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Meds. our parents forced on you.
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
This is a thread running with another group I'm with. Things our mothers swore would cure you. My mother and grandmother swore that syrup of figscured every known illness under the sun. In some countries, chicken soup cured everything, Beef tea was another. Or having a hot poltice stuck to your chest was another. Most of these must have their routes back in history and continued even in to the begiinings of free health care in the UK. So what other wonder cures do you remember suffering? I think this comes under social history.
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Message 2
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Not exactly suffering because I liked it but cod liver oil and malt, a large spoonful was consumed daily throughout the winter.
An other reputed treatment was the smell of a tar boiler for chesty coughs.
Bread or kaolin poultices for infected cuts and boils were popular as well. -
Message 3
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Is it permissible to widen this topic very slight to include items introduced, and once widely sold, for their perceived health benefits?
For example: 'tonic' wine, cigarettes, and the radium water popular in the 1920s. This last was especially deadly. Does anyone else remember low energy Xray machines in shoe shops into which the young could insert their feet to see bones on a screen?
TP -
Message 4
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Indeed I do, TP, and by the way, it's good to see you back. Seeing your foot bones was the best part of going for shoes given the somewhat limited range of styles available and those were the days before the child had any say in the purchase. How useful they were in achieving a good fit is debatable since your mother, and it was always your mother, wanted to make sure there was plenty of room for growth.
Would Start rite shoes with the soles extending up the back of the heel also count for their alleged support benefit? -
Message 5
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
My liberty bodice always smelt of what I called "Vic".
It was Vicks Vapour Rub. I was smeared with it regularly - a liberal application of this unpleasant mentholated topical gel apparently was an efficacious remedy for all childish ailments, including whingeing.
The smell of Germolene, on the other hand, was oddly comforting. -
Message 6
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
i would just query 'suffer' because some things mentioned - beef tea and chicken soup, especially the way Jewish mothers make it, are good for you, even according to modern nutritional standards, and palatable too. I lked the cod lover oil and malt. but loathed buttercup syrup for coughs. I was lucky because my mother never used syrup of figs. I was given it in hosptal when I was little, with predictable results!.
Temperance, I like the smell of Vick myself but it is a bit anti social isn't it. Likewise coal tar soap My grandfather, who lived with us, swore by something called Sloan's linament , which I reckon was horse linament rebottled!. Put a drop of it on your skin and you forgot any other troubles you might have had because it smarted so much. -
Message 7
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
My grandma started me on a daily tablespoonful of "Radio Malt" in 1941, a bit like eating treacle, and pleasant enough. But I didn't much care for the variety with added cod-liver oil, though it was better than the alternative - big spoonfuls of the oil, taken neat. Yechh. "Scott's Emulsion" slipped over easier than that.
Some folk believed in deep-breathing near tar-boilers, and near where I lived there was a heap of smouldering slag from an old chemical works - we kids called it "Stinky Hill". Loitering in its vicinity was reputed to be a cure for asthma, but my parents didn't believe it.
Around the start of WW2 my father bought a "Sun-ray Lamp" - just a box with carbon rods which produced a very bright arc light. We took turns sitting half-naked in front of it, wearing dark green goggles, for ten minutes or so. It felt good - and I'm still here.
My first sight of an X-ray device in a shoe shop was in Hamburg, in 1953. It seemed an amazing novelty to me, so I had a go, but I don't think I ever tried another. By the time I bought my next pair of shoes (a few years later) maybe they'd been banned on health grounds. -
Message 8
Posted by tinasisson (U14141112) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
I am just going to throw this one out. My husbands grandparents, swore that if you had a bloodied nose, you put a red piece of yarn around their neck and the blood would not flow above that which would immediatley stop the bloody nose..
(with no blood in the head,, is it fair to say my inlaws all have brain damage?? LOL) -
Message 9
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Was that as well as a key popped down the back or instead of?
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Message 10
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Blackberry vinegar as made by my mother and grandmother was a remedy for coughs and colds, diluted half-and-half with boiling water. I have made it myself too. My mother remembered being sent to the shop for 'a pennorth of Ipecacuanha wine and two pennorth of Syrup of Squills' Goodness only knows what it was used for!
