How our ancestors were treated 200 years ago: Smoking, spitting and more tea

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, medicinal potions, powders and pills were widely sold, compiled by professional pharmacists according to the latest (at that time) word of science. And yet in Russia, both in the countryside and in the city, the overwhelming majority of people preferred to be treated with the so-called "grandmother's recipes" - that is, folk remedies. Some of them are probably remembered by today's generations.

Attention, before you rush to master ancient recipes from admiration for the wisdom of ancestors, you must remember: medicinal herbs are medicinal because they contain active healing substances that must be able to dose. You should not take on self-medication, and even more so do it at random.

Colds and chills: we treat with fever

Philistine logic was as follows: if a person fell ill after freezing, it means that he must be treated by causing a fever. Oddly enough, medicine agrees with this approach, but the principle of opposition has nothing to do with it. Diseases do not happen from a low temperature - because of the cold, we just sometimes resist bacteria and viruses that are constantly trying to take root in us. A high fever - if there is no other means available - is good for killing them.

Both in the village and in the city they tried to steam the person with a cold. In the village, for this, they could drive them to wash in the stove, while it was still warm and glowing with heat, or in the bathhouse. There were few options in the city - they tried to arrange a hot bath (it was not always easy without modern running water) and wrap it up warmer so that it would get so hot that it would sweat.

In addition, it was supposed to warm up from the inside. With the spread of tea, it came to be considered an almost universal remedy - for example, it was used to treat indigestion. So they used it for colds, forcing them to drink more. The townspeople could add raspberry jam to tea (it provokes a fever), if there was, and in the village, where sugar was not spent on jam, they could add dried berries.

And here the doctors find the logic: tea tones up, whipping up the immune system, stimulates the kidneys, allowing you to “flush out the infection,” and also flushes your throat while you drink it (in the village, they did not know such a technique as gargling to wash away some of the bacteria). Grown men traditionally preferred vodka to tea, although its effectiveness is much less - but it was understood that it “warms up”, which means it drives out the common cold.

It was also believed that special "hot" food was very helpful. No, not in terms of temperature - but various kinds of seasonings, from which it burns in the mouth. Chewing garlic or onions, in the city - eat onion soup or heavily peppered broth. Well, at least in the case of garlic and raw onions, there is a scientific explanation for the benefits: they are full of phytoncides that are deadly to bacteria.

If only some part of the body got cold, then an object heated on fire was applied to it, they could be rubbed with vodka or onion porridge, wrapped with a woolen scarf - all in order to heat the sore spot. Often this did reduce the pain.

Tobacco and oil: almost universal

Many different problems were treated with tobacco - either indirectly or directly. As you know, nicotine kills not only the horse - tobacco has a strong enough antibacterial agent to prevent the development of tooth decay. There is even modern research on this. Smoking and chewing tobacco could be used to prevent the same cold, in order to feel more alert.

And yet - a spit in the eye helped from barley precisely in those days when tobacco smoking and tobacco skinning were very common, and antibacterial eye drops were not on sale. For the same reason, it helped to rinse the eyes with freshly cooled strong (unsweetened, of course) tea.

And they tried to solve any skin and hair problems with lamp oil - low quality olive oil. They not only had their hair done to make their hair look heavy, immobile and shiny, but also lubricated irritated facial skin, cracked lips, pimples and generally everything incomprehensible that showed on the skin. Perhaps the oil helped both as a protective barrier and due to vitamin E.

Herbs: whatever grows nearby will do

Many herbal recipes are popular as home remedies today. For example, chamomile is used as a tea to calm the nerves and stomach, as a hair rinse, and to treat skin irritations. Ivan tea, aka fireweed - tea made from the fermented leaves of this plant is drunk for pain in the joints, for a good skin of the face and as a mild sedative. Nettles have always been fed to the anemic.

Until now, you can find advice to drink raw potato juice for stomach problems and wash it off in the summer, in the heat, if there are problems with the mucous membrane (it is easy to assume that this drug in Russia is a little over a hundred years old - before the discovery of America, potatoes were not known, yes and then it did not immediately become a popular product).

But the plants, which are very easy to poison, have almost disappeared from our everyday life, having calculated the dosage incorrectly. Under the guidance of healers or simply experienced native grandmothers in the old days they could drink a decoction of wild rosemary - "to breathe", that is, from asthma or from complications in the bronchi after some kind of virus. I must say that it is dangerous primarily because it raises the pressure greatly.

Warts, lichen spots and the skin growing from the fungus were rubbed with celandine juice. The main thing then is not to lick your fingers - after all, it is poisonous. This was especially dangerous for children.

Banks invented to put in the village

In the villages, they could put a heated pot on several occasions: to raise the temperature around the bronchi, to try to straighten the displaced vertebra, and to replace the sagging uterus (“baby's place”). The last two troubles were very common in a village without mechanized labor: constant hard work led to many problems.

The principle of operation was exactly the same as with the medical banks of our childhood: the pot was heated from the inside and very quickly put on the skin in the right place. The air inside cooled down and decreased in volume, so that soft tissues began to be drawn into the pot, filling with blood. If you put the pot correctly, then the movement of the tissues outside caused the movement of the vertebra or "child's place" inside: one part of the body pulled another. After this, a cold was warmly covered, an injured person was bandaged in a special way, and for a while the person felt relief.

People of the past were also very good at hygiene. Alcohol instead of a shower, lemon instead of deodorant - today it is very interesting to read about how people were clean when there were no hygiene products in stores.