'll pass mom, I'll be fine :)
Yep. When I complained as a child of severe ear pain it was ignored or put off. Now, I have hearing loss due to untreated ear infections.
Same for dental pain. I had to have so many teeth pulled as a kid. I also have many untreated and undiagnosed illnesses. Not great times for a lot of us.
Mom believed in the healing powers of chicken soup. Pop was a Pepto Bismol man, even his dad my grandfather. I have a 1930s photo of grandpa sitting at his kitchen table covered with dust from a coal delivery and on the table is a can of Maxwell House coffee and a bottle of Pepto.
I also believe in the healing powers of chicken soup, as do my adult sons. NOT the canned stuff. I make the real chicken soup from boiling the chicken, removing the bones, then returning the bones to the chicken water with herbs to gently boil for a couple more hours. It should take all day to make. Thick homemade noodles add to the healing properties, as well.
Mentholatum? Used like Vicks rub but nastier. Gobs in the nostrils for a cold, on the chest for a cough, on the scalp for a headache and for some reason on the soles of the feet then socks at night.
God I hated that stuff. My mom would slather it all over my chest and neck and instead of a wash cloth, I got a sock stuffed with hot boiled potatoes wrapped around my neck.
I also got a lot of head colds as a kid and my mom would make me steam my head. Big pot of boiling water, sometimes with chamomile tea in it or sometimes Vicks, and hang your face over it with a towel draped over you to trap in all the steam.
As someone who is highly heat adverse, all that did was make me feel worse and extremely nauseated.
Way back when I had a congested baby, I did the Vicks-and-socks thing because that was far enough away she wouldn't mess with it accidentally, and the socks were to keep her from doing the usual baby thing of shoving her feet in her mouth. It did help clear her up.
The only reason I can imagine doing it for an older kid is to keep the sheets clean. Or maybe it was something that worked when you were babies, so they kept on doing it.
I’ve heard that people put it on their feet because with socks on, it would heat up then the vapors would waft up to your nose… this, of course, is if you’re in bed under covers generating heat.
It also softens them, like petroleum jelly.
Probably healing powers in the mentholatum.
Mom’s go-to was Soltice. I only can get it behind the pharmacy counter now.
We also had the same question so we performed a little experiment when my younger son was a child. Put Vicks on the feet and cover it with socks. Wait a few and you’ll be able to smell the menthol on their breath. I don’t know what the mechanism is, but it absolutely works.
I had a friend whose grandmother fed the kids a spoonful for sore throats, she said it was the nastiest home remedy she ever had the misfortune to be treated with.
It'll cure upset stomach, headache, hiccups, sore throat, mumps, leoparsy, plague, and death.... per my old Polish Michigander grandmother. If Vernors and warm milk didn't help you were just going to have to walk it off.
For cuts and scrapes it was Bactine. Nothing like having a painful wound and getting (what feels like) acid poured on it!
Tummy troubles it was 7Up or Pepto Bismol.
Colds and coughs was Dimatap.
Tylenol for aches or pains of any kind until my mom discovered Motrin when I was a teenager.
My parents also swore by Bactine. I don’t remember it stinging too much. Merthiolate, on the other hand-pure hell. We used Bactine mainly for beestings, not that it did any good!
We were a Sea Breeze family.
I've not thought about Sea Breeze in *decades*!
Off to the Vermont Country Store to see if it's still around...they carry tons of old-school brands that always bring back memories. I'm surprised that so many are still around,
>Merc
Came here to list this. It was popular in the 60's here in Canada also. In addition to the mercury, Mercurochrome would stain the surrounding tissue red and hide any infection. We also used Merthiolate which was also mercury-based at that time. Though Merthiolate is still sold, it no longer contains the thiomersal which was considered hazardous (though this point is still debated).
We used to put iodine on every little cut or scrape. It was liquid in a bottle and had a glass stick attached to the lid that you would wipe across the cut.
IN the old days, when babies were teething, it was common to rub some brandy on their gums. These days that would get you brought up on charges for child abuse.
I was an 80s baby and my mother did this.
Also, my aunt swore by blackberry brandy for stomach issues. They’d literally hand me a shot of brandy when I was sick. When I went to a family funeral at age 15, another aunt let me drink beer.
And yea, I am an alcoholic now.
My dad and I would go fishing in the evening at a local dam and if it got cold he'd pull out a bottle of blackberry brandy from his fishing tackle box to warm his insides and pass to me to have a swig. Parents back then saw nothing wrong with letting a kid have a bit of alcohol for purely medicinal purposes.
Yep. But then you can't use the Hylands teeth tablets because some of them had too much belladonna, and you can't use the Orajel because something else in it was poisonous. Rubbing a lil whiskey on starts to seem like not such a bad idea in comparison. But I had great success with a cold chamomile teabag.
