In the 1880s Hoffman left the Army and traveled extensively on the North American continent, living with and studying frontier communities and Native American tribes. In 1889, Dr Hoffman presented the American Philosophical Society with the conclusions of his research on Pennsylvanian folklore.
This volume detailed a wide array of homespun medical treatments, some valid, some based on superstitions and wacky theories. One ‘cure’ still widely practised in rural areas was for a dog bite:
“To cure a bite, use a hair of the dog that caused it. It is sometimes placed between two slices of buttered bread and eaten as a sandwich.”
Mumps could be cured by rubbing the swellings against a hog trough. Rheumatism could be kept at bay by carrying around a potato in one’s pocket. Excessive saliva and dribbling in children could be stopped by “passing a live fish through the child’s mouth”. Whooping cough could be treated with daily drinks of tea made from a hornet’s nest. No less bizarre was a treatment for jaundice:
“Hollow out a carrot, fill it with the patient’s urine and hang it, by means of a string, in the fireplace. As the urine is evaporated and the carrot becomes shrivelled, the disease will leave the patient.”
Source: Dr Walter J. Hoffman, Folk Medicine of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1889. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.