Pioneer families often had to serve as their own doctors, which resulted in remedies for many an ailment. Teas made from various herbs were a favorite cure for almost everything. In fact herbs served all sorts of medicinal purposes.
Here are a few examples.
Hops were picked and dried, stuffed into a pillow and used to induce sleep in a restless person. Hops also were used for treating earaches and colds as a poultice after being steeped in vinegar.
Linden flowers and leaves were dried and made into teas to relieve coughs and to induce perspiration.
Inner bark of a cherry tree was used in tea to alleviate coughs. Spiked tea was said to have the same result.
Peppermint was gathered in September, dried and packed into bags for later use in treating colic and diarrhea.
Red clover blossoms made into tea were said to assuage rheumatism. The tea also was meant to purify the blood.
Horseradish root made a tea that helped kidney troubles, namely burning or scalding urine.
Roots of a wild blackberry bush were used in tea to treat diarrhea in infants.
Inner bark of a slippery elm tree was said to cure childhood worms when a child chewed on the hark.
Cheese-plant inoculation was thought to help sores and bruises heal faster by bathing in it.
Mullein leaves and roots were smoked to relieve asthma.
Ground mustard had a number of uses including curing a chest cold. A plaster was made by mixing ground mustard, flour and water, which was then brushed on a cloth and laid on the chest until the skin was hot as fire. Goose grease then was rubbed on the chest to prevent blistering.
Catnip made into tea was used to relieve colic in infants or convul-sions and spasms in children. It also was used to treat stomach disorders.
Gunpowder covered canker sores and was thought to heal them.
Cough syrup was concocted through a mixture of lemon juice, honey and glycerin.
Pioneers also believed in preventive medicine. To ward of diseases, children wore around their necks a lump of asafetida sewed in a small cloth bag.
These folk remedies are courtesy “Wisconsin Lore,” by Robert E. Gard and L. A. Sorder, 1961