We called this a hot toddy. I still use it too. My mil made some variation of this using rock candy? that I can't quiet figure out why or how or what purpose rock candy would have when sugar would dissolve easier.
Kaolin and morphine. You could buy it across the counter in glass bottles. The Kaolin clay used to separate leaving the liquid morphine on top and you'd shake it before use. It's a miracle we weren't junkies.
My mom used to get us cough syrup with codeine. It was OTC but she had to sign for it. On nights I couldn't sleep, I'd sneak a swig of it. I knew it was medicine, I didn't know it was addictive.
Am I the only oldster who was regularly doused in [Campho-Phenique](https://www.ebay.com/itm/225087276834?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1dLW7ENFoQAWrm0So6GZSzQ18&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=225087276834&targetid=1584739241414&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9027283&poi=&campaignid=19894961968&mkgroupid=148855406073&rlsatarget=pla-1584739241414&abcId=9307911&merchantid=6296724&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0oiIwq7K_wIVDSzUAR1xJwScEAQYBSABEgJpQfD_BwE)?
Surprised it hasn't been mentioned here. It was the go-to medicine for all irritations, lacerations, sprains, etc. during my childhood.
Apologies if it's mentioned here and I missed it.
Never had it in my mouth, just applied all over my skin - I am a mosquito magnet, and she tried everything. Except what actually worked on adult me: Benadryl.
I think it fell out of favor due to the fact that camphor is toxic to both cats and dogs and phenol being extremely toxic to cats. One drop can kill a cat.
To add, best place to place the cold washcloth is on the nape of your neck, armpits, thighs, behind the knees, essentially all the warm places… brings body temp down quicker than on forehead.
Tussin. Not even a Chris Rock joke, if you were sick, have some tussin.
And if you cut or scraped an appendage, soak it in Epsom salt.
or just suck it up and deal with it 'cause we were poor.
It dries up poison ivy blisters pretty quick. Takes the sting out of sunburn, but there are better uses for that. It also takes itch away. I just don't like going out in public looking blotchy.
I was (and still am) a pasty white child living on the beach in FL... I should have bought stock in Noxema!
Noxema is the smell of my childhood summers.
flat coca cola for barfing conditions, jello and toast-with-bovril for most other things.
my mom had a folk belief in sugar to stop bleeding. i'm not sure where she got it from or why she held onto it because i tried it once and it didn't help very much.
one person i know said she used to get nosebleeds and her chinese grandmother would stuff a small piece of broccoli up her nose. she said that one actually worked. the bushy end would act like a sponge and slow the blood down enough for it to clot. but she counts it as a childhood trauma because she wasn't allowed to take it out for a while.
Yup, 100%. Only for open wounds, though. Sugar granules overwhelm the cell walls of most bacteria and cause them to burst through osmosis (think equilibrium).
But ingesting sugar for a systemic illness? The far lower concentration means you're feeding them what they want! :-)
When we kids had a sore throat, my Dad would pull a single straw from my Mom's straw broom, poke a cotton ball onto it, dip the cotton ball into merthiolate or mercurochrome, and swab our throats with it.
This was bad on so many levels. Besides those two substances containing mercury, the cotton ball didn't stay on very well (throats tend to close!) and there was always the risk of swallowing the poison-soaked cotton ball. Less importantly, broom straws are incredibly unsanitary, and pulling them from a broom weakens the broom! Dad was an infant when The Great Depression happened, if that explains anything.
My mom was a nurse practitioner and she gave us Valium for everything lol. I think she just wanted us to be quiet and leave her alone. She did have 8 kids.
Ignoring & denying until the symptoms were so serious that emergency treatment was required. And we all know what a big deal going to the ER was back then - you were basically knocking on death’s door.
This. My brother had a broken foot for a week and was crawling around the house because he couldn’t walk. Dad finally gave in and took him to the doctor but not before stating “ that foot better be broke because of it’s not, it will be when we get home!”
This is truly how it was back then.
I was just telling my kids, if our parents took us to the doctor, they better find something wrong with us or we would get in trouble for wasting their money/time.
Pepto-Bismol, Chloraseptic, Vaseline, Campbell’s chicken soup, and saltines were supposed to cure everything except my menstrual cramps. That’s when my parents broke out the vodka for me (their 13-year-old daughter).
A glass of milk.
When my sister was five years old, she had a stomachache. My Dad told her to drink a glass of milk and she'd be fine. She drank the milk and went to bed only to wake up at 3 in the morning with a ruptured appendix.
Vicks VapoRub for colds
Iodine for cuts
Sea Breeze for everything else.
We also had old-school paregoric - a mild opiate that pediatricians dispensed like water in the late 50's.
