Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living

by Svetlana Konnikova

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  Mama’s Home

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  R 61. Grate a medium-size onion and mix with one pint of scalded milk. Steep 20 minutes in a warm place. Take “Onion Milk” hot before bed. If you cannot drink the whole pint of this medicinal drink, take half in the evening and the second half in the morning. Keep it refrigerated and heat before use the next day.

  “Onion! Any disease is treated in your arms,’” says an Asian proverb. A Russian proverb salutes the vegetable with “Onion is a healer of seven diseases.”

  In the Middle Ages doctors already had a strong opinion that even the smell of an onion can help prevent any disease. This is true because an onion contains volatile substances: a high percent of phytoncides acts ruinously against putrefactive pathogenic microbes. Do you know that it is enough to chew a piece of an onion for three minutes and all bacteria will be killed in the mouth? As a first aid remedy, onion is effective in many different health problems. For example, if you cut a fresh slice of onion and put it on insect stings or you apply it on the area affected by nettle rash caused by food allergies, you will get fast relief. The onion is rich with vitamins C, B, and PP and in carotene, glucose, protein, and essential oils.

  Hard-working Egyptian farmers cultivated

  onions, but priests declared the onion a sacred

  plant and did not use it for food because the modest onion was a symbol of the moon and eternity. The lower classes, however, revered the onion as a

  wonderful addition to their food. It was recognized

  as a remarkable stimulant for increasing efficiency

  and energy.

  Four thousand years ago construction workers who built the largest pyramid in Egypt, known as the Cheops pyramid, were given onions to eat

  every day by order of the Pharaoh. It is said that

  when an ancient Egyptian man had an argument or litigation, he would put in front of him several onions and swear a solemn oath. Grief, despair, and the title of “perjurer” awaited the ignorant man who ate the onion he swore on. Stop Sneezes and Sniffles and Stifle a Cold @ 71

  In ancient Greece a beautifully shaped onion was considered a gift to the gods. Roman soldiers were obliged to eat onions every day to enhance their strength and bravery. Scientists in ancient times would cut the onion in two halves to illustrate to their students the structure of the universe, as it was told in the old world, of several spheres surrounding the earth. In the Middle Ages it was believed that the onion had miraculous powers as a shield from arrows and swords and to ward off the plague. Knights wore an onion on their chests under the armor as a talisman. The onion’s flower, attached to the knight’s helmet, stood as a symbol to his rivals of defiance to the last breath. I hope you will be successful in using the sacred onion to help fight diseases and infections. It is sure to bring you increased energy for continued healing. As you know, if you have flu, a cough will likely follow eventually. Get rough with the cough and choke it away! Here’s how.

  R 62. Make organic chicken broth and cook an onion in it. When the onion is tender, eat it at once. Add a pinch of salt for better taste. This cooked onion works magic in treating a cough. Repeat for three to five days.

  Our family always lovingly teased my grandfather who used this simple folk remedy whenever he had a cough. But guess what? He was always successful in ridding himself of the cough. He strongly believed that the onion would always stop a cough and would even prolong life.

  A virus of flu or colds gets into the human body through the respiratory system, takes root in the mucous membranes, and propagates itself very fast. The incubation period is from several hours to several days. The first symptom we usually see during the first few hours is intoxication with a strong headache, fever, and rheumatic pain throughout the body. Flu/colds often develop complications, such as bronchitis, inflammation of the sinuses, otitis, and pneumonia.

  R 63. At the onset of symptoms of a flu/cold, take 100 mg vitamin C with a hot green tea and take a hot shower to warm yourself. While taking a shower, massage your chest, face, and neck with a soapy sponge.

