Doctor Mama

Doctor Mama

Ah Choo! Winter is upon us and I remember as a child when I left the house, Mama often said, “Wait! Come back here and put on your coat, it’s freezing outside and you’ll catch your death!” I couldn’t quite figure out how I could catch my death when I wasn’t chasing it but I just considered it one of the many phrases used by adults that made no sense to me. You know… phrases like, “Wait until you get in the real world.” Is this world not real?

Yes, it’s the time of year when there are a lot of colds and viruses going around and it seems like they keep adding new names to them everyday. Between television ads and internet, we hear about all the new drugs out there that we can’t pronounce or spell and most of them we can’t get without a prescription anyway.

We do know from previous illnesses that we need to do certain things such as drink lots of water and get plenty of rest. When that doesn’t work because who can sleep with their nose stopped up, we look online to see what Dr. Google says and we do weird things like smear Vicks on our feet.

As a child we only went to the doctor as a last resort because we had Doctor Mama. She had lots of cures in her cabinet. At the first sign of a cold, we got Camphor or Vicks salve on our neck and chest, covered with a flannel cloth that had been warmed by the stove. A hot water bottle was also used. For sore throats we drank hot peppermint tea with honey, and Mama painted our throats with a cotton swab coated in something that tasted bitter but numbed the throat. If we had congestion, she put a towel over our heads and had us breathe steam from a pan of hot water with added drops of Camphor.

Doctor Mama also fed us chicken broth and jello as well as her own concoction of sweet onion broth. An onion was sliced and cooked in a cup of water with a couple of tablespoons of honey or sugar. It actually tasted good and was warm and comforting.

When we complained of any of her remedies, she told us about the dreaded asafoetida bags that were used when she was a child. They were homemade cloth bags that were filled with asafoetida (a resin type plant that smelled like sulfur), garlic, onion, and other stinky herbs. The bag was tied around the neck. It supposedly kept away maladies like influenza, colds, whooping cough, and it had a putrid odor that kept other people away too. (There was no six foot rule like we had in 2020. Asafoetida kept everyone away)

Strangely enough, in recent times they have discovered that the asafoetida plant actually does have health benefits such as being an antioxidant and antiviral. So before you think asafoetida bags are weird, there are some pretty strange home remedies that people still use today. Things like wearing a dirty work sock around the neck, coated with lard or eating lizard soup. (I wonder if the soup also contains eye of newt?)

As for me, I still use a few of Doctor Mama’s home remedies but mainly I stick with good old common sense and also consult doctors when I need them. After all, they’ve studied medicine for many years and hopefully can prescribe something better than dirty socks or lizard soup.

The best idea is to avoid getting sick in the first place by listening to your Mama and wearing your coat when it’s cold outside because you don’t want to catch your death. I faithfully wear my coat as I wait to get in the real world.

“In my Father’s house are many mansions:

if it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you,

I will come again, and receive you unto myself;

that where I am, there ye may be also.”

John 14:1-3

By

Pamela Perry Blaine

January 2024