By: Rick Cooper
If your like myself, growing up in a time when grandma always had a remedy for what ailed ya. She didn’t go to the doctor much, maybe that’s why she only lived to be 90 years old. Then again maybe that’s why she lived so long.
I can remember everything like a poultice for bites and even flax seed for something in your eye. So, I got to thinking, Where did grandma learn all this stuff. I can’t ask her now and it sure does make me wish I had asked more of the right questions and shut my mouth and listened more than I talked. But, us kids thought grandma would be around forever. So I did a little research and found some interesting things.
Around the beginning of Springtime, when the days of warm weather after the cold winter, the sun would make the sap (tree juice) of the Sassafras begin to stir and make the flowers start to open in the coves of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
The digging tools were gathered and put to use about this time. The early settlers of the Mountains began to harvest herbs and resin that the folks used to treat many ailments.
The aroma coming from cabins and shacks that dotted the mountain’s was usually the cooking of Sassafras roots, Boiled into a Tea for a spring Tonic. It was widely believed that a man needed his in’erds (insides) cleaned out form all the sitting he had been doing during the cold winter.
Once the sun gained enough strength and made it’s way over the mountain tops into the hollers, the sap would rise on the trees. The folks would gather (peel) the inner bark of a wild cherry tree and make wild cherry cough syrup. The syrup was made by boiling the bark with wild Honey. The mountain folk, always said the best honey could be found in a wild Sourwood tree.
Then there is the Blood Root. With the white blossom, it was always one of the first flowers to bloom in the mountains. It was also made into a Tea, even though it’s bitter taste was less appreciated it was also used as a tonic at the beginning of spring.
The White Trillium, a member of the Lilly family. The roots were used because of the astringent qualities. They were sometimes boiled with milk for stomach ailments and other times they might be crushed or grinned up and placed on insect bites.
The Roots of Solomon’s Seal, was used to cover bruises and to reduce swelling of bites and some even took it by mouth.
So being the inquiring mind that I am, I asked grandma how did you know what plants were good for you and which one’s to leave alone? Her answer was, because that’s what my mom taught me. So where did she learn all this was my next question. Her answer, I guess her mom taught her. You know what a kind would say to that, but grandma could swing a mean hickory switch for asking too many questions.
The best that answer that I can find, is that all this knowledge that the early pioneers had came from the Indians. The Indians believed that anything that grew in the wild was good for something.
The idea was, that all men needed some Cherry Bark Bitters to prepare them for the upcoming Plowing Season after a long winter of being lazy.
Then roots were usually dug before the sap started to rise, they picked the leaves when they were small and peeled the bark during the dark of the moon after the rise of the sap.
There were different method’s of making and using the home remedies. Some were boiled in big pots until they became sticky syrup. Others were eaten raw. Teas were made from everything from leaves to the roots.
It was widely believed that there was a cure for everything from inflammation in the body to a young lovesick boy, they just had to find the right herb.