Medicine: The Old-Fashion Way

I came across my Dad’s medical book the other day. What a book! It’s written by doctors back in the late 1800*s or early 1900’s. I saw a page in the back that you could fill out and send in with a 2 cent stamp to belong to their medical society. I wonder how many years it took before the doctors could sign with M.D. after their name.

This book is four inches thick and there is at the least one inch of items on Castor Oil remedies. Castor Oil was used for all illnesses and diseases. I wished I were the grower of castor beans.

Soybeans are one of the farmers’ major crops and they are finding all kinds of ways to put them to good use in our foods, etc. Wonder why farmers don’t plant every other row in their fields with castor beans? If my Dad was still living, I’m sure he would jump at such a wonderful ideas as he took a lot of pride in spooning this down our throats. We didn’t have a medicine cabinet not even a drawer to hold any. This wonder drug (Castor Oil) sat on the kitchen windowsill. It didn’t need any child safety or as I call them adult safety caps. Where were they when I needed them?

This Castor Oil was also good for exercise. You had the “back door trots” as they were called. We would try to stifle a sneeze when you were within gun shot distance of Dad.

Ma Ma June

Next Customer

This next customer reminds me of the story my husband told of a doctor on East Broadway in Danville years ago. My husband had something wrong with one eye, so he came for a visit with the doctor. The doctor’s waiting room was on the front porch with every seat taken. You didn’t check in at the desk or even take a number. It was on the honor system. You looked around at each patient and they looked around and then at you. The first to arrive was the first appointment then as that one came back the next one went in and so forth. Well, it was finally my husband’s turn after watching that entry door and by then he knew who was behind him. The doctor treated his eye and said, “That will be a $1.00.” My husband questioned him about the $1.00 and such a bargain and his trust was beginning to weaken. But the good doctor said, “Don’t worry; I’ll make it up on your uncle.” And my husband was lucky too that my Dad was not the next customer.

Ma Ma June