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Message 11
Posted by jenny (U14149730) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Milk of Magnesia! I recall it seemed to be the remedy for both constipation and diarrhea - which seems odd.....
The X-ray machines in shoe shops! Oh yes, definitely the best part of the shopping trip! Along with the Start-Rite kids marching off into the distance.
Being dosed with absolutely foul tasting cammomile tea when I had sunstroke.(With any luck I promptly sicked it up!)
Prophylactics also included wearing a vest so as not to get pneumonia and die(possibly a grain of truth!), and not sitting on radiators as it would give you piles and then You Would Be Sorry When You Were Grown Up.
And I'm probably not the only female here who was banned from having a bath during one's dreaded 'time of the month' as bathing would do unspeakable things to you Which Were Best Not Spoken Of.... You couldn't wash your hair either. As for bathing in the sea at those times - why whole summer holidays were ruined for that reason!
Another major prophylactic was the strong belief that sleeping in a bedroom that did not have its windows set to maximum aperture at all seasons would result in a Dire Weakness of the System. I used to regularly sleep with rain blowing over my face, and in winter would wake to a glass of frozen water. However, the up side is that I am indeed, now, tough as old boots - so it clearly worked! -
Message 12
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Oh God, Milk of Magnesia! The smell still makes me feel sick.
My mother was a great believer in laxatives as a cure all and always had a box in the fridge, I remember them being in the form of a bar of chocolate and she would regularly break off a piece for us to eat. Can't think why, we had a big vege garden and plenty of fruit trees so there was never any shortage of fresh healthy food and plenty of roughage.
My grandmother always swore that if someone had an appendix attack that you made them stand on their head until the pain went. She did practice this on one of my cousins once when he complained of pain on the right side and, as far as I know, he still has his appendix. Although I personally tend to think it was only stomach ache or an excess of wind! -
Message 13
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
This has to be the strangest. Back in the 60s, I worked with an elderly man who insisted that if his piles dropped, putting Vic on them made them return. Strangely I was never tempted to try it.
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Message 14
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Once you start thinking about this, they come flooding back, don't they. A lump of butter rolled in sugar for a tickle in the throat, a penny bandaged tightly onto a lump to reduce it and kaolin and morphine mixture for diarrhoea - is that still allowed? Olive only bought in tiny bottles to be heated and dropped into your ear for earache or used as sun tan lotion.
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Message 15
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Jenny, when you think of the 'arrangements' made for dealing with the monthly problem years ago, it's not surprising there was a lot of superstition attached.
And of course, going outside with wet hair was sure to result in a bad cold, if not worse!
I don't ever remember sticking plasters as a child, when we grazed our knees (which naturally always happened when the road was freshly tarred and gravelled) it was always bandages made from worn sheeting. Sheets were side-to-middle, then pillowcases, then hankies, and the softest bits became bandages. The wound was bathed with Condy's Fluid (potassium permanganate) crystals which looked like iron filings, but put into warm water, made it turn deep purple. It was covered with a piece of lint (smeared with zinc ointment or Vaseline if there was any) then bandaged. Inevitably, the lint stuck to your leg.
Another cure-all was Zambuk, a strong smelling green paste, and Golden Eye Ointment, which apparently had no medicinal value whatsoever. -
Message 16
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
the tar reminded me of that other cure. If the council was retaring the roads. Mothers would try and get their children to breath in the fumes from the hot tar. It was supposed to help clear your chest.
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Message 17
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Anyone have iodine applied to an injury: wow, that realy hurt.
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Message 18
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Iodine? I went into a large chemist's last year, asked for a bottle of iodine. The girl looked blank, summoned a pharmacist, who asked (incredulously, I thought) "Iodine, sir? Er, you want tincture of iodine?" - but eventually he produced a tiny bottle of the stuff.
It seems weaker than I expected, doesn't really hurt on a cut. The bottle is in clear glass and has no ribs on the side. But I suppose these were just old Victorian notions, to let you see - or feel, if in the dark - that the bottle contained poison. When - and why - did they put a stop to that sensible practice? -
Message 19
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
I don't recall having iodine put on any cut, but my father, who was a bit of a sucker for letting his daughters do what they wanted, could expect any cut of his to be liberally applied with it. I recall a distinct feeling of sadistic pleasure - how distressing when I am so nice!
