Carol:
Home-Grown Remedies for What Ails the People
I got up early this morning to do some research. I had already found an interesting book on one of my favorite websites, “The Making of America,” by J. Albert Bellows of New England entitled How Not to be Sick (1869). The book turns out to be about homeopathic approaches to home health care, including 20 important remedies for the 19th century family medicine chest. The author’s philosophy is clearly stated:
"…we shall probably find that every climate in which man can live is furnished with its own remedies, sufficient to cure all the diseases and relieve all the pains to which its inhabitants are subjected" (Bellows 325).
Bellows was influenced by Samuel Hahnemann, a German doctor whose 1810 book The Organon of Rational Medicine described his new method of healing called homeopathy, and many of these old-fashioned remedies are still used today: deadly nightshade, wolf’s bane, chamomile and St. Ignatius Bean.
But now I want to think about Egypt, and I want to watch as the people in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, all along the banks of the Nile River, celebrate the resignation President Hosni Mubarak, the only leader most of them have ever known.
We have been watching cable news and the Internet for 14 days while the Egyptian people have expressed their opinions about the “disease” of Mubarak’s regime and the only remedy they demanded to “relieve all the pains to which [Egypt’s] inhabitants are subjected.” I guess I’m old-fashioned enough to think there is nothing more exhilarating than seeing “the will of the people” in action. It isn’t really a thrill at the political outcome as much as a thrill at watching people react to the knowledge that they have “brought down the regime,” not some outside force political or corporate, but “they the people,” “we the people.”
On a smaller scale, I felt that same sense of power, of “we did it,” when I was walking near San Francisco’s Ghiradelli Square in the early evening of August 8, 1974 and heard the news that Richard Nixon had just resigned. I still remember the rush of excitement, not just that he was leaving office but that “we the people” had prevailed.
In June 1989, I watched from the living-room of a tiny Yorkshire, England B&B as young Chinese protestors gathered in Tianannmen Square as part of a 7-week failed movement that took an estimated 3000 lives. A few months later, I watched the walls of East Berlin come tumbling down on November 9, 1989, the visible evidence the East Germans had been successful in toppling the Communist regime. No one knows how Mubarak’s resignation will play out for the Egyptian people, nor how this act of “self-liberation” will impact other countries in the region. I hope this home remedy will lead to better health for the people of Egypt, and I will be relieved if they can do it without the intervention of big, expensive “medical consultants” from the West.
SOURCES:
Image of Egyptian Demonstrations Jan 2011MG00064-20110125-1429. Date 25 January 2011, 14:23 IMG00064-20110125-1429Uploaded by BanyanTree
Author Muhammad Ghafari from Giza, Egypt
History of Homepathy: http://dr-dom.com/homeopathy_history.html
List of Homeopathic Preparations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_homeopathic_preparations
How not to be sick : a sequel to "Philosophy of eating" / Albert J. Bellows ...
Bellows, J. Albert (Albert Jones), 1804-1869.
New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869.
SOURCES:
Image of Egyptian Demonstrations Jan 2011MG00064-20110125-1429. Date 25 January 2011, 14:23 IMG00064-20110125-1429Uploaded by BanyanTree
Author Muhammad Ghafari from Giza, Egypt
History of Homepathy: http://dr-dom.com/homeopathy_history.html
List of Homeopathic Preparations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_homeopathic_preparations
How not to be sick : a sequel to "Philosophy of eating" / Albert J. Bellows ...
Bellows, J. Albert (Albert Jones), 1804-1869.
New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869.
Image of the Berlin Wall Nov 1989. 1:12, 7 November 2009 User:SanFranEditor uploaded "File:BerlinWall-BrandenburgGate-1989-Nov-09.jpg" ({{Information |Description = People atop the Berlin Wall near the Brandenburg Gate on 09 November 1989 |Source = I (Sue Ream) created this work entirely by myself. |Date = photo taken 09 November 1989 |Author = Sue Ream, p)
Megan:
More harm than good
If you Google this topic, you’ll find pages and pages of results of what "Grandma used to do." It’s things like this that reveal the dangers of access to unverified information-- many of these sites are facilitated by the modern equivalent of snake oil peddlers. I’m not saying that herbal remedies are without merit (I have a friend who swears by lavender oil as a way to reduce scarring), but I’m no expert and neither are most of the people who sell this stuff online.
That being said, the medical field is evolving just as quickly as the other sciences. What is considered best practice today, may be disavowed tomorrow as history has proven time and again. Here are two examples of common remedies for ailments, used for hundreds or thousands of years, which usually proved more deadly than helpful.
That being said, the medical field is evolving just as quickly as the other sciences. What is considered best practice today, may be disavowed tomorrow as history has proven time and again. Here are two examples of common remedies for ailments, used for hundreds or thousands of years, which usually proved more deadly than helpful.
Blood-letting – in medieval medicine, the four humors were considered responsible for all illness. The humors were black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Operating under the theory that illness occurred when the humors were out of balance, medieval physicians would often bleed their patients either by cutting them open, or by using leeches.
Mercury had a long history of medicinal (and cosmetic) use before people found out it was killing them. In China, it was thought to heal broken bones; the ancient Greeks used it in ointments and salves.
Nowadays, mercury still has a place in modern medicine (and cosmetics) although the use is declining. Since the 1930’s a mercury derivative has been used to preserve vaccines, and it is this application which has been blamed by some for causing autism in children. Although there appears to be no established link between autism and vaccinations, the use of mercury has not been removed from vaccines intended for children under six.
The use of mercury in cosmetics, specifically in mascara, was banned in Minnesota in 2008 – the first state to enact such measures.
A short Internet search indicates that there are a number of dangerous old-fashioned home remedies still in use (I’m assuming they are still in use, because why else would there be sites devoted to their danger). WebMD under the heading of Women’s Health has the patronizing title “5 Home Remedy No-Nos” which warns of the dangers of ear-candling (shoving a candle in the ear to remove excess wax) and reminds us that Q-tips aren’t a good idea either. Also, you should not give whiskey to a teething baby (drunk baby = bad), nor put butter on a burn (can cause infection). The final ‘no-no’s’ are Colloidal Silver (can turn your skin blue) and Home Colon Cleanses (dehydration and salt depletion).
With the exception of the ear-candling, I have never tried any of these remedies. With the candling, I got the lighter as far as my ear before I thought of my hair going up in flame and vanity won over my discomfort. Obviously I have no medical training in either traditional or alternative methods. In my opinion, it’s always better to consult a doctor than the Internet, otherwise you might spend a couple of weeks thinking a trapped nerve is Multiple Sclerosis.
With the exception of the ear-candling, I have never tried any of these remedies. With the candling, I got the lighter as far as my ear before I thought of my hair going up in flame and vanity won over my discomfort. Obviously I have no medical training in either traditional or alternative methods. In my opinion, it’s always better to consult a doctor than the Internet, otherwise you might spend a couple of weeks thinking a trapped nerve is Multiple Sclerosis.
Sources:
So what's wrong with having blue skin?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kamat.com/kalranga/hindu/krishna.jpg