Tuberculosis was another dreaded disease. Drinking milk, staying in the sun, and long walks in the fresh air were recommended. The patient was often isolated at home or, in later years, at the Provincial Sanitorium. It is not difficult to imagine the fear the disease inspired.

Smallpox, another often fatal disease, was treated by taking one ounce cream of tarter in a pint of water and drank cold. If the patient survived, he was often badly scarred.

The lack of vaccines and antibiotics meant less serious diseases also reached epidemic proportions. The chicken pox was treated with bed rest. The appearance of a lot of pox marks was taken as a good sign. Measles Were also a cause for bed rest, this time in a totally darkened room to protect the eyes. Hot drinks of boiled laurel, nannie berries, or slippery elm tea and sponge baths allayed the fever. Mumps patients were kept warm and drank warm herb tea and four to six grains Dovers powder.

A strep throat was treated by wrapping a dirty Vicks soaked sock around your neck for the night. It is not clear if it was the aroma of the sock or the Vicks that yielded the cure!

Breathing problems were the result of allergies, asthma, or bronchitis. They were alleviated by the application of onion poultices and goosegrease to the chest or by drinking pepper in water or a mixture of honey and castor oil. The steam off new milk, when inhaled, was very effective for asthma.

Stomach complaints also had various causes and treatments. Ulcers were treated by a mixture of blue stone, alum, loaf sugar and honey in vinegar while “stomach trouble” called for ginger tea and molasses, baking soda and water, or an egg boiled in milk and sugar. The upset stomach was settled by drinking a butter stew. The “stew” was concocted by boiling an egg sized lump of butter and old biscuits in a pot; It was eaten with cream and milk.

The early homemaker also had to be knowledgable in basic first aid. Ac- cidents could and did happen on the farms and at the everyday occupations of the people. Early attention often lessened the severity of the wound.

Bleeding was stopped by applying pressure with the hand or a piece of hard cork or pad. The cuts were then covered with fine tea dust, laedumis, pot balls, or the charcoal of burnt linen.

“Standard Home Remedies” and “Patent Medicines” were sold in the stores and from mail order catalogues. These were often tonics which were supposed to relieve everything from a headache to a heartache. Their intro- duction and an increase in improved medical facilities led to a decrease reliance on home remedies although some are still used today.

Most of the information from this section is from “Remedies and Cures”, an Island History 821 project compiled by Mary Anne MacAulay, Souris West. Miss MacAulay researched the paper in May, 1981 while attending Souris Regional High School.

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