He also allowed me to take his thistles out, which I became a dab hand at, but sadly no one else is so keen.
I liked cod liver oil tablets and would always bite into them. (But I was brought up in a liberal household and don't think I was ever made to take something I didn't like. Vicks when with an aunt, an insult to me, who never admitted to having a cold.)
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 20
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Liquid Paraffin (Oral Emulsion) BP* was a truly awful laxative. Having Milk of Magnesia forced down you was a positive treat in comparison with being made to swallow a spoonful of this evil oil.
My father once dosed our constipated cat with the stuff. The results were spectacular. We had to buy a new sofa.
*British Pharmacopoeia, not British Petroleum. -
Message 21
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
Liquid paraffin wasn't too bad, preferable to castor oil anyway. Castor oil was said to be "tasteless", but I can still taste it, many years later. Horrible.
There was a dark red compound called "Parrish's Chemical Food" - an iron tonic, maybe? Tasted like strong Vimto and stained your teeth black.
Aged 10, I worked as a messenger boy for a chemist. In the back shop there was a big open sack filled with senna pods, about a hundredweight of the things. Enough to cure a regiment's constipation. Sold for pennies an ounce. Recently saw a small cake of laxative chocolate ("with real senna!") in a shop - priced at over Β£5.00. Hmm. -
Message 22
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Wednesday, 25th May 2011
My dad got a nasty thorn in his leg and it started to turn septic, so Mum put a bread poultice on it and drew it out. Years later (in the 60s) when I was at college the girl in the room opposite mine had a painful whitlow so I made a bread poultice which drew out the pus and relieved the pain.
Liquid paraffin does not hasten childbirth. It just makes you feel sick as well.
Take it from me, I know! -
Message 23
Posted by jenny (U14149730) on Friday, 27th May 2011
Raundsgirl - time of the month....I read that even late into the l9th C menstruating women were not allowed into milking parlours as they 'turned the milk sour'.....
Does anyone else remember a mysterious 'blue bag' that would be applied to stings and insect bites I think? Never found out what was in it!
As for going outdoors in wet hair, well, I know we laugh at such sensitivity now, but, again, I remember reading about a wedding in the nineteenth century where all the relatives travelled to the bride's house for the celebrations, only to find the bride had gone out with wet hair two days earlier and caught pneumonia, and died, so instead of her wedding they held her funeral.
So I guess in the pre-antibiotic days they really did have to be ultracautious. We forget so quickly how dreaded infection was - my mother in law, at school in the thirties, says that every autumn term there was at least one girl who didn't come back to school as they'd died of scarlett fever or polio in the summer.
And it's sobering to recall that when penicillin w as first made during the war, the first patient was a man who'd got septicemia from a cut with a pair of secateurs when pruning roses. The penicillin worked fantasticaly, the man was starting to pull through, when they ran out of the drug and he relapsed and died of blood poisoning. -
Message 24
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Friday, 27th May 2011
Iodine - aaagh - i can still feel the sting - that was yellow - what was the mauve stuff ??
now germoline - that initial sting then the local anasthetic kicked in - superb - my kids hated it
remember calamine lotion - burning skin then the cool white - is it still about
i had a wart on my finger and couldnt get rid of it with modern remedies - my mother told me to steal some meat and rub it on it - so i took some bacon from the fridge and rubbed it - guess what - unbelievable !!
st -
Message 25
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Friday, 27th May 2011
You can still get calamine lotion, though people are a little more careful about sunburn these days. (It's only three or four years, though, since we went snorkelling near Cairns, Australia, and forgot to put the sunburn lotion on our backs. I thought sunburn only lasted about three days before it was better; we were still itchy and a bit sore a month later. Although I think we used calamine lotion, it wasn't quite enough.
It always surprises me that people still die of blood poisoning, now called septimaemia usually, I think. People can be in hospital for quite a while, but still can't be saved.
