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Up the Gatineau! Article

This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 2.

To Cure a Sore Throat: First Kill a Bear

Bertha (Wilson) Holt

If you gave a modern woman a jar of bear's grease and suggested that she use it the next time someone had a sore throat — you know what she'd do — throw it in the garbage.

Not so her pioneer ancestor. She would not only know what to do with it, but she would store it carefully against the day when the hunters in her family failed to kill a bear and she would be without such an ingredient for her home remedies.

I picked up an old cook book, Guide to Domestic Cookery, printed 1805, at a rummage sale a few years ago. From it I have come to appreciate and admire the pioneer women of this country.

From this book I have learned to make calf‘s head and pluck; rag toast; souse; samp; hasty pudding; spruce beer; soap and shoe blackening. I can make rosewater and preserve sweet flag; l can dip my own candles if I can find tallow, or bees wax.

The section titled The Physical Director is most enlightening and amusing. Curing the sick with homemade remedies was a gargantuan task; at least it seems that way to me 166 years later. Bear's grease, skunk oil, and goose grease were some of her main ingredients, She stored great quantities of herbs that were picked while in blossom, dried and wrapped in paper. Roots were gathered in the fall.

Catnip promoted perspiration; saffron made a valuable tea for children afflicted with measles, chickenpox and all eruptive diseases. Motherwort was very quieting to the nerves (what I wouldn't do for some motherwort right now). Penny royal was good for colic; skunk cabbage promoted expectoration and quieted the nerves.

Bear's grease for croup or quinsy was rubbed on the neck and some poured down the throat. If there was no bear's grease in the root cellar goose grease was a substitute or onions stewed in molasses with wilted horseradish leaves placed on the feet. A drop of skunk oil taken on a lump of sugar would loosen a cold.

The list of diseases she had to have a ready cure for was interesting too. The king's evil (what's that'?); ague; flying rheumatism; humors in the blood and chin cough.

Earache is still with us and if Johnny raises a fuss about taking penicillin tell him about this cure used in the olden days. The feet were soaked in warm water, an onion was roasted and the heart of it was put in the ear as hot as could be borne; then the feet were bound up in roasted onions.

They had a simple cure for deafness. A strong glass bottle was filled with clarified honey and inserted in the centre of an unbaked loaf of bread, then baked. After baking, a little of the hot honey was poured into the ears.

Don't bother going to the drug store for aspirin the next time you have a headache. Do what our pioneer ancestor did: She took a shovel full of clean wood ashes and put it in clear, cold water. When the ashes had settled she drank the liquid. It may have caused vomiting but the headache disappeared.

The pioneer believed in preventive medicine. The suggestions in this old cook book, for better health were: “Avoid as much as possible living near a graveyard. Keep the feet from wet, and the head well defended when in bed. Avoid too plentiful meals. Shun the night air as you would the plague (and no pollution yet!). Tender people should have those about them, sound, sweet and healthy.”

Some of us may remember having to take sulphur and molasses in the spring. The early pioneer had a much more complicated concoction. She boiled together dock root, thoroughwort, yarrow, mullein, sasparilla, coltsfoot, spearmint, May weed, dandelion root and any other herbs she had on hand. When it boiled she added molasses and finally some brandy as a preservative. She gave her family a tablespoonful before breakfast as a preventive of spring fever.

Preparing food for the sick was as time consuming as the medicine she made. Who wouldn't feel pampered getting these special dishes: wine whey, caudle, a sick bed custard, milk porridge, chicken panda, Quaker stew and pork jelly. A caudle was made from grits, sugar, wine, lemon rind and nutmeg, and for that extra pick-up, brandy.

Our brains are dormant, we push a button, turn a dial, and things happen. Not so with her. She had to be strong physically, mentally alert and have the wisdom of Solomon because the well-being of her husband and children depended upon her.


Volume 2 table of content.

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