Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living (13 page)

“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.”

78 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

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 overnight 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.

Lemons and oranges became popular in Russia as effective natural healers, used widely to treat catarrh of the larynx, to “knit” the bones, to treat rheumatism and scurvy, and to remove toxins from the stomach. 80 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Navigator James Cook brought large quantities of lemon juice to his ships for his sailors during long journeys. In 1795 a special law was mandated that sailors were to have a glass of this medicinal drink every day. The high percentages of vitamins C, A,

and B make citrus a real miracle food, an antiseptic healer, and a guardian of our health.

R 81. Make a tangerine infusion. Wash three or four tangerines, peel, and dry the skin. Combine the dried tangerine peel with ½ cup cold water in an enamel pot. Bring to a boil and add one tablespoon honey or sugar. Continue to boil for five minutes, then filter and take one tablespoon warm three to four times a day. This soothes symptoms of a cold, flu, bronchitis, or pneumonia.

R 82. Combine one cup milk, one tablespoon honey, one teaspoon butter, two eggs, and three to five drops vanil a extract. Boil milk in an enamel pot and cool. Mix honey and butter. Whip eggs, mix in a bowl with honey and butter, and slowly stir in the warm milk and vanil a extract. Drink one cup a

day for seven days. It wil soothe respiTangerine Trivia

ratory problems and cough.

An Italian merchant

from Naples first

R 83. Boil ¾ cup milk and cool. Mix

brought tangerines to

two egg yolks with one tablespoon

sugar or honey and while stirring,

Europe. Tangerine in

constantly add the warm milk and

Russian has a musical

three drops vanil a extract. Take this

name,
mandarin
,

natural medicine for seven days. It

which came from the

provides relief from a cold, nasal

Chinese. These fruits

rhinitis, sore throat, bronchitis, and

were affordable only

pneumonia.

to the mandarins, the

Chinese feudal lords.

Stop Sneezes and Sniffles and chapter

Stifle a title

Cold @

@ 81

You can use all remedies with elder and rose hips when you have a flu. R 84. Potato vapors can bring relief. Boil five to six potato skins in a pot with 24 ounces water. When mixture is at a rol ing boil, remove from heat and inhale the steam. This simple procedure greatly relieves congestion and improves breathing.

R 85. To reduce fever, you can use linden flowers alone or in herbal compositions: Combine one teaspoon linden flowers, ½ teaspoon mul ein, ½ teaspoon elder with two cups boiling water in a glass jar. Steep for 10 minutes, filter, and drink ½ cup three times a day. You might want to stay home during this treatment because it promotes excessive perspiration.

R 86. Combine three to four tablespoons of lungwort with one quart of boiling water and steep overnight in a warm place. Reheat in the morning, filter, and take one tablespoon five or six times a day. This herb is soothing and relieves inflammation in the chest.

R 87. Combine two tablespoons elder flowers with one pint boiling water. The method of preparation is the same as in #85. Drink ½ cup three times a day. Drink hot for feverish and mucous conditions of the lungs or upper respiratory tract.

Elder is considered a universal treatment in people’s

medicine. From the seventeenth century it became a

popular remedy to reduce phlegm and encourage perspiration. Ripe elderberries are rich in vitamins, especially A and C, and were used widely in Europe in producing wines and medicinal syrups, which people took as preventive measures against winter colds and respiratory

ailments.

82 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

R 88. Use oat straw medicine as febrifuge (fever reducer). Combine three tablespoons oat straw with one pint boiling water. The method of preparation is the same as in #85. Oat straw is an excel ent tonic for the whole system. It is used to treat physical and nervous fatigue and excessive stress. It is ideal for those people with weakened immune systems who suffer persistent colds.

R 89. Fil ¼ of a 12-ounce glass jar with Greater celandine and add boiling water to the top of the jar. Steep, cool, filter, and drink ½

cup. This tea can also be used as a gargle. During a flu it can help to restore a normal appetite and sound sleep. It acts as a sedative for the nervous system. Take for seven days 10-15 minutes before a meal and eat with one tablespoon of freshly grated carrots.
Only with the heart can we see rightly; the essential

is invisible to the eye.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900
–
1944), French pilot and poet
ƒ

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us

as the confident knowledge that they will help us.

—Epicurus (341
–
270 B.C.), Greek philosopher

ƒ

Stop Sneezes and Sniffles and Stifle a Cold @ 83

“Why, one can hear and see the grass growing!” thought Levin,
noticing a wet, slate
-
colored leaf moving beside a blade of young grass.

—Leo Tolstoy (1828
–
1910), Russian novelist, from
Anna Karenina,
1877

ƒ

Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time
to sit and watch the leaves turn.

—Elizabeth Lawrence (b.1934), American writer

ƒ

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health,

and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

—Joseph Addison (1672
–
1719), English writer and statesman
ƒ

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

—Aristotle (384
–
322 B.C.), Greek philosopher

ƒ

[Nature] is the one place where miracles not only happen,
but happen all the time.

—Thomas Wolfe (1900
–
1938), American novelist

ƒ

Can you live without a willow tree? Well, no, you can’t.
The willow tree is you.

—John Steinbeck (1902
–
1968), American writer

ƒ

Everything in nature acts in conformity with law.

—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), German philosopher

84 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

A Sickness of the 21st Century

These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood,
on the riverbank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they
sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind
it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”

—Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), Russian playwright and story writer
FACTS

Acccording to the latest information available from the American Lung Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), In the United States:

^ Allergies affect more than 50 million people.

^ Pollen allergy (hay fever or allergic rhinitis) affects nearly 10 percent of the people (26 million people), not including asthma.

^ Allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic disease, costing the health-care system $18 billion annually.

^ Chronic sinusitis, most often caused by allergies and the most commonly reported disease, affects approximately 38 million people.

A Sickness of the 21st Century @ 85

^ Allergic drug reactions, commonly caused by antibiotics such as penicillin and cephalosporin, occur in 5 to 10 percent of all adverse drug reactions.

^ Eight percent of children six years old or younger experience food allergies. An estimated one to two percent of adults have food allergies.

^ A severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis occurs in 3.3

percent of the population as a result of insect stings. At least 40 deaths each year result from sting anaphylaxis.15

Allergies impact the way millions of people live in America. Here are some more interesting statistics regarding allergies in the United States: a) Peanut or tree nut allergies affect approximately three million Americans and cause the most severe food-induced allergic reactions.16

b) Nine million visits to office-based physicians in 2000 were attributed to allergic rhinitis.17

c) Seasonal allergic rhinitis, often referred to as “hay fever,” affects more than 35 million people in the U.S.18

We are prone to developing allergies when we are under stress or oversensitive. Researchers tell us repeatedly that certain smells, herbs, berries, oranges, and chemicals can provoke allergic reactions and disturb our normal sleep pattern.