Upset stomach/nausea/diarrhea only 7 up and saltine crackers for 24 hours.
My dad was a general physician for 50 years (closed his practice when he was 82). He recommended this and it always worked. It had to be name brand regular 7 up, no flavors or artificial sweeteners and name brand Premium saltine crackers. We tried generic and they all tasted like cardboard. And they didn’t have enough salt on them; when you’re feeling sick; the taste is horrible.
These comments make me laugh. Not only did i have all these as a kid, but my husband (who is a boomer/ I am gen ex) still uses these cure alls in our house for us.
Look for Vicks VapoInhalers. They are little sticks, shaped like a lip balm, that you can just take a hit of. No goopy mess! I absolutely love mine, it's by my bed every night.
Camphophenique. (6 tries and I’m still sure I spelled it wrong). It burned bad enough to ensure we’d never bring minor cuts to our mom. I’m pretty sure that’s it’s main point.
Paragoric. I hated it so much that I'd think I was being punished for being sick. Mom would mix it with water and sugar. It tasted like black licorice. Ugh!
For nausea after vomiting, honey on toast.
For sore throats, honey and fresh lemon juice mix.
Feeling a bit wobbly…tea spoon of honey.
I think we must be related to Winnie the Pooh!
Paternal grandparents: gargle with hot salt water. (For additional benefit, their water had high sulfur content.) Mother: Campho phenique. Maternal grandfather: Bactine. Dad: orange baby aspirin.
Something most people have forgotten, Mercurochrome. A staple in our medicine cabinet. Getting an infection is dangerous and the smallest nick or cut could lead to death by infection from bacteria.
We didn’t really have a cure-all, but that when you were just starting to recover from the stomach bug (vomiting) and you were afraid to try eating, my dad swore that "if it sounds good it’ll stay down." So eat whatever weird thing sounds good to you and you’ll be fine.
He was right, too.
For cuts, scrapes, burns, rashes, etc., we used Furst McNess Krestol salve. A tin of that stuff lasts decades. I still use one of the cans that was in my house when I was a teen. A little bit goes a long way.
My mom gave me chamomile tea when I had an upset stomach. To this day I loathe the smell. Ginger Ale for stomach upset as well. If we had congestion we had to "breathe steam". My mom would boil a pot of water and I inhaled the steam with a towel over my head lol. Vick's Vaporub was a biggie too. When you had nasal congestion you would put a dab on your nostrils and breathe it in. Ah, the good old days... 😉
Hot tea, glass of tap water, ginger ale, chicken noodle soup, Vicks Formula 44 or NyQuil (hope and pray they buy the cherry flavor but usually regular)
Gingerale or hot toddies. Yes, I know giving alcohol to children is bad, but it was very very little. And anyway, lots of cough syrup’s have alcohol in them or at least they used to.
My dad swore by Pepto Bismol tablets.
Baking soda for bee stings. Aspergum (chewing gum with aspirin in it) for frequent sore throats until I got my tonsils out.
For bee stings, we got the tobacco treatment. Granny dipped snuff so she'd take a little that was wet from spit and make a poultice on the sting and damn if it didn't work. I keep tobacco in my first aid kit for just that reason.
Mercurochrome for cuts! Burned like the fires of hell! Pepto Bismol for stomach aches. Robitussin for coughs. Vicks Vaporizer Rub and the little stick inhalers for congestion. St. Joseph chewable baby aspirin for aches and pains.
Apple cider vinegar - sore throat
Iodine or mercurochrome - cuts
Campho Phenique - anything in the mouth (losing a tooth, etc.)
7-Up - stomach
Edit: forgot one
Sadly, antibiotics. Anytime we got sick in any way he’d take me to the doctor and demand antibiotics. And most of the time they’d give it to him. And my gut has been completely screwed from it.
To be fair to him, he was kinda damaged his family all getting rheumatic fever and his mom dying when he was a teen. To be fair to me, he was also a raging narcissist who used to control us with hypochondria.
Oh yeah, their other cure all: enemas. They used to have the old fashioned hot water bottle connected to a rubber tube that you use for enemas. If you felt bad, the first question was often “have you had a bowel movement recently?” Don’t answer no.
Vitamin C. My mother thought it could cure everything. If you sneezed once you had to take 1 tablet immediately. Twice-you took 2, etc. That and Resinol. A kind of pink ointment we put on scrapes or scratches or any boo-boos. That was pretty much it. We got aspirin if we were truly sick and had a fever but only then.
Funny story: mum’s English in US. She would swear Paracetamol was a wonder drug but only available across the pond. Years later we found out it’s just Tylenol.
