‘Tis the common cold season

The holidays are over, and those who tried to participate in them are now no doubt dealing with one of the colds or other bugs shared by some of the people at those parties.

This is the time of year when it seems almost everyone is sniffling and hacking. And they aren’t just a week or so type: some people are complaining they are on their third week of this virus. Everyone seems to be in sympathy with each other. They hang on and they can prove to be expensive. Our medical professionals tell us there is no cure for the common cold. You just have to take matters in your own hands.

If you aren’t the type of person who takes medicines of any kind then you just have to deal with it. You talk to friends and they tell you to drink lots of liquids, get lots of rest and stay warm with layers of clothing. The temperature of the weather the past week has been terrible. If you can stay inside and not poke your face out into the cold air you are one of the lucky people who either do not have to work or are retired. But, those who have jobs have to visit the drug store perhaps more than once if you believe all of the commercials you see on TV every night. They all promise instant relief or at least in 24-48 hours. You are taking one of these and find no relief so you stop by the counter to ask the pharmacist’s advice. They have the same symptoms so they can only tell you what their own experience has been with their cold.

Have you bought many of these that have been recommended? Cough medicine, decongestant pills, cough drops, for both day and night help in sleeping, the whole answer to getting sleep and feeling better.

In the day when there wasn’t a drug store on the corner, a medicine shelf in every grocery store, and a clinic only a telephone call away, it was very important to know how to relieve those afflictions not serious enough to require summoning the doctor (who once visited homes). Those who scoff at home remedies today in the age of miracle drugs and call herbal medicines “witch’s brew” forget the herbs our grandmothers administered. Horehound cough drops are the favorites. All infusion (liquid extract) of horehound is made with a cup of dry leaves and blossoms boiled in two cups of water for 10 minutes. Let it strain and let it steep another 10 minutes with a little honey. As a tea it will ease a tickling throat or a cough when you mix part of the infusion with two parts of honey.

When my sister and I were small and coughed most of the night you would find us in our bedroom at night ready for bed and crying. Not because of our lack of sleep but downstairs in the kitchen my mom would have either lard and onions steeping until cooked down enough to fill specially made bags that they would be placed in and closed up ready for putting on our chests all night. If that didn’t stop the hacking (which it always did, it seemed) she would fix turpentine and lard in a bag or greased right on our chests. It had a better scent than onions but was just as messy. Those ingredients were in the house and one didn’t have to purchase cough medicine. There were other homemade cough mixtures but those seemed to be the ones at our house.

Our family had a book of homemade recipes for a wealth of home cures and we plan from time to time to pass some along coming from generation to generation when doctors were far away and expensive for everyone. Perhaps by spring we will plan to grow caraway, rosemary, sage, coriander, camomile and other such herbs just for the knowledge of what these herbs we could identify with.