Appalachian Folk Medicine

I got curious a few days ago and looked through the pages of my grandma's old Bible. It has no cover and some of the front pages are torn and missing. This is not how I remember it, but sadly this is the condition it is in now. It has been in many houses since my grandmother passed away. My uncle gave it to my aunt, my aunt gave it to my mom and I now have it. No matter the shape it is in, Grandma's Bible is priceless to me. It was printed in 1891, the year of Grandma's birth.

I turned to Ezekiel 16:6 and this is what I saw. I smiled when I noticed an X marked by the verse.

Blood stopping was an American folk practice common in Appalachia. My Grandpa McMillion was gifted with this ability. He recited this verse and stopped bleeding. Grandpa died before I was born, but my mom practiced something when we had a nosebleed that may have been a version of this blood stopping. She would get a dab of the blood from our nosebleed on the tip of her finger and mark a red cross on our forehead with her finger. This stopped the bleeding. I remember her doing this on many occasions. I also did it to my children when they were young and had nosebleeds. I do not remember her reciting the verse, though.

Another ability my grandpa had was the ability to 'take the fire out of a burn.'  I know of some occasions in which he did this on family members. He would blow on the burn. I am not sure if he said a verse or not.

Another old Appalachian folk medicine that was used on me when I was a baby was 'pulling through the collar of a horse.' I have found sites on the internet where it stated that a child with wind colic or gripes was put three times through a warm horse collar. My mother told me that something was wrong with my neck and that the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me and they couldn't cure me. She said I was passed through a horse's collar in the front yard down at my grandma's house and that I was cured. I always thought this was a very unusual thing to do, especially in the 1950s. And until recently, I could not find any mention of this type of folk medicine on the internet.

My mother passed down the information to me that catnip tea was good for colic. My middle son had very bad colic spells, I would be up into the wee hours of the night with him. We brewed catnip tea and put a little Karo syrup into it for a sweetener and he usually fell asleep before the small  bottle was emptied. It was a lifesaver!

Grandpa drank yellow root tea for stomach problems.

My Gr Grandma Emily (1849-1910)  (Grandpa McMillion's mother) was rumored to be a witch. Of course,  I do not believe this. I think she probably had special abilities like my Grandpa did and people just did not understand her or her abilities.

There are many other folk remedies and cures. But these are a few of the ones that were practiced in my family.

I bet you have some you could tell us about., too.

This is a picture of my Grandpa and Grandma McMillion, 

which was probably taken around 1908-09 by a traveling photographer.