Mary Belk: We've got pharmaceutical goods in garden

Imagine my surprise when I read a report from the Alabama Poison Control Center describing the application of meat tenderizer to an insect bite as “folk medicine.”

When I lived on the Rappahannock River in Virginia, I learned that sprinkling the white powdery stuff on stinging nettle welts would take the swelling down. And later a family doctor told me those granules would ease the itching and soreness brought on by yellow jacket stings. Law me. I thought this remedy was modern medicine. My idea of folk medicine was clapping a wad of wet tobacco on the wound.

My mother’s Uncle Ed was a “root doctor” known far and wide for his herbal cures and was called on whenever a neighbor took sick.

I can picture that Barbour County medicine man deep in a tangle of honey suckle at half past sunup, fighting wild blackberry brambles, zigzagging through a lake of purple flowers, to get to a patch of Virginia Snakeroot. With the sun on his neck he’d dig the camphorous-smelling roots of the pale green plants. Then dirt-streaked and briar scratched he’d pull up moist, juicy Goldenseal roots, Stargrass and Wild Ginger. Another day he’d work on the barks and gather richweed pollen.

In those days, most folks used salves, poultices of gum camphor, and Sassafras tea instead of patented medicine. Some folks still swear a penny wrapped in a piece of bacon and held on with a clean white rag will draw the poison out of a “rising” and make it come to a head. Others claim that spreading sautéed onions on a congested chest will clear up a cold.

I’m thankful I wasn’t born into a generation that believed in a spring purge when a person’s systems were thought to need cleansing. I missed out on purgatives such as castor oil and Black Draught. And I was never given a dose of cod liver oil or a mess of dandelion greens to build up my blood.

I do recall using turpentine on rusty nail wounds. That remedy was passed down from my Grandmother Corbitt. A nail-punctured foot had to be soaked in turpentine, sometimes up to an hour, until the blood came. Once it bled, it was supposed to be clean.

The appealing thing about folk medicine is that it’s much more interesting and a good bit cheaper than scientific cures. Most of us practice our favorite treatment in secrecy because we feel silly admitting that we make a syrup of honey and stewed onions to soothe a sore throat or cover a blister with moleskin.

I wouldn’t mind trying pineapple as an anti-inflammatory or chewing on a piece of candied ginger to prevent motion sickness.

I might even boil some Sassafras roots to make flea-shampoo for the dogs. I’ve used bacon grease to kill red bugs all my life. But I draw the line when it comes to wearing a garlic clove around my neck.

Mary Belk lives in Auburn and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News.