Tag Archives: medicine

Northern German Cough Remedy

Nationality: German/USA
Age: 56
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/10/22
Primary Language: English

Context:

The informant, AH, grew up in a small village in northern Germany and learned this cough remedy from her mother.

Main Piece:

Mix crushed onions with brown sugar and let it sit until the juice is pulled out. That resulting juice helps with coughing.

Analysis:

This type of cough remedy seems to be pretty common in northern Germany, as I have heard other onion and brown sugar based cough remedies from people who grew up in different villages in the same area. This form of cough syrup is safe for kids and accessible, which makes it very convenient for rural mothers. I do not know how or why this remedy works, but I do recognize a sweet syrup base as a common form for cough remedies, usually paired with something very sour or bitter.

For reference, this piece of folklore collected is a cough remedy that uses lemon and honey, and contains additional insights about similar sweet syrup + sour or bitter ingredient cough remedies: “Folk Medicine, El Salvador,” Iris Park, USC Digital Folklore Archives, September 10, 2020, http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/folk-medicine-el-salvador/.

Vicks as a Cold Remedy

Background information: My mom is a second-generation Filipino-American, meaning she was born here in the US. Her parents immigrated from the Philippines when they were both relatively young, and my mom’s family grew up with a lot of relatives in San Francisco, CA. 

Mom: When you guys were young and you would get sick, I always made sure to put Vicks on your chest and back. You take a lot of Vicks and cover your chest and back with a layer of it and then put face cloths over it. It seals it and it helps you work through congestion and breathing. It clears out your sinuses so it gets easier to breathe. And then you also put Vicks on your feet and put socks over it.

Me: Why on your feet?

Mom: It helps to…suck the sickness out from your feet. The socks help seal it too.

Me: Why did you do this for us?

Mom: My mom always did it for us, and I know my grandma did too. I remember being sick and my grandma seeing me and asking my mom “Did you do this? Did you do that?” always talking about using enough Vicks on us (laughs). I think a lot of Filipino moms know about this one. Your lola knows about it too.

This medical practice is definitely something very specific to Filipino families, as I remember asking my friends if they knew about putting Vicks on their feet, and very rarely did people know what I was talking about. As a child, even though it was uncomfortable, I knew that Vicks would help me get well again because my mom and grandma felt so strongly about doing it as soon as I showed any signs of having a cold. Despite this being a practice of folklore that families pass down on their own, it feels like an “official” medical practice just because I’m so used to doing it.

Cure for Hangovers

Context: M.Z. learned about this cure from his mother while growing up in the American Southwest.

M.Z. : Okay, so the first one would be my mother’s cure for hangovers she swore that the best thing for a hangover was to get a Coca-Cola from a soda fountain, it could not be in a can or a bottle Add to be out of a soda machine and that was the only thing along with Saltine crackers that would settle your stomach and help you cure a hangover.
P.Z. : Just drinking and eating those two things? Nothing else?
M.Z. : Yep, yep those were the two key ingredients. You could eat other stuff but that was you had to have the soda fountain Coca-Cola.

Thoughts: I’ve heard of a variety of hangover cures, and it seems that it is traditionally some sort of food or drink concoction. This meant that I wasn’t surprised by this cure, although I had never heard of this one specifically.

Cure for Hiccups

Context: M.Z. learned about this cure while growing up with his family in the American Southwest.

M.Z. : And the cure that I was taught when I was little for hiccups um which I don’t remember exactly where this came from but it was through the family was that you would put a pencil in between your teeth. You would get a full glass of water. You would then try and drink the glass of water from the back side of the glass so you basically had to turn your head almost upside down and drink the water bending over with the pencil in between your teeth.
P.Z. : From the backside of the glass… So you’re folded forwards…
M.Z. : Yes.
P.Z. : Tilting the glass up to drink out of it —
M.Z. : No, tilting the glass —
P.Z. : Oh, down?
M.Z. : Well, the, the bottom of the glass goes towards your chest because you’re leaning forward. So you had to drink it that way. And I think the key was, if you didn’t drown, you somehow were so distracted your hiccups went away.

Thoughts: Overall, this was one of the most intensive hiccup cures I’ve heard, but supposedly it has proved relatively effective. I thought that this was an extremely interesting cure, and it was one I had never come across before.

Chicken Soup has Healing Properties

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 56
Occupation: Microbiologist
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

What is so special about chicken soup?

“All Jewish grandmas think that chicken soup will cure most of the things that are wrong with you. It’s called Jewish penicillin. And then I’ve heard that there’s some scientific support for this, in a paper I cannot find… supposedly if the chicken soup contains at least these four ingredients, it has anti-inflammatory properties, so your Bubby [Jewish grandma] might actually be right. The four ingredients are chicken, onions, carrots, and celery.”

Do you have a parent/grandparent that held this belief?

“I have a parent and a grandparent who would make me chicken soup, and now I make chicken soup, and I fed my daughter who got her covid vaccine chicken soup last night because she wasn’t feeling so great. She felt better after the soup (laughs).” 

Background/Context:

My informant is my father. He was raised culturally Jewish, and his career is within the science field. This information was collected during a family Zoom call after my sister got the first dose of her coronavirus vaccine. Chicken soup is considered an iconic Jewish food. Variations include chicken noodle soup and matzoh ball soup.

Analysis: 

I have been eating chicken soup as a cure for illness my entire life, and I had known that it was called “Jewish Penicillin,” but I had never heard that there might be actual scientific proof that it worked! My father’s statements about the ingredients line up with claims in an article by Alan Hopkins titled “Chicken Soup Cure may Not be a Myth.” Instances of folk medicine being investigates scientifically and then incorporated into Western medicine are common, and these instances highlight that just because a group doesn’t have access to “science” and “technology,” it doesn’t mean that their cures and treatments are necessarily less valid. 

Hopkins, Alan B. “Chicken Soup Cure may Not be a Myth.” Nurse Practitioner, vol. 28, no. 6, 2003, pp. 16. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/chicken-soup-cure-may-not-be-myth/docview/222356779/se-2?accountid=14749.