I remember the little blue bags too. One site I see says, "It was a small muslin wrapped bag of synthetic ultramarine and sodium bicarbonate", and apparently it is the same stuff they used for bleaching the whites. In those days there weren't wasps where we lived so stings were just from bees and not too frequent.
I remember poultices too - why does no one use these any more?
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 26
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Friday, 27th May 2011
Everybody had blue bags, so they were a handy remedy. The bag was swished about in the water used for rinsing white washing. By imparting a slight bluish tinge, it made the whites look whiter.
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Message 27
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
The mauve stuff was for ringworm,wasn't it. gentian violet - or did i make that up.
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Message 28
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
I remember having Tincture of Quinine forced down me too. Now that was *really* foul stuff - horribly bitter - but apparently very good for any kind of fever.
But a Kunzle Cake always took the nasty taste away: indeed a Kunzle Showboat was the ultimate panacea. -
Message 29
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
Kunzle cakes! I'd forgotten about those and Jap cakes as well. Walnut cake at Fuller's as a big treat, it's like another world.
Thank heavens mums today are not so obsessed with bowel movements as they used to be, at least I don't think they are. Mine subjected me to the ultimate humiliation - a suppository! After that experience I would have drunk syrup of figs by the bottle full if required.
My father in law was a medical herbalist and had a shop full of mysterious bottles and powders. He made his own cough mixture from horehound, hyssop and honey and my kids loved it. One thing I remember was brown slippery elm powder which was made up into a kind of porridge for 'putting a lining on your stomach' or used as a drawing poultice. Apparently it started off as twigs but those could not be sold as they could be used as an abortifacient. -
Message 30
Posted by Gran (U14388334) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
The mauve stuff was for ringworm,wasn't it. gentian violet - or did i make that up.
Μύ Gentian Violet was used for ringworm, I used to use Iodine, clear if I could get it on our little ones, less embaressing. We lived near the RSPCA and people were always dumping kittens over our fence, of course the little ones would pick them up and bring them inside, I would think here we go again!!
When I was young we took Syrup of Figs, and for a cough something herbal called Liquifruita or some such name, tasted horrible, much more acceptable was hot Ribena that was comforting when you have a cold.
Gran -
Message 31
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
just been thinking - is this the last time we can do a post like this
think about it - our mothers used to make their pies from berries they collected - had wonderful sayings like "its a north wind so if its the first of may it will rain for 38 days" or if u have a whitlow slaughter a goat and rub its blood on your ears (well u know what i mean lol)
the new generation of mums (1990s onwards) give their kids Calpol and buy pies from Lidls - and penicillin cures all
sad or what
st -
Message 32
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
I don't think I would call modern medicines sad, stalti!
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Message 33
Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
I don't think stalti is denigrating modern medicine Caro, rather opining the loss of much of the knowledge that our ancestors held.
Sure some of the knowledge was since been scientifically proven as codswollop but there is also much that was possibly more beneficial than modern medicines. Our over-dependence on the modern drugs industry as a panacea for all ills has meant the death of much knowledge garnered by our forebears over the milllenia. -
Message 34
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
Sadly some of us will remember going into the chemist and they would mix up med. the doctor had prescribed. Having worked in one a few years back, those days are gone. Everything is already done, and just issued. But again can doctors prescribe anything that is not in a bottle or a tablet. I remember many years back going to the doctor, (An old man) I had a cough that nothing would shift. He said he would fix it. It took three chemists before I could find one who could make it up. The first two, (Chain store types) couldn't. So that one bottle lasted around ten years as one spoon full did the trick, and when I came to replace it the old doctor had retired and the new ones told me simply they could no longer prescribe it.
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Message 35
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
and penicillin cures allΜύ
And thanks to that short-sighted attitude, stalti, now they're finding that antibiotics don't cure all anymore! -
Message 36
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
When my grandfather was in his 80's he went on his annual visit to his home town to sat with relatives. Whilst there he was taken ill and not expected to recover. H emanaged to ask if the locall doctor could visit [those were the days.] Doctor arrived. Mother pleaded with him to at least provide a bottle of medicine, which was agreed. Grandftaher had a couple of doses. He recovered and lived another 9 years with good health. That was first hand family knowledge of a placebo working - the bottle contained coloured sugar water!.
