Homemade cures from Ireland 1940s-1960s

The following cures are from a first hand account of treatments commonly used in Ireland during the 1940s-60s . The treatments with an * are treatments that were used on the person who I spoke to. The treatments with an ^ are treatments that were commonly used but she never used.

• Teething/ Tooth aches (child)*: “Rub a little whiskey, rum, what ever the hell ya have on the gums of the child, don’t give them a lot, then that should shut ’em up.”
• Tooth aches (adult)*: “Swish whiskey around in your mouth and then swallow it, never spit it out that’s good liquor ya know. If the pain is still there take a few swigs of the whiskey, no need to swish it, that should dull the pain. If by some reason that doesn’t work go see a doctor.”

• Chilblains*- an inflammation of the toes usually occurs when a person goes from a cold temperature to a sudden warm temperature, causes itching. “The chilblains hurt like hell. The only thing that helped me was me father melting Vaseline and adding milk into it then apply it to the feet. Itching went away in minutes.”
• Arthritis^- “The only thing that seemed to work for me Aunt Ronny was eating raw celery, she swares it takes the pain away.”
• Flu/Cold***- “Their is only one thing that will cure the flu, ya don’t need that medicine the fecking doctors give ya all ya need is a good old hot toddy. Their are two different ways to make a hot toddy ya know. The Scottish way is to boil rum and add sugar, whole cloves and some water do dilute it a bit. Then serve it hot. The Irish way, works a hell of a lot better and quicker. What ya do is ya take whiskey and boil it, but not too long you want a lot of the alcohol to stay, next you mix in sugar, honey and lemon juice and stir it all up. Then take two aspirins and swallow them down with the hot toddy and get into bed and get ready to sleep. Side effects were uncontrollably sweating and coming in an out of sleeping a lot. Possibly throwing up but that’s probably from the aspirin just take two more and some more of the hot toddy.”

If you want to know an Irish cure just text it in the comments below and I’ll see if my person knows a trick or two.