We had the Vick's VapoRub. Any congestion, you'd get it on your chest, on your upper lip under you nose, and for extreme cases there would be the Vick's 'inhaler'. Dump some Vick's in a pot of boiling water, inhale the vapor.

Merthiolate and mercurochrome. Stained you colors. Eventually you couldn't find it anymore, so then to treat wounds it was peroxide or rubbing alcohol, both of which are good mainly for causing more pain than the injury itself.

Calomine lotion on bites. Didn't do anything for the itch, but it was good for giving you pink spots, and making you smell bad and stick to the sheets.

Spoonful of sugar for hiccups. That shit actually works. Worked for me when I'd get hiccups as a kid, and it's the only thing that works for my oldest kid who sometimes gets really persistent hiccups.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Castor oil. It's been decades, but I still remember the taste of that stuff.

OMG, yes! My mother's remedy for everything. Ugh.

Yes, I was also the victim of the Vicks VapoRub treatment nearly every time I got sick. Even though it’s been decades I can still smell it. I also got merthiolate for the cuts and scrapes. Mom said the burning meant it was working!

Old scratchy itchy wool garments my parents brought from Germany when I was cold.

I would literally cry when they put them on me as they itched so much. Not to mention the smell as well from the moth balls.

Vick's has been mentioned several times. In addition to using it a chest rub, it standard cold/flu treatment included a vaporizer that had a reservoir you put a big dollop of Vick's in.

I have vague images of 2 or 3 different vaporizers. I think on of them looked like this:

Mentholatum/vick's salve into the nostrils.

Oh jeez do I remember Vick’s and iodine and everything mentioned here. Being a child of immigrant parents, I seemed to have a foot in more than one continent.

A common remedy for colds, flu, and muscle pain was cupping. Usually my mother or grand mother would have me lay on my chest while she poured a measure of rubbing alcohol into a bowl. Then she took a fork which been make into a type of torch by wrapping cotton around the tines,and securing with string or thread.

Once the fork was dipped into the alcohol, a match was used to set it afire. Then the curor would grab a glass, thrust the lit fork into the inverted glass for about a second, and then immediately place it strategically on my back. The vacuum created by the burning of the oxygen in the glass caused quite a strong suction, and pulled your skin at least an inch into the glass. It hurt like hell. After a few seconds the glass was pulled off at an angle, creating a loud ‘pop’, and the procedure repeated. A veriation was leaving the glass in place to continue to draw out the affliction, and move on while using a second glass, or more.

The real treat came after the glass had gone through a few cycles, and was hotter than the hubs of hell, and continued to be applied to the sensitive skin on the curee’s back.

Did it work? Every time. When someone asked if that was enough, the ailing person would always say; “..oh yes, I feel lots better”.

Another experience:


When I was about 5-6, I strained a muscle right where the leg joins the torso. My mother noticed I was in pain. Later that night my aunt Evangeline took me out on the mountain path where the ancestral home was located. She turned me so I was facing the bright full moon. Then she pulled my skivvies down to my knees, pulled a rounded stone out of her shawl and rubbed it on the afflicted area while muttering some words. After a few minutes of this, she pulled my skivvies up, took my hand and we walked back to the house. It musta worked because I never had even a twinge of pain in that area in over 60 years since.

My Dad would take “Rooster” brand pain medicine for headaches and other pain. It came in a little paper folder like the size of a small Dentine gum stick. Anyway, you would stick a finger nail in a fold in the paper, lay the wrapper flat, fold the sides up, then tip it into you mouth, followed by a big drink of water. I remember him using it for many years as it was a standard medicine all over Europe and the Middle East. He used aspirin when in the US for the same purpose. I tasted it once and found it bitter. Anyway, decades later I found out that the little Rooster contained a variety of ingredients, including opium. He was not addicted, it now it seems odd you could by it at news stands, and pharmacies as freely as cigarettes.