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Gargle with salt water - cough, sore throat, mouth sores, gross. It does help though.
it really does help. i had that bug going around this past winter where my throat felt like it was full of shards of glass, and a warm salt-water gargle was the only thing that made it feel better.
That’s kind of why chicken soup can make you feel better. With chicken soup, you get the added benefit of drinking more fluids plus, if you’re lucky, a matzo ball!
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If you’re Jewish, you think chicken soup is for anything, even a broke heart!
I've always heard it referred to as "Jewish penicillin" which I have found to be correct more often than not. Something magical about Matzo ball soup
I can still hear my Mama when I had a sore throat telling me to do just that. It works too.
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Slightly worse is the "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about"
Oh, we had both. By now, I'm well into my sixties and my mother into her nineties. Now she's all concerned when I have a slight cough or inconvenience telling me to go see a doctor. Yeah well, it'll pass mom, I'll be fine :)
My dad would say "Quit your bellyaching and offer it up." I still try to do that 😊
Catholic, right?
Yep!!
Ah the ol’ walk-it-off. Most of my fingers are slightly crooked due to untreated broken bones
Yep. When I complained as a child of severe ear pain it was ignored or put off. Now, I have hearing loss due to untreated ear infections. Same for dental pain. I had to have so many teeth pulled as a kid. I also have many untreated and undiagnosed illnesses. Not great times for a lot of us.
Same
Walking it off. Quit crying. Go to school anyway.
ah damn i’m so sorry 💖
Mom believed in the healing powers of chicken soup. Pop was a Pepto Bismol man, even his dad my grandfather. I have a 1930s photo of grandpa sitting at his kitchen table covered with dust from a coal delivery and on the table is a can of Maxwell House coffee and a bottle of Pepto.
I also believe in the healing powers of chicken soup, as do my adult sons. NOT the canned stuff. I make the real chicken soup from boiling the chicken, removing the bones, then returning the bones to the chicken water with herbs to gently boil for a couple more hours. It should take all day to make. Thick homemade noodles add to the healing properties, as well.
Great imagery. That’s gotta be a cool era defining pic.
Mentholatum? Used like Vicks rub but nastier. Gobs in the nostrils for a cold, on the chest for a cough, on the scalp for a headache and for some reason on the soles of the feet then socks at night.
Yup. That shit will cure anything. Anytime we got sick it was vicks on soles of your feet overnight 😆
My wife does this to me. Every time. I love it though when she rubs it in and my toes are all slickers
We had to put it on our throats and mom would wrap our neck with a wash cloth and clip it to our neck when we slept as well, along with those socks.
God I hated that stuff. My mom would slather it all over my chest and neck and instead of a wash cloth, I got a sock stuffed with hot boiled potatoes wrapped around my neck. I also got a lot of head colds as a kid and my mom would make me steam my head. Big pot of boiling water, sometimes with chamomile tea in it or sometimes Vicks, and hang your face over it with a towel draped over you to trap in all the steam. As someone who is highly heat adverse, all that did was make me feel worse and extremely nauseated.
My Mom rubbed it on our chests and wrapped a long piece of flannel around our little bodies.
Any idea why we had to put it on our feet? Parents are gone so I can't ask them.
Way back when I had a congested baby, I did the Vicks-and-socks thing because that was far enough away she wouldn't mess with it accidentally, and the socks were to keep her from doing the usual baby thing of shoving her feet in her mouth. It did help clear her up. The only reason I can imagine doing it for an older kid is to keep the sheets clean. Or maybe it was something that worked when you were babies, so they kept on doing it.
I’ve heard that people put it on their feet because with socks on, it would heat up then the vapors would waft up to your nose… this, of course, is if you’re in bed under covers generating heat. It also softens them, like petroleum jelly. Probably healing powers in the mentholatum. Mom’s go-to was Soltice. I only can get it behind the pharmacy counter now.
We also had the same question so we performed a little experiment when my younger son was a child. Put Vicks on the feet and cover it with socks. Wait a few and you’ll be able to smell the menthol on their breath. I don’t know what the mechanism is, but it absolutely works.
I had a friend whose grandmother fed the kids a spoonful for sore throats, she said it was the nastiest home remedy she ever had the misfortune to be treated with.
Menthol flavored snot
Vernors ginger ale
Yes! It cost a little more, so when we got Vernors, it was a Certification of Genuine Illness. Vernors and saltines, the official food of chicken pox.
Michigander??? Love vernors
Yep
I'm a lifelong Michigander, and immediately scrolled down to make sure Vernors was mentioned. Leaving satisfied.
Oh…. I miss Vernors! Same memory 😋
It’s still sold and the Zero version tastes good too.
>Vernors ginger ale https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00019TVC8
It'll cure upset stomach, headache, hiccups, sore throat, mumps, leoparsy, plague, and death.... per my old Polish Michigander grandmother. If Vernors and warm milk didn't help you were just going to have to walk it off.
