FASHIONABLE MEDICINE

Being sick when I was a kid was no fun. I suppose it was no worse than being sick in any era but if you ask me, the home remedies mom sometimes used seem to be fairly primitive.

Having a cold meant any one of several methods could be employed to bring me back to good health. If my chest was congested, a mustard plaster was the standard remedy. I do not know whether or not the mustard used in a mustard plaster was the same dry mustard that we used in cooking. If it was, it must have been the same mustard that sits beside the fried shrimp served in a Chinese restaurant, which is hotter than a pistol, or even worse, hotter than a glob of wasabi on a bite of sushi. At any rate, mother made up a thick mustard paste and spread it like sandwich filling between two pieces of child-chest-sized flannel. That was the mustard plaster. I had to crawl into bed and mother then carefully lowered it onto my tiny chest. Mind you, the mustard didn’t touch my chest directly, but it might as well have. That mustard got “hot” in the way that Ben Gay or other such ointments got hot, but to a skinny little kid, it felt like the flames of hell were dancing on my chest. I suppose the idea of this was that the heat would break up the chest congestion. However, I have a thought or two on this whole ordeal. I suppose the skin of my chest got very red but I don’t suppose it blistered. I’m sure mother wouldn’t have used it if it did. I also suppose that it would have been hard to fool mother by saying, “I am better now,” hoping that the plaster could come off quickly , because she could still hear that the wheezing and coughing were still around. I suppose it did some good, or at least mother was sure it would down the road. But believe me, I never wanted to be sick enough for a mustard plaster.

If what I had was simply a cold with minimal congestion, I got Vicks Vap-O-Rub rubbed on my chest. Vicks, which may still be around, was a strong-smelling mentholated ointment that my mom used in a couple of ways. Mother would rub it on my chest, again placing another square of flannel over it to keep the Vicks from getting on my pajamas. If I was sick enough to lay down, the flannel stayed put, but if I was mobile, the flannel had to be pinned to my little undershirt. As the Vicks warmed to body temperature, the fumes started rising and I couldn’t help but smell them. This was supposed to help me breathe better. If I simply had a stopped up nose, mother would have me rub Vicks inside my nostrils. It was a potent smelling ointment and probably was as effective as anything else in unclogging the airways.

My sister often had croup, which makes a terrifying sound in the stillness of the night. Mother would boil water in a big pot, drop globs of Vicks in it, and then set the pan of hot water in the bathroom sink. Then she would drape a sheet over herself, Ginnie Lou and the sink so that the fumes and the moisture could help my sister breathe more easily. Mom would hold my sister on her lap and sing to her until the croup came under control. Ginnie Lou and mother spent a lot of time at night in the bathroom under a Vicks “tent.” Later on, the development of an electric vaporizer made treating the croup much easier, but that didn’t come about until long after we were grown. While I am loathe to take away any of the healing credit of Vicks, I am sure being in my mother’s arms and hearing her singing “Sweet and Low” was at least half the reason my sister always recovered quickly.

Finally, here is the worst-of-all use of Vicks: if I had a sore throat, mother would put a big glob of Vicks on a teaspoon and I would have to slide it off the spoon into my mouth, where I was to let it melt and slide down my throat. Oh, UGH! It was awful. I have never found another person who had to eat Vicks like we did. My sis and I hated it, but of course we had to do it if we knew what was good for us!

For minor sore throats not calling for the Vicks torture, we got a spoonful of honey mixed with lemon juice. My sis and I loved it like hummingbirds love honeysuckle nectar. We certainly never liked having sore throats but if we had to endure them, the best kind to have were the ones treatable with this home remedy.