WILLIE GENE

CONTACT: Willie Gene info@natureslegacy.net or Ph. 888-388-4974 “Pig fat for a splinter… warm milk for an ear ache” Home remedies from The Bayou An interview with home medicine historian “Willie Gene” about some clever 100-year-old home remedies from the swamplands and cotton fields of Louisiana that still work today … When 65-year-old home remedy historian Willie Gene was a little girl growing up in the bayous and cotton fields of Louisiana, there was one thing she and her brothers and sisters could be sure of: Whatever kind of bump, bite, bruise, blotch, break, cut, cold, fever, flu, swelling, spot, ache, or pain that came along, Momma and Granny had the appropriate (usually bitter tasting and awful smelling) home remedy at-the-ready in the family’s medicine chest. “We didn’t have any emergency rooms or walk-in clinics down there, so over the years the folks living in those parts learned to handle most medical issues on their own – everything from stitching cuts to dissolving kidney stones,” says Willie Gene. Here are a few of the hundreds of home remedies, passed generation-to-generation, that come straight out of the bayou villages and gator-filled swamps of the deep South – places where doctors rarely made house calls. “These remedies work just about every time,” says Willie Gene. “I ought to know because I’ve tried most of them.” 1 Thorns and splinters: If you can’t reach it with a sewing needle, use a cloth to tie a piece of salt pork fat on the skin where the object is embedded. Go to sleep and the object will be lying on the fat in the morning when you wake up. 2 Coughs: Mix a little whisky and honey together. Take two tablespoons. 3 Insect bites: Tobacco or snuff juice applied to bite relieves pain 4 Ear aches: Drip warm milk into the ear. 5 Hyperactive children: Tea made from maypop leaves 6 Minor cuts: Mix sulfur and lard into a paste and apply