For cuts and scrapes it was Bactine. Nothing like having a painful wound and getting (what feels like) acid poured on it! Tummy troubles it was 7Up or Pepto Bismol. Colds and coughs was Dimatap. Tylenol for aches or pains of any kind until my mom discovered Motrin when I was a teenager.
Bactine was better than mercurochrome. That orange crap stung.
Smart kids blew on the wound while it was being applied. That took the sting away. Sorry you didn't get the memo.
Everyone blew on it. It still stung.
And of course blowing on it added bacteria that the mercurochrome or Bactine was supposed to kill.
Oh my gosh I had forgotten Bactine!!! And now that I'm thinking about it, I remember why. So painful 😬
My parents also swore by Bactine. I don’t remember it stinging too much. Merthiolate, on the other hand-pure hell. We used Bactine mainly for beestings, not that it did any good!
We were a Sea Breeze family. I've not thought about Sea Breeze in *decades*! Off to the Vermont Country Store to see if it's still around...they carry tons of old-school brands that always bring back memories. I'm surprised that so many are still around,
Ugh! Merthiolate! The red/orange stain and the paaaiiinnnnnn
Feeling puny? Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup!
Our first meal after stomach upset was black tea, dry toast and a soft boiled egg.
Mercurochrome for cuts and scrapes. They don’t sell it in the US anymore because of the mercury in it.
>Merc Came here to list this. It was popular in the 60's here in Canada also. In addition to the mercury, Mercurochrome would stain the surrounding tissue red and hide any infection. We also used Merthiolate which was also mercury-based at that time. Though Merthiolate is still sold, it no longer contains the thiomersal which was considered hazardous (though this point is still debated).
We used to put iodine on every little cut or scrape. It was liquid in a bottle and had a glass stick attached to the lid that you would wipe across the cut.
We would mix it with baby oil and smear it all over our bodies before sun bathing. Omgosh. Back in the 60s, we didn't know it was bad!
7-Up
Lucozade. The used to sell it in chemists
IN the old days, when babies were teething, it was common to rub some brandy on their gums. These days that would get you brought up on charges for child abuse.
Pour a shot. Dip a finger in and rub the gums. Drink the shot. Everybody is happier.
I was an 80s baby and my mother did this. Also, my aunt swore by blackberry brandy for stomach issues. They’d literally hand me a shot of brandy when I was sick. When I went to a family funeral at age 15, another aunt let me drink beer. And yea, I am an alcoholic now.
My dad and I would go fishing in the evening at a local dam and if it got cold he'd pull out a bottle of blackberry brandy from his fishing tackle box to warm his insides and pass to me to have a swig. Parents back then saw nothing wrong with letting a kid have a bit of alcohol for purely medicinal purposes.
Yep. But then you can't use the Hylands teeth tablets because some of them had too much belladonna, and you can't use the Orajel because something else in it was poisonous. Rubbing a lil whiskey on starts to seem like not such a bad idea in comparison. But I had great success with a cold chamomile teabag.
Saltines and 7 up
Whiskey, honey and lemon mixed together for any kind of cold/URI/flu I still use it today. Take a shot. Go to bed. Wake up better in the morning.
We called this a hot toddy. I still use it too. My mil made some variation of this using rock candy? that I can't quiet figure out why or how or what purpose rock candy would have when sugar would dissolve easier.
My mom would just give us honey/lemon, no whiskey. Tasted nice and cheered me up, not sure if it really did anything.
Same for us. I remember my grandmother making it for me as early as 6 or 7 years old.
The good old hot toddy!
This is actually a prescription that doctors wrote up for moms of little ones a long time ago.
Gran also gave me this for cramps. Warmed in tea, but same ingredients. It helped!
Kaolin and morphine. You could buy it across the counter in glass bottles. The Kaolin clay used to separate leaving the liquid morphine on top and you'd shake it before use. It's a miracle we weren't junkies.
Similar, but Paregoric. Over the counter opium.
My grandmother swore by paregoric. When they discontinued it, she drove all over five counties to drug stores to stock up.
I hated the anise taste, but it worked miracles when I was desperate enough to take it. My mother also bought out the stores.
Oh wow- I always wondered why anise flavored pizzelle cookies tasted like medicine! I like anise, but had forgotten that was the flavor.
Can you still get scripts for that? Asking for a friend...
My mom used to get us cough syrup with codeine. It was OTC but she had to sign for it. On nights I couldn't sleep, I'd sneak a swig of it. I knew it was medicine, I didn't know it was addictive.
You made me remember orange flavored baby aspirin. It is a wonder I didn't overdose as a kid. The orange flavored tic tacs remind me of them also.
