Medicine Cure: The Old-Fashion Way Part 2

I remember going to a doctor two times while growing up. Once was for a smallpox vaccination and the other was when my Mother passed away. My Mother’s life was way too short – 44 years old and an aunt visited the doctor on my behalf to get something for me.

After my Mother was taken from us, I was only nine at the time and wondered why I could not go with her and the whole world turned upside down. I’ve heard people talk about change of life, but they knew nothing about the change in life this created. She had so much love and affection for all of us and much I wished I could have learned from her. Such a shock coming in home from school running up the lane and find her lying on the walk in front of the porch.

My Dad was the one with only four years of education who was “House-Doctor” manned with his big doctor book, when I stepped on two nails the summer we tore the old farm house down and built a new one. Every board was saved and used in the new home with piles of wood stacked in the chicken lot. Dr. Dad, no M.D. behind his name, but his orders were to get a clean bucket of extra warm water and put so much of this disinfectant in it and soak your foot in it. This disinfectant was a miracle drug. It was called “CNN” and was brown in color and a liquid that came in a square orange labeled bottle. This CNN was used on everything such as scrapes, scratches, cuts and also on cows utters. It had no limit on uses. It was purchased at the Thompson’s drugstore on the north side of the square in Danville.

Later in years I had a step-mother who was a career nurse, but after putting up such a fuss about it became a believer and the last bottle she purchased was between here and Florida. Then, they stopped making it. Maybe it was because there was a fellow that mixed up a batch of something in his bathtub and called it “Had’d Call,” the miracle drug. If my memory isn’t failing me I think you were supposed to drink this one. I hope he washed his feet after and not before mixing that up. It was advertised for a long time, but I didn’t use any for one thing it had to be bought. The reason for its name is that he didn’t know what to name it so he called it, “Had’d Call.”

Well, I kind of got side-tracked for a little while, but after a good soaking of my foot I was to grate a raw potato and bandage it over the nail hole in my foot. This you changed every few hours as the potato turned black and lost its effectiveness. The potato would draw the infection or puss as we called it out onto the dried potato and this you could see. You did this and soaked foot a lot until your foot was no longer swelled to the size of a baseball bat and back to normal when you could get your shoe on. It was a repeat procedure for the next foot, etc.

That was sixty years ago and so far I haven’t gotten “Lock Jaw.” As some would make a mental note, we can tell.

MaMa June