My older brother Gerald — the one who was something of a pest in my early life — is now living out his life up in Northwestern Wyoming. I go to visit him once in a while and we always have a lot of good times remembering our times growing up in Allen, Centrahoma and Stonewall. During those times we visited a lot with our Grandma Julia Armstrong that lived just a little way east of the town of Lula. Roads weren’t too good in and out of Lula those days before World War II. We rode the Dinky sometimes. It seemed to me that no one had any money over there.

My grandparents farmed, gardened, gathered eggs, raised delicious chickens and milked cows for most of their food, which somehow kept them fed and alive. That is, with the help of important medications grandma mysteriously created from some of her “root” hunts. Gerald and I were talking one day and wondered where she got all her medicines and how did she know how to be such a good doctor. I know when we got sick mom would try to get her mom to come check us out. She would know what to do. She leaned toward hot poultices for chest colds, pneumonia and deep coughs. What was in those poultices is something of a mystery. Gerald thinks that since I am a Pharmacist that I ought to know. He would like to go out and dig some of that stuff up. There were some hard times when we would be very sick and mom would lay a heated cloth that was saturated with grandma’s secret stuff on our chest with the light of dim Coal Oil Lamp.

What was in this stuff? Why didn’t we go with grandma out into the woods of Lula to see what she was digging up? But here are some of the things she and other settlers used. After all, no one had money to go to the doctor much less buy medicine. And they thought they knew what worked. But, again, what were they?

There was plenty of Jimson Weed which was used for asthma (added to a bath) but pretty toxic. Angel’s Trumpets (also Devil’s Trumpet) flowers for pain. Tobacco poultice for stings and you could put a slice of salt pork on a boil to draw out the poison. Down in Centrahoma they called them “risings.” If you caught the itch a bath with Poke Root would help and Poke Root with whisky helped rheumatism. You could drink it if you were the sort that didn’t bathe. But you didn’t hear that from me.

They say Marijuana grew wild and there were any number of ways you could use it. Ask your neighbor about dosage and the name of places you can find it. It’s still known by its popular name of “weed.” Stone Seed (a wild yellow flower) was gathered and boiled to make a tea for kidney stones. Stone Seed had hairy stems. Dogbane (poison to dogs) was sometimes used for Rheumatism. Indian Paintbrush was good for skin problems while Milkweed cured Dropsy. Dropsy (an obsolete term) is a common side effect of Chronic Heart Failure which caused fluids to accumulate in the ankles and legs.

Asafetida, I don’t know how you find this but the only ones I ever knew who used it wore it around their neck. The portion used was the tap root and it smelled bad. One medical person said the offensive odor or asafetida kept people away and thus reduced the chance to catch other’s germs. Sounded good to me. But old timers used the root to make teas also. A sip of this was good for “mental health,” reproductive failures, breathing disorders and if you didn’t drink too much, it didn’t kill you. Mistletoe was used to lower blood pressure, increase “smarts” and reduce anxiety.

Most of these are a little poisonous so if you are sick you better just forget what my grandma did and go see the doctor and get the right stuff. Have a good week and be sure and go to church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@

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