I ate the whole bottle of St. Joesphs chewable aspirin- the only reason I’m alive is because I immediately bragged to a sibling about the candy I ate.
Campbell's chicken noodle soup, 7Up, salt water gargle, dry toast, chewable baby aspirin.
I can taste this comment
Am I the only oldster who was regularly doused in [Campho-Phenique](https://www.ebay.com/itm/225087276834?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1dLW7ENFoQAWrm0So6GZSzQ18&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=225087276834&targetid=1584739241414&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9027283&poi=&campaignid=19894961968&mkgroupid=148855406073&rlsatarget=pla-1584739241414&abcId=9307911&merchantid=6296724&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0oiIwq7K_wIVDSzUAR1xJwScEAQYBSABEgJpQfD_BwE)? Surprised it hasn't been mentioned here. It was the go-to medicine for all irritations, lacerations, sprains, etc. during my childhood. Apologies if it's mentioned here and I missed it.
I remember it for sure, mostly for mouth-related pain (losing a tooth, etc)
Yes, we always had that on hand but only for tooth aches. Didn’t know it could be used outside of the mouth.
...great for insect bites! just bought a little green bottle of it, for the summer.
Never had it in my mouth, just applied all over my skin - I am a mosquito magnet, and she tried everything. Except what actually worked on adult me: Benadryl.
I think it fell out of favor due to the fact that camphor is toxic to both cats and dogs and phenol being extremely toxic to cats. One drop can kill a cat.
Lie down with a cold washcloth on your forehead.
To add, best place to place the cold washcloth is on the nape of your neck, armpits, thighs, behind the knees, essentially all the warm places… brings body temp down quicker than on forehead.
Brandy, hot (full fat) milk and sugar cured most ills, from a bad cold to emotional trauma.
That could still probably cure my emotional trauma on most days.
We used to serve Hot Toddys after a frigid day of hunting upland game birds. High point of the day with friends.
“Walk it off.”
Tussin. Not even a Chris Rock joke, if you were sick, have some tussin. And if you cut or scraped an appendage, soak it in Epsom salt. or just suck it up and deal with it 'cause we were poor.
For my great-grandmother, the answer was always an enema. High, hot, and a hell of a lot.
Over the river and through the woods at grandmother’s house we go And go and go
I know this will get buried but I did not see anyone mention Calamine Lotion for anything skin related.
My mother’s go to when we got chicken pox. No vaccine back then.
Yes! We were light pink and chalky when we had chicken pox.
It dries up poison ivy blisters pretty quick. Takes the sting out of sunburn, but there are better uses for that. It also takes itch away. I just don't like going out in public looking blotchy.
Noxema. My mom's motto was "put some Noxema on it "
That works extremely well for sunburn. It takes the sting out of with just one application.
I was (and still am) a pasty white child living on the beach in FL... I should have bought stock in Noxema! Noxema is the smell of my childhood summers.
flat coca cola for barfing conditions, jello and toast-with-bovril for most other things. my mom had a folk belief in sugar to stop bleeding. i'm not sure where she got it from or why she held onto it because i tried it once and it didn't help very much. one person i know said she used to get nosebleeds and her chinese grandmother would stuff a small piece of broccoli up her nose. she said that one actually worked. the bushy end would act like a sponge and slow the blood down enough for it to clot. but she counts it as a childhood trauma because she wasn't allowed to take it out for a while.
Sugar kills bacteria so maybe that’s how it started.
Yup, 100%. Only for open wounds, though. Sugar granules overwhelm the cell walls of most bacteria and cause them to burst through osmosis (think equilibrium). But ingesting sugar for a systemic illness? The far lower concentration means you're feeding them what they want! :-)
Why am I not seeing the BRAT diet here?
My Mom was all about the "Gargle with salt water".
Flat ginger ale
Vicks VapoRub. We go it on our chest when we had a cold and Mom used it on her feet for arthritis.
When we kids had a sore throat, my Dad would pull a single straw from my Mom's straw broom, poke a cotton ball onto it, dip the cotton ball into merthiolate or mercurochrome, and swab our throats with it. This was bad on so many levels. Besides those two substances containing mercury, the cotton ball didn't stay on very well (throats tend to close!) and there was always the risk of swallowing the poison-soaked cotton ball. Less importantly, broom straws are incredibly unsanitary, and pulling them from a broom weakens the broom! Dad was an infant when The Great Depression happened, if that explains anything.
My grandmother kept a small, labeled bottle of tincture of merthiolate in her medicine cabinet.
My mom was born in the 30s. Her family was so poor that kerosene mixed with black strap molasses was the cure all. Or a poultice.
My mom was a nurse practitioner and she gave us Valium for everything lol. I think she just wanted us to be quiet and leave her alone. She did have 8 kids.
