Got whooping cough? Try fried mice. Earache? Treating it with ash sap might do the trick. The annals of English and American folk medicine are full of outlandish prescriptions. Others have proven quite sound, like treating earaches with ash sap, an ancient Roman cure that somehow became a part of British, North American, and Native American traditions.
Gabrielle Hatfield, PhD, is a professional botanist.
"[A]n authoritative and exhaustively researched volume ... well organized and attractively designed ... for libraries with collections in the history of medicine, folklore, and anthropology." - American Reference Books Annual "Because oral traditions are often lost when practitioners die, this work makes a valuable contribution to folk medicine and to medical literature in general. It is also interesting to read ... Highly recommended. All collections." - Choice "[W]ould be as much at home in folk culture collections as in a library's medical section. Public libraries with patron interest or academic libraries with collections in traditional medicine would profit from the author's historical approach." - Booklist "[T]his is a valiant effort at bringing together a considerable body of information. Even though the individual entries are short, Hatfield's catholic approach to selecting topics for articles and the thoroughness with which the entries are documented will make this a helpful source for those researching British and British-derived American folk medicine." - Journal of American Folklore
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