Homemade Remedies

Until concrete scientific advances began to occur in the late nineteenth century, professional medical treatment in America was frequently unavailable and when available was ineffectual and occasionally brutal and dangerous. By necessity and choice, many Americans preferred to treat illnesses and injuries at home. Many home medical practitioners were women who concocted remedies and potions with herbs from their gardens. Knowledge of such preparations and their proper administration was considered an essential part of a girl’s overall education. The first settlers from England and the Continent were well versed in herbal remedies, with recipes handed down from mother to daughter, or found in popular household books, such as Culpepper’s Complete Herbal and English Physician (1652). Healing herbal plants were cultivated alongside vegetables in kitchen gardens and considered just as important to a family’s survival, harvested to be brewed into teas and soups; mixed in with oats for fortifying gruels; and steeped for use as medicinal soaks and first-aid ointments.