Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

before bedtime as an anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antiseptic. Use this natural remedy to help reduce fever and relieve a cold’s headache and inflammatory conditions.

White willow bark is a valuable ingredient in this remedy. It was used traditionally in people’s medicine for fevers. In the nineteenth century many scientists in Europe

scientifically investigated this herb, but only

one French chemist successfully extracted

the active constituent and named it

“salicine.” This first plant-derived

natural “drug” was duplicated

later, in 1852, by a chemical in

synthetic form as a substance

called acetylsalicylic acid. At

the end of the nineteenth

century it was produced

and brought to the world

market as aspirin.

One year after this scientific discovery (we wonder if it was coincidence?) Hans Christian Andersen

wrote in 1853 a fairy tale,

“Under the Wil ow Tree.” See

sidebar for an excerpt.

Stop Sneezes and Sniffles and Stifle a Cold @ 77

“Under the Willow Tree”

H“e was walking one evening through the public roads, the country around him was flatter, with fields and meadows, the air had a frosty feeling. A willow-tree grew by the roadside, everything reminded him of home.

“He felt very tired; so he sat down under the tree, and very soon began to nod, then his eyes closed in sleep. Yet still he seemed conscious that the willow-tree was stretching its branches over him; in his dreaming state the tree appeared like a strong, old man—the “willow father” himself, who had taken his tired son up in his arms to carry him back to the land of home, to the garden of his childhood, on the bleak open shores of Kjoge.

“And then he dreamed that it was really the willow-tree itself from Kjoge, which had traveled out in the world to seek him, and now had found him and carried him back into the little garden on the banks of the streamlet. And there stood Joanna, in all her splendor, with the golden crown on her head, as he had last seen her, to welcome him back.

“And then there appeared before him two remarkable shapes, which looked much more like human beings than when he had seen them in his childhood. They were changed, but he remembered that they were the two gingerbread cakes, the man and the woman, who had shown their best sides to the world and looked so good.

“We thank you,” they said to Knud, “for you have loosened

our tongues; we have learnt from you that thoughts should be spoken freely, or nothing will come of them; and now something has come of our thoughts, for we are engaged to be married.” Then they walked away, hand-in-hand, through the streets of Kjoge, looking very respectable on the best side, which they were quite right to show.

“They turned their steps to the church, and Knud and

Joanna followed them walking hand-in-hand; there stood

the church, as of old, with its red walls, on which the green ivy grew.”

78 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

R 76. Combine one tablespoon linden flowers and one tablespoon raspberries with two cups water in an enamel pot. Boil five minutes. Steep 10 minutes, filter, and add two tablespoons honey. Drink ½ cup three to four times a day to reduce fever and inflammation.

R 77. Combine one tablespoon elder flowers with one cup boiling water in a glass jar. Place the jar in an enamel pot and steam 15

minutes. Then cool, filter, and add eight ounces boiled water and one tablespoon honey. Take about 2½ ounces two to three times a day as an antiseptic, fever reducer, and expectorant. This can be combined with one tablespoon each peppermint, boneset, and yarrow. R 78. “CCB” natural medicine. For a flu/cold with high fever, place 1⅓ tablespoons chamomile; 1⅓ tablespoons centaury, an Old

World herb; and 1⅓ tablespoons bogbean. Add 24 ounces boiling water and steep overnight in a preheated, cooling oven. The next morning filter and warm the healing medicine. Drink three cups a day when the flu is ful blown. A cold/flu is a dangerous visitor with bad intentions to destroy our good health, so be patient and wel prepared.

R 79. “Honey Vodka” is a natural medicine that supports CCB and can be used along with it. Boil 1½ cups vodka with one tablespoon honey. Cool and drink Honey Vodka before bedtime. You might experience sweet dreams and may break into a sweat, which wil clear toxins from your body to fight the flu.

R 80. Slice thinly three or four whole lemons and layer in a glass jar. Sprinkle sugar or honey over al . Cover with a lid and eat this natural remedy of vitamin C and glucose four times a day.

Stop Sneezes and Sniffles and Stifle a Cold @ 79

Eat oranges and tangerines or drink natural citrus juices made from organic fruits that you have made fresh in a juicer. Fresh-squeezed juices are best when drunk right away. They contain vitamins A, B, and C and minerals. These natural drinks help us recover faster and improve metabolism. They are known to heal a stuffy, runny nose and prevent the development of atherosclerosis.

T he citrus fruits we take for granted in our

supermarkets have a varied and interesting

background. In the twelfth-century lemons were brought to

Italy and Spain from southeastern Africa through the