Blood Builders
• When the sap is up, take the
green bark of the wild
cherry and boil it to make
tea.
• Take the young leaves of
the poke plant, parboil
them, season, fry, and then
eat several “messes.”
• Make sassafras tea, using
the roots of the plant.
Fretful Child
• Boil catnip leaves to make
tea and give the child about
a quarter cup. Use one cup of
leaves to make Baby sleep.
Diarrhea
• Take a tea of red oak bark.
• Drink some blackberry
juice.
Headaches
• Bind wilted beet leaves on
the forehead.
• Tie a fl our sack around
your head. :)
• Pour hot water over
mustard leaves to rouse
their odor and strength.
Bind these leaves in a
poultice to head with a
cheesecloth strip.
• When you get your haircut,
gather up all the clippings.
Bury them under a rock
and you will never have a
headache. Old-timers would
never allow their hair to be
burned or thrown away as
it was too valuable.
Burns
• Boil chestnut leaves and
place the resulting ooze on
the burn.
• Bind castor oil and egg
whites around the wound
with a clean cloth.
• If the person has never
seen his father, he can draw
the fi re by blowing on the
burn.
36 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE November/December 2019
Fever
• Tie a bag containing the
suff erer’s nail paring to a
live eel. It will carry the
fever away.
• Boil two roots of wild ginger
in a cup of water, strain,
and drink.
Bleeding
• Place a spider web across
the wound.
• Apply a poultice of spirit
turpentine and brown
sugar to the wound.
• Use a mixture of soot from
the chimney and lard.
• Use pine resin.
Flu
• Gather some boneset, put
the leaves in a sack and
put it in the sun to dry.
Make sure it has air or
it will mold. Then cook the
leaves in some water, strain
and drink.
• Chew rabbit tobacco.