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  R 64. If you are sure that your blood vessels and heart are healthy, take a hot Don’t take antibiotics

  bath with chamomile or calendula

  without a doctor’s

  or add one pint of red wine or

  prescription because they

  apple cider vinegar to the bath

  don’t affect the flu virus.

  water. Go to bed, but after two

  Bacteria in the body get

  hours change your pajamas or

  accustomed to antibiotics

  nightgown. Take a bath or shower

  and these drugs will

  every day. The pores of your skin

  not then be useful in

  wil open, and infection and toxins

  the treatment of more

  wil be released from your body.

  complicated diseases.

  R 65. Take two capsules of vitamin C

  (1,000 mg) in the morning and in the evening, and one capsule of Complex Super vitamin B.

  R 66. Inhalation therapy. Combine one teaspoon of baking soda with boiling water in a cup. Mix it and breathe in the steam for several minutes.

  R 67. Combine one tablespoon linden

  Remember:

  flowers and one tablespoon rose

  hips with two cups of boiling water

  Flu/cold virus perishes in

  and boil 10 minutes. Filter and

  an alkaline medium.

  add several drops of fresh squeezed

  Baking soda is alkaline.

  lemon juice. Drink one to two hot

  cups of this herbal tea before bedtime.

  R 68. Combine one tablespoon senna as a laxative, one tablespoon German golden locks, and one tablespoon St. John’s Wort. Mix these herbs and bring slowly to a boil in an enamel pot with 24

  ounces of water. Boil one minute, filter, and drink three to four times daily, 20 minutes before a meal.

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  R 69. Combine one tablespoon buckthorn bark with one tablespoon black elder flowers, which is regarded in folk medicine as a “complete green medical pharmacy.” Black elder herb is useful in such conditions as excessive mucus and phlegm. From the seventeenth century it has been one of folk medicine’s favorite remedies for

  “cleansing phlegm,” acting as an expectorant, diuretic, and antiinflammatory and boosting the respiratory system. R 70. Make a medicinal drink that our family caled Romance, in honor of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Elf of the Rose,” written as a romantic story in 1839. Crush dried berries of rose hips. Place three tablespoons rose hips berries and two tablespoons chamomile flowers in an enamel pot with one quart cold water. Boil 10 minutes, cover, and wrap in a thick towel and let steep in a warm place for eight hours. Filter and drink one cup every two to three hours. You may add brown sugar, honey, or jel y to sweeten. If you fast the day that you drink Romance, you wil feel much better the next day.

  “The Elf of the Rose”

  I n the midst of a garden grew a rosebush in full

  blossom. In the prettiest of all the roses lived an

  elf. He was such a wee thing that no human eye could see

  him. Behind each leaf of the rose, he had a sleeping chamber. He was as well formed and as beautiful as a little child could be. He had wings that reached from his shoulders to his feet.

  Oh, what sweet fragrance there was in his chambers! And how clean and beautiful were the walls! For they were the blushing eyes of the rose. During the whole day he enjoyed himself in the warm sunshine, flew from flower to flower, and danced on the wings of the flying butterflies. Then he took it
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  to take to traverse the roads and crossroads that are on the leaf of a linden tree. What we call the veins on a leaf, he took for roads; ay, and very long roads they were for him; for before he had half finished his task, the sun went down—he had commenced his work too late.

  It became very cold, the dew fell, and the wind blew, so the elf thought the best thing he could do would be to return home. He made himself as small as he could, but he found the roses closed and he could not get in. Not a single rose stood open. The poor little elf was very much frightened. He had never before been out at night but had always slumbered secretly behind the warm rose leaves.

  Oh, this would certainly be his death. At the other end of the garden he knew there was an arbor, overgrown with beautiful honeysuckles. The blossoms looked like large painted horns, and he thought he would go and sleep in one of these till the morning.

  He flew thither . . . but hush! two people were in the arbor—a handsome man and a beautiful lady. They sat side by side and wished that they might never be obliged to part. They loved each other much more than the best child can love its father and mother.

  “But we must part,” said the young man. “Your brother does not like our engagement, and therefore he sends me so far away on business, over mountains and seas. Farewell, my sweet bride, for so you are to me.”