That was pre NHS. I wonder if a doctor would dare do that now unless it during was a randomised clinical trail.. -
Message 37
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
hi all
oops - it was a whimsical post
i was just pointing out the mothers nowadays have nothing to pass down to us - there are no more tales lol
mums nowadays dont pick blackberries and make jam - they dont grow tomatoes in the garden and make green chutney with the unripe ones
they dont pass on the age old family recipies and remedies
they buy their pies and tarts and go to the chemist for remedies
all that old lore and knowledge (whether it was good or bad) will not be repeated
no longer "My mum used to say"
thats the bit i find sad
st
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Message 38
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
I realised that, but it's not really going to be true. My youngest son doesn't have children, but if he did, he would be able to talk of gathering the fruit from the strawberry tree and making jam, picking blackberries as a child, growing about twenty different vegetables and fruits in his two-metre garden and making them into chutneys and jellies and pickles. Bothering about how to the gooseberry bush to produce fruit and how to prune the raspberry. My other son is now wondering how to espalier his old grape vine that came with his new house.
Some people just like doing this, and as people are being encouraged to use more natural organic foods, and prices go up, I think more people are resorting to this sort of fun with their families. Maybe not so much in Britain, though we found there was still quite a lot of countryside around - though your roads are so narrow I (known to my kids - though not to anyone else - as a neglectful mother) would feel a bit uneasy letting kids roam them.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 39
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Monday, 30th May 2011
... and for a cough something herbal called Liquifruita or some such name, tasted horrible...Μύ
Sounds like a vile-tasting liquid called, I think, "Fruligar".
But I don't think I'd describe Gentian Violet as "mauve" - it was a very deep purple. Saw it all over some people's faces occasionally, and I used to hope it would never happen to me. (It didn't.)
This reminds me of other sad things - the quite common sight in the 1940s of people with squints, or with hare-lips. Very rarely seen nowadays.
Thank goodness for the NHS! -
Message 40
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Monday, 30th May 2011
Jak, yoy will pass people with corrected squints and repaired cleft lip and palate [please /not/ hare lip.] in the street and probably not notice. Yes, hurray for the NHS.
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Message 41
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Tuesday, 31st May 2011
Yes, Jenny, it's certainly true - I've known two blokes who had their squints corrected in their twenties, and one girl who had been born with - let's say - a congenital malformation of the upper lip, and had it fixed.
(I'd no idea the old term I used was now considered offensive; if so, sorry!) -
Message 42
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Jak, worry not. I was being a bit sensitive. One of my children had cleft lip and palate & I am just used to that term from medics. He had a rocky year or two but has grown up to be a strong young man, duly seen through his childhood with interventions when required from various specialists.
Archibald McIndoe, the surgeon who did pioneering work on reconstruction surgery for RAF flyers with severe burns in WW2, also did work on cleft palate. Just found out he was a New Zealander. Amazing man.
It is a congental malformation by the way. We were interested to discover that the face forms in two halves and comes together in the 6th week after conception; the cleft[s] mean the joining malfunctioned. -
Message 43
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Archie McIndoe was helped on his way by his cousin Sir Harold Gillies (not perhaps a sir at the time) who gave McIndoe work when he first arrived in England. He was also a plastic surgeon. Wonderful men both of them. It's always horrific to see the distorted faces of the men McIndoe worked with, who would have been generally handsome young men before their burns. Must be so hard to cope with that sort of disfigurement when you have been used to admiration for both your looks and your work. McIndoe encouraged his nurses to flirt with them and the community were very supportive too.
Cleft palates remind me of when I was in England in 1980, quite pregnant (baby due five weeks after we flew home), and our relatives were a bit anxious because there was club feet in the family. I didn't know (or care at that stage) that it was considered a hereditary defect. But you don't hear or see that much now either - I don't know if it is fixed early, or prevented before birth somehow. -
Message 44
Posted by Pugwash Trouserpress (U1865008) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
This thread brings back quite a few memories for me. I joined the RN Medical Branch in 1976 and a lot of the remedies mentioned were still made up and used in sick bays.