Fluoride treatments at the dentist as a kid. Rolls of cotton saturated in fluoride and placed up against your teeth - hold for 15-20 minutes. That shit tasted foul.

My Vicks memory: when a cold is coming on our neck coated with Vicks and then covered with an old sock, pinned with a safety pin.

I would never have guessed that the proper spelling is “Merthiolate,” but I remember the glass dauber in the bottle. The end flared to a round bulb and that’s what was put on the cut or skinned knee. Hurt like fire, but mom would “blow on it.”

Penicillin. We’d go to the doctor, for a cold or sore throat or something. Go all the way through the examination and feel like we were going to escape this time when mom would say, “Do you think he should have a shot of penicillin?”

Finally, aspirin. When we were little, my mom thought she was doing up a favor to crush the aspirin tablet(s) in a spoon and pour Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup (she called it, Goop, so we did too) on it. God, that was awful.

Vicks in the vaporizer.

Rock and rye (the cheapest and roughest rye you could buy). At least you slept better after a few doses.

Campho-Phenique on cuts and scrapes - ouch it burns - quit fussing or I'll use some more.

Bactine and mecurachrome for cuts.

NP27 and Absorbine Jr for athelete's foot.

Baking soda for upset stomach, which works really well.

If something ached, you took a Bufferin.
If I couldn't sleep, the parents gave me a Bufferin tablet.
I think it was just for placebo effect though.

I think some home remedies work but some of them were just for show so we'd feel better that something was being done.

I forgot all about Bactine.

We used it for sunburns. Well, that and slathering yourself up with Noxzema. The latter was much messier. Neither of which worked very well...if at all.

Funny how it seems that there's something for everything nowadays when back then there were just a few things that cured everything. In reality, some of them didn't do doodlysquat. My guess is that our immune systems were just that much stronger because we ate right, played outside, exercised every day, slept well, didn't wash our hands every five minutes, ate dirt, ate boogers, etc..., etc....

We've become too soft.

Have been through most of them discussed. But the one in my mind that sticks is my treatment for earaches. My Mom used to put salt into a towel, heated it up in the oven, then I laid my ear on it. No complaints, as it worked many a time.

Make due with whatcha got!!

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I forgot all about Bactine.

We used it for sunburns. Well, that and slathering yourself up with Noxzema.

Noxzema for sunburns, yep, forgot that one. I spent many a summer covered with that stuff.

When I was a kid and we got colds (a common occurence in northern NH), we'd get Father John's Cough Medicine. To this day, I swear it had some alcohol in it, maybe 12-15 proof like wine. Also, when we had some lung congestion, we had to eat a bit of petroleum jelly (Vasoline) on the head of a wooden match! LOL
No VooDoo, though!

Laudanum. It was good enough for J.B. Books...

All of the above but my Moms go to for difficult things was Watkins Salve. I spent one whole winter with that god awful smell.

The only one I didn't see when scrolling through was Kerosene. My dad's father had a drum with a pump handle installed and they used that stuff for anything and everything.

Paragoric was the one my mom used on us a lot that tasted horrible. Mecurochrome and peroxide were always around.

In addition to most all the above,

Bleach on poison oak after a thorough Fells Naptha soap scrub which abraded the skin.

Iodine. That didn't hurt...

The suggestion of the glycerine rocket if I didn't eat my vegetables and backed up was enough to motivate anyone.

Talk about things that SHOULD have been included here:

Overcooked liver, overcooked fish, brussel sprouts overcooked or undercooked.

Bleech!

When my Dad took his belt off and folded it - that cured a lot of things, from bad language to behavior to attitude.

My Dad was a Veterinarian so we used a skin-paint he had formulated with iodine that dogs could not lick off, and a selen shampoo that would cure all kind of dog skin conditions - think Selsun Blue Medicated, but instead of 1% selenium sulfide, think + 20%. I used this for many years and have to laugh when I read the possible dire side effects of Selsun Blue 1% that I use now.

.