  And then they kissed each other, and the girl wept and gave him a rose, but before she did so, she pressed a kiss upon it so fervently that the flower opened.

  Then the little elf flew in and leaned his head on the delicate, fragrant walls. Here he could plainly hear them say,

  “Farewell, farewell,” and he felt that the rose had been placed on the young man’s breast. Oh, how his heart did beat!

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  Your heart will beat happily and with great health as you continue your natural treatments.

  R 71. Grate garlic and add one tablespoon of honey. Ratio: 1:1. Take one tablespoon of this medicinal kasha and drink one cup of natural spring water. Mince five tablespoons rose hips berries and combine with one quart cold water in an enamel pot. Bring to boiling and boil 10 minutes. Cover and steep in a warm place, wrapped in a towel for 8–10 hours. Add honey, sugar, or fruit preserves. Drink one cup in the morning and every two to three hours for two days. Gargle with warm water to prevent tooth damage from excess acid.

  R 72. Make the medicinal drink “Trio” as we named it in our family. It includes chamomile, sage, and wood betony. (Wood betony is not commonly used in the United States. It may be hard to track down. Consult the listing of herbal resources in this book.) The root of this herb is bitter and useful in liver treatment with a gentle laxative action. In ancient Europe wood betony (flowers and stems) was used to treat about 30 diseases, including headaches and digestive problems and as a stimulant and cleanser for the system, with a mild diuretic action. In the Middle Ages, this herb was a popular amulet to ward off il nesses or evil. My grandmother knew about it from her old books and used to give it to us when we had colds.

  Mince and mix three teaspoons each of chamomile, sage, and wood betony. Combine one tablespoon of the mixture with one pint of boiling water in a glass jar. Cover with a lid, wrap with warm fabric, and let steep for 30–40 minutes. Then filter, add one teaspoon honey, and drink one cup of hot Trio during the day. Also drink one cup of this herbal tea hot before bedtime. R 73. If you have cold or flu together with headache, add peppermint leaves to the herbs in remedy #72. The method of preparation is the same.

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  R 74. If you feel cold as a result of flu, add black elder to the herbal composition: wood betony, chamomile, sage, and peppermint (#72). The method of preparation is the same.

  R 75. Combine equal portions of fresh raspberries, linden flowers, coltsfoot leaves, anise seeds, and wil ow bark. Combine one tablespoon of the mixture with boiling water, steep covered for 20 minutes, filter, and drink one cup of this tea hot before bedtime as an anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antiseptic. Use this natural remedy to help reduce fever and relieve a cold’s headache and inflammatory conditions.

  White willow bark is a valuable ingredient in this remedy. It was used traditionally in people’s medicine for fevers. In the nineteenth century many scientists in Europe

  scientifically investigated this herb, but only

  one French chemist successfully extracted

  the active constituent and named it

  “salicine.” This first plant-derived

  natural “drug” was duplicated

  later, in 1852, by a chemical in

  synthetic form as a substance

  called acetylsalicylic acid. At

  the end of the nineteenth

  century it was produced

  and brought to the world

  market as aspirin.

  One year after this scientific discovery (we wonder if it was coincidence?) Hans Christian Andersen

  wrote in 1853 a fairy tale,

  “Under the Wil ow Tree.” See

  sidebar for an excerpt.

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  “Under the Willow Tree”

  H“e was walking one evening through the public roads, the country around him was flatter, with fields and meadows, the air had a frosty feeling. A willow-tree grew by the roadside, everything reminded him of home.

  “He felt very tired; so he sat down under the tree, and very soon began to nod, then his eyes closed in sleep. Yet still he seemed conscious that the willow-tree was stretching its branches over him; in his dreaming state the tree appeared like a strong, old man—the “willow father” himself, who had taken his tired son up in his arms to carry him back to the land of home, to the garden of his childhood, on the bleak open shores of Kjoge.