Kaolin and Morphine. A nightmare to mix up as the kaolin powder would get everywhere. Kaolin poultices were also used as was Magnesium Suplhate paste for boils etc.
Mist Mag. Tri. Mixture of magnesium trisilicate used for indigestion. Not so bad to mix as the powder was a lot heavier.
Iodine. I think a lot of people may be confusing this with Tincture of Benzoin (Friars Balsam) which was used on blisters and also as an inhalation for chest infections
Gentian Violet. Again there may be a bit of confusion here as ringworm (a fungal infection) could be treated with Potassium Permanganate, a bright purple powder or crystals. I always carried a pot of that at sea as the chefs used it to wash fresh saladstuff bought in foreign climes.
Eusol. Not one many will know this one but a wick soaked in this (Edinburgh University Solution of Lime) would be packed into large wounds to slow healing.
We made that up by diluting 12.5ml of Chloros Bleach in 87.5ml of water.
Aspergum. Chewing gum impregnated with aspirin.
Linctus of Squill Opiate. A cough mixture. Squill is still used in a lot of proprietry cough medicines. -
Message 45
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Pugwash, my OH was in the RAF. We had an MO on one base who used old remedies which worked well. Tried and true but horrible to taste was 'jungle juice' [pot.cit?] for urinary infections.
I don't confuse iodine with anything else!. -
Message 46
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Our parents weren't always cruel to us though. Has anyone mentioned Delrosa Rosehip Syrup? It was full of Vitamin C and was absolutely delicious. Very good drizzled over rice pudding - turned a rather boring "afters" into a treat.
PS Silver Jenny - I think you often read this thread, so could I just take the opportunity here (hope GF doesn't mind) to thank you for telling me about the Ann Wroe book "PIlate - The Biography of an Invented Man"? I'm ploughing through it at the moment and it's really *excellent*. I'm learning a heck of a lot! -
Message 47
Posted by Pugwash Trouserpress (U1865008) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Pugwash, my OH was in the RAF. We had an MO on one base who used old remedies which worked well. Tried and true but horrible to taste was 'jungle juice' [pot.cit?] for urinary infections.
I don't confuse iodine with anything else!. Μύ I did say 'some' may be confusing iodine.
I'd forgotton Mist.Pot.Cit. (mixture of Potassium Citrate). It was indeed used in urinary tract infections (usually cystitis in females). It changed the pH balance of urine so it wasn't so painful to pass.
It smelled lovely but tasted disgusting (the Mist.Pot.Cit. that is, not the pH changed urine) -
Message 48
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Very glad, Temperance. She is an excellent writer.
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Message 49
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Our family certainly always called the dark stuff that stung on cuts 'iodine'. I don't know Friar's Balsam, but presume my parents would have.
I mentioned Rosehip Syrup when I went with my daughter-in-law to the weigh-in health place she went to with the baby. My dil had never heard of such a thing and said the advice from health people in Britain now was breast-feeding only, no water or anything. And the health nurse looked shocked and said, "It's just sugary water."
Now my grandson has reached 6 months he seems to be allowed a much freer diet. A little sip of tea has been allowed and an ice-cream cone features in the newest photos.
My family never forced anything on us, so I don't recall any of these nasties. Oh, apart from a couple of foul-tasting cough medicines. Though surely when I had scarletina and then hepatitis I was given some medicine. Don't remember - just know that after feeling very weak and lacking in energy and appetite with hepatitus, I was sent to bed and in a couple of hours felt able to eat three eggs!
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 50
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Wednesday, 1st June 2011
Rose hip syrup was a wartime and post war substitute for orange juice and its vit c content, if I remember correctly. NHS orange juice was wonderful, I've never tasted its like since, and I always looked forward to the little bottle coming out for my daily dose. When my two were wee they were given a vitamin supplement which came with a dropper but they were both violently allergic to it and immediately came out in the most dramatic rash.
6 months seems to be the agreed time for introducing other foods than milk these days, in my time it was 4 months and everyone had a mouli grinder to produce purΓ©ed veg or fruit. No disposable nappies of course, just great rolls of liner which had to be cut up into appropriately sized pieces and buckets of Nappy San everywhere.
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