Free Mountain Folk Remedies: The Foxfire Americana Library (9) by Edited by Foxfire Students

the mother’s milk don’t suit ’em [the babies], they’ll regurge it back. When they spit it up it irritates their mouth. The acid in it blisters their mouth. There’s a yellow and a white blister, but you doctor them just alike. It takes a little longer to cure the yellow than it does the white if they let it run on a long time.
    Well now there is a verse you repeat and you repeat this verse in your mind three times as you blow your breath into their mouth. You have to see ’em every morning for three days in a row that first time. Then I would make a mouthwash and let them start washing their mouth. I’d take persimmon tree bark, scrape it and make a strong tea.Then we’d put a small, little pinch of alum down in that and stir that up. Strap a white cloth around your finger and scrub all around in their mouth with it. Why we make that tea is to get that white out and not let ’em swallow it. The mouth will be just as white and it’ll start shedding off. Looks like they got a mouth full of cornmeal. Then the second morning, you give them something to work their stomach out, a laxative like castor oil or Castoria. They’ll swallow some of that down in their stomach and [what you give them for their stomach] keeps it [the thrush] from setting in their stomach. Then by the time they come back the third time it’s all gone, but you do it [say the verses] the third time.
    I’ve cured so many—oh, you wouldn’t believe. The doctors send ’em to me, they don’t know what to do with ’em. I was in the hospital and they brought the babies in to me in there in my room. I’ve had three in one day, especially in the spring of the year. I don’t know how many little young babies [I’ve cured] just right here lately.
    One brought their baby here and it [the thrush] had run on so long that I didn’t know if I could even bring it through or not. I did, but they had to bring it more times because it was so bad. Of course I didn’t blow in its mouth but the three times, but I had to help ’em wash its mouth out. I finally got on ahead and got it over it.
    Some will bring ’em and after the second time they’re so much better they don’t even bring it back. But I tell ’em, “Now, if you ain’t gonna bring it three times they ain’t no need in trying.” ’Cause in maybe two or three days it’ll come right back up and get worse. It’s embedded in the locks of the jaws, where your jaws come together, and it’ll start spreading back out. I had to doctor some of ’em twice like that.
    You boil everything that the baby has anything to do with in sody water [use one teaspoon of baking soda], its nipples, bottles, bibs, anything it has about its mouth. Be sure you don’t kiss ’em around the mouth or you can get it, it’s catching. Now one [time] a grown man come. He said, “I’ve caught that thrash sure as a world.” I’d doctored his grandbaby with it, I got it well. He said he’d been a-kissing his little grandbaby. I said, “Don’t be kissing on ’em around the mouth.” I said, “Kiss ’em on the back of the neck or somewhere.” I doctored him like I doctored babies.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
Toothache
    Make a peach tree poultice from peach tree leaves boiled until soft, mixed with cornmeal and salt. Place on the outside of the jaw for abscessed tooth.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
    Put some burnt soda on the tooth.
    F LORENCE C ARPENTER
    Smoke rabbit tobacco.
    A MY T RAMMELL
    Pick around the ailing tooth with a pine toothpick until it bleeds.
    L OLA C ANNON
    Pound some horseradish leaves fine. Put them in a cloth and hold it against your tooth.
    A NONYMOUS
Ulcerated Stomach
    Make a weak tea from yellowroot and drink it.
    F LORA Y OUNGBLOOD
To Induce Vomiting
    Beat the white of an egg and add a pinch of alum. Give it to a child to make him vomit.
    M RS . C. E. P INSON
Warts
    Well, Daddy conjured the warts with a piece of fat hog meat. You cut off three little chips of fat meat. Take a little chip and rub the