  “And then he dreamed that it was really the willow-tree itself from Kjoge, which had traveled out in the world to seek him, and now had found him and carried him back into the little garden on the banks of the streamlet. And there stood Joanna, in all her splendor, with the golden crown on her head, as he had last seen her, to welcome him back.

  “And then there appeared before him two remarkable shapes, which looked much more like human beings than when he had seen them in his childhood. They were changed, but he remembered that they were the two gingerbread cakes, the man and the woman, who had shown their best sides to the world and looked so good.

  “We thank you,” they said to Knud, “for you have loosened

  our tongues; we have learnt from you that thoughts should be spoken freely, or nothing will come of them; and now something has come of our thoughts, for we are engaged to be married.” Then they walked away, hand-in-hand, through the streets of Kjoge, looking very respectable on the best side, which they were quite right to show.

  “They turned their steps to the church, and Knud and

  Joanna followed them walking hand-in-hand; there stood

  the church, as of old, with its red walls, on which the green ivy grew.”

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  R 76. Combine one tablespoon linden flowers and one tablespoon raspberries with two cups water in an enamel pot. Boil five minutes. Steep 10 minutes, filter, and add two tablespoons honey. Drink ½ cup three to four times a day to reduce fever and inflammation.

  R 77. Combine one tablespoon elder flowers with one cup boiling water in a glass jar. Place the jar in an enamel pot and steam 15

  minutes. Then cool, filter, and add eight ounces boiled water and one tablespoon honey. Take about 2½ ounces two to three times a day as an antiseptic, fever reducer, and expectorant. This can be combined with one tablespoon each peppermint, boneset, and yarrow. R 78. “CCB” natural medicine. For a flu/cold with high fever, place 1⅓ tablespoons chamomile; 1⅓ tablespoons centaury, an Old

  World herb; and 1⅓ tablespoons bogbean. Add 24 ounces boiling water and steep ove
rnight in a preheated, cooling oven. The next morning filter and warm the healing medicine. Drink three cups a day when the flu is ful blown. A cold/flu is a dangerous visitor with bad intentions to destroy our good health, so be patient and wel prepared.

  R 79. “Honey Vodka” is a natural medicine that supports CCB and can be used along with it. Boil 1½ cups vodka with one tablespoon honey. Cool and drink Honey Vodka before bedtime. You might experience sweet dreams and may break into a sweat, which wil clear toxins from your body to fight the flu.

  R 80. Slice thinly three or four whole lemons and layer in a glass jar. Sprinkle sugar or honey over al . Cover with a lid and eat this natural remedy of vitamin C and glucose four times a day.

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  Eat oranges and tangerines or drink natural citrus juices made from organic fruits that you have made fresh in a juicer. Fresh-squeezed juices are best when drunk right away. They contain vitamins A, B, and C and minerals. These natural drinks help us recover faster and improve metabolism. They are known to heal a stuffy, runny nose and prevent the development of atherosclerosis.

  T he citrus fruits we take for granted in our

  supermarkets have a varied and interesting

  background. In the twelfth-century lemons were brought to

  Italy and Spain from southeastern Africa through the Middle East and northern Africa. Europe first tasted oranges in the beginning of the fifteenth century. It is thought that Vasco de Gamma brought oranges from Palestine to Europe. Even the name orange is in Russian apelsin and came from German apfel, which means Chinese apple (apfe, apple; sin, China). Oranges were cultivated in China 2,200 years before the new era.

  The beautiful and tasty southern fruit received high praise in Europe. Europeans began to build special “houses” for growing oranges. These hot houses or green houses are called orangerias in European countries, from the French word orange.

  In the beginning of the eighteenth century the glory of the orange shone throughout Russia as well. In 1774 Alexander Menshikov, a fellow of Peter the Great, built a palace named Oranienbaum, which means orange tree in German, with large hot houses to propagate oranges. In 1789 Russian Empress Catherine II ordered that the small town where the palace stood would be named Oranienbaum, complete with its own city emblem displaying an orange tree in a silver field.