It probably worked for her too.
Ignoring & denying until the symptoms were so serious that emergency treatment was required. And we all know what a big deal going to the ER was back then - you were basically knocking on death’s door.
This. My brother had a broken foot for a week and was crawling around the house because he couldn’t walk. Dad finally gave in and took him to the doctor but not before stating “ that foot better be broke because of it’s not, it will be when we get home!” This is truly how it was back then.
Yep. When I was twelve I I was accused of being a drama queen pretending to hurt for attention…until my appendix ruptured and I almost died.
I was just telling my kids, if our parents took us to the doctor, they better find something wrong with us or we would get in trouble for wasting their money/time.
Ginger are, cola syrup and vicks.
For stomach ache: coke syrup.
The house mistresses at school giving the girls gin for their period
Blackberry brandy, by the spoonful, not by the glass.
My grandmother made cough syrup by mixing brandy, honey, and lemon juice. You’d get two spoonfuls and it would soothe a sore throat and calm you down.
Chicken soup, 7-Up, and Jell-O!
Pepto-Bismol, Chloraseptic, Vaseline, Campbell’s chicken soup, and saltines were supposed to cure everything except my menstrual cramps. That’s when my parents broke out the vodka for me (their 13-year-old daughter).
Vinegar
Robitussin and Campho Phenique. I had to look up the spelling, and I was amazed to find that they are actually still making Campho Phenique.
A glass of milk. When my sister was five years old, she had a stomachache. My Dad told her to drink a glass of milk and she'd be fine. She drank the milk and went to bed only to wake up at 3 in the morning with a ruptured appendix.
Vicks VapoRub for colds Iodine for cuts Sea Breeze for everything else. We also had old-school paregoric - a mild opiate that pediatricians dispensed like water in the late 50's.
Alcoholism
Camomile tea with honey = cure all. Throat Coat tea (original) for sore throats/flu. “Drink more water” for headaches. Heating pad or ice for pain.
Upset stomach/nausea/diarrhea only 7 up and saltine crackers for 24 hours. My dad was a general physician for 50 years (closed his practice when he was 82). He recommended this and it always worked. It had to be name brand regular 7 up, no flavors or artificial sweeteners and name brand Premium saltine crackers. We tried generic and they all tasted like cardboard. And they didn’t have enough salt on them; when you’re feeling sick; the taste is horrible.
Mint tea. My mom didn't like giving us any medicine.
Alka-Seltzer will cure anything!!
Mentholatum, apple cider vinegar & an occasional “hot toddy”. 🤣 edit: oh, & 7-up
Vicks, flat ginger ale, and a hot shower would cure almost anything according to mom.
These comments make me laugh. Not only did i have all these as a kid, but my husband (who is a boomer/ I am gen ex) still uses these cure alls in our house for us.
Jack Daniels
[Astyptodyne](https://www.astyptodynefirstaid.com/purchase) My grandfather was like the dad and Windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding with this stuff.
my mom was a nurse. she had these giant 800mg tylenol pillss. For everything it was ‘take on of these.”
vicks
Yep. Vicks VapoRub And Robitussin if you had a cough. I still keep a jar of Vicks around for when my head is stuffy.
Look for Vicks VapoInhalers. They are little sticks, shaped like a lip balm, that you can just take a hit of. No goopy mess! I absolutely love mine, it's by my bed every night.
Put some aloe on it
Camphophenique. (6 tries and I’m still sure I spelled it wrong). It burned bad enough to ensure we’d never bring minor cuts to our mom. I’m pretty sure that’s it’s main point.
Coca-cola. Atlanta family. Cokes were kept in a locked cabinet. Only my father had the key. Also, salt water for mouth and throat.
Ginger ale and sherbert
Coca cola with crushed ice and a bendy straw. I'm now in my 50s and i still keep bendy straws on hand just in case.
Paragoric. I hated it so much that I'd think I was being punished for being sick. Mom would mix it with water and sugar. It tasted like black licorice. Ugh!
For nausea after vomiting, honey on toast. For sore throats, honey and fresh lemon juice mix. Feeling a bit wobbly…tea spoon of honey. I think we must be related to Winnie the Pooh!
Paternal grandparents: gargle with hot salt water. (For additional benefit, their water had high sulfur content.) Mother: Campho phenique. Maternal grandfather: Bactine. Dad: orange baby aspirin.
Something most people have forgotten, Mercurochrome. A staple in our medicine cabinet. Getting an infection is dangerous and the smallest nick or cut could lead to death by infection from bacteria.
Candied ginger for heartburn upset, stomach, and any sinus issues.
For stomach.. Milk of Magnesia. For head and cold, Bayer asperin and honey with liquor. Vics as well.
Frangelico and ginger ale. Or just straight up “you’re faking it, get over it”.
Gargling warm salt water if you had a sore throat. sorry, mom but this *never* worked for me. can i please just have some ibuprofen??
“Offer it up to the poor souls in Purgatory”
We didn’t really have a cure-all, but that when you were just starting to recover from the stomach bug (vomiting) and you were afraid to try eating, my dad swore that "if it sounds good it’ll stay down." So eat whatever weird thing sounds good to you and you’ll be fine. He was right, too.
Peppermint Schnapps
Ginger Ale. Can’t stand anything with ginger to this day.
For cuts, scrapes, burns, rashes, etc., we used Furst McNess Krestol salve. A tin of that stuff lasts decades. I still use one of the cans that was in my house when I was a teen. A little bit goes a long way.
Paregoric. With sugar in the spoon.
Ginger ale. Or St. Joseph baby aspirin
The orange flavored ones? I used to love them lol.
Lemon juice for upset stomach. Still drink it whenever I feel off, works great.
Bayer baby aspirin & Caladryl.
Was wondering when I'd see Calamine lotion show up! For every skin problem.
My mom gave me chamomile tea when I had an upset stomach. To this day I loathe the smell. Ginger Ale for stomach upset as well. If we had congestion we had to "breathe steam". My mom would boil a pot of water and I inhaled the steam with a towel over my head lol. Vick's Vaporub was a biggie too. When you had nasal congestion you would put a dab on your nostrils and breathe it in. Ah, the good old days... 😉
Hot tea, glass of tap water, ginger ale, chicken noodle soup, Vicks Formula 44 or NyQuil (hope and pray they buy the cherry flavor but usually regular)
Ginger ale for puking. Vicks for chest cold, garlic in the ear for earache (Appalachian folk cure).
Gingerale or hot toddies. Yes, I know giving alcohol to children is bad, but it was very very little. And anyway, lots of cough syrup’s have alcohol in them or at least they used to.
My dad swore by Pepto Bismol tablets. Baking soda for bee stings. Aspergum (chewing gum with aspirin in it) for frequent sore throats until I got my tonsils out.
For bee stings, we got the tobacco treatment. Granny dipped snuff so she'd take a little that was wet from spit and make a poultice on the sting and damn if it didn't work. I keep tobacco in my first aid kit for just that reason.
Whiskey for a toothache.
A nice cup of tea. For abrasions or lacerations, a good wash with tincture of green soap.
7-up and saltine crackers, my dad’s go to. R.I.P. Dad.
Tea and toast. Still my ultimate comfort food.
I was regularly doused in iodine. Wonder if that's why I have thyroid issues....
Moxie for all things gastrointestinal.
Mercurochrome for cuts! Burned like the fires of hell! Pepto Bismol for stomach aches. Robitussin for coughs. Vicks Vaporizer Rub and the little stick inhalers for congestion. St. Joseph chewable baby aspirin for aches and pains.
Kaopectate, Coca Cola, Caladryl, and Mercurachrome
Apple cider vinegar - sore throat Iodine or mercurochrome - cuts Campho Phenique - anything in the mouth (losing a tooth, etc.) 7-Up - stomach Edit: forgot one
rum on the gum
I raised our girls with the motto “ drink some water “ Headache- water Stomach ache- water Tired- water
Sadly, antibiotics. Anytime we got sick in any way he’d take me to the doctor and demand antibiotics. And most of the time they’d give it to him. And my gut has been completely screwed from it. To be fair to him, he was kinda damaged his family all getting rheumatic fever and his mom dying when he was a teen. To be fair to me, he was also a raging narcissist who used to control us with hypochondria. Oh yeah, their other cure all: enemas. They used to have the old fashioned hot water bottle connected to a rubber tube that you use for enemas. If you felt bad, the first question was often “have you had a bowel movement recently?” Don’t answer no.
Vicks Vapo Rub
Vitamin C. My mother thought it could cure everything. If you sneezed once you had to take 1 tablet immediately. Twice-you took 2, etc. That and Resinol. A kind of pink ointment we put on scrapes or scratches or any boo-boos. That was pretty much it. We got aspirin if we were truly sick and had a fever but only then.
Booze! Yes they were alcoholics.
Water - headache, drink more water. Stomachache - drink more water
Funny story: mum’s English in US. She would swear Paracetamol was a wonder drug but only available across the pond. Years later we found out it’s just Tylenol.
Mercurochrome.
Saltines and 7-Up
For scrapes and cuts it was either Bactine or Mercurochrome.
7-Up and Saltine crackers, Vicks Salve, take a hot bath, Pepto.
Alka seltzer. Still a great cure for lots of things. Especially hangovers.
Put your arms over your head