Finding a treatment for coronavirus and insect stings

Might the cure be elderberry juice or maybe gargling with hot water and lemon? Antiviral treatments are few and tricky, but there are no shortage of speculative suggestions. Just think of all those associated with the common cold, which is also caused by an upper respiratory virus.

And, for Covid 19? There are no shortage of snarky comments on the internet about whether to try hydrochlorquine or not. I have to admit that I got sucked into that debate, if you can call it a debate. One gal called my comment about randomized trials to assure safety as well as efficacy as “drivel” or “crap -obviously part of a plot to overthrow the president!” Are you kidding? I do think that we have lost our ability to talk with one another, but that is for another discussion. Something as obvious as evidentiary science has become politicized.

Without political agenda, my grandmother had a pharmacopeia of cures wrought when modern medicine wasn’t modern. A lot of them seemed to work. Take, for example, honey, a natural miracle, an antibiotic and antifungal. You can leave honey in a jar for thousands of years and it will still be good. It will look odd, but then wouldn’t we all after a thousand years. Put a bit on a bee sting? Sure, but only if there is no mud handy.

Yes, mud. Insect stings were common because we had to get our water from a spring that was the world headquarters for yellow jackets, the scourge of the order Hymenoptera. Yellow jackets, which are not bees, will sting just for the heck of it. Granny didn’t carry honey with her when we went to get water, but there was always mud easily available. We would come home with a wagon full of gallon jugs of water and spots of mud on our arms and legs. For years I thought mud was the approved treatment for bee stings.

Upset stomach? Ginger ale, according to her, Canada Dry, was the answer. Pour a glass, let it go flat and give it to the retching wretch.

Slow gastrointestinal system? There was the enema. A porcelain fixture with a tube that hung above the commode, threatening even when you felt fine. Let’s leave that there. Strangely, this was also the remedy for a fast forward gastrointestinal system. And when she had to resort to chemistry, the preference was for Fletcher’s Castoria, which we feared almost as much as the enema because of its side effects. My mother would write us a note that would allow us to leave the classroom precipitously when the castoria began to work. Mom, who studied at the feet of our grandmother, used the word cathartic to describe why we would have to exit the classroom so quickly. I have no idea where she learned that word.

Cough? Now, I’m not totally sure about this, but I do remember my grandmother picking wild cherries and mixing them with gin and creosote (there is a medicinal form of this.) It would stop you coughing right away, mostly because the amount of alcohol was so great that it took your breath away. But it did work.

A bad sunburn? Apply paper towels soaked in vinegar. Yes, vinegar. Turns out that she was right. Vinegar is a very acceptable remedy that not only soothes the hurt but provides protection from infection.

For general awfulness try a hot toddy. Her recipe included hot tea, honey, ginger, a lot of lemon juice and even more whiskey. I often say that it may not have been a cure, but after a large cup of this concoction, you didn’t care anymore. My grandmother never even drank as much as one beer, but kept alcohol on hand for medicinal purposes only. You know, for cough syrup, hot toddies and the sterilizing the odd gunshot wound.

There were other panaceas in her medical bag, most of which fall into the category of placebos. If you were sick enough, you could ask for and get a “thunder and lightning” sandwich. What is a thunder and lightning sandwich? It’s an open-faced slice of homemade bread, spread with whipped cream and drizzled with treacle (Lyle’s Golden Syrup.)

Then there was eucalyptus. Why? I’m not sure whether it warded of germs or the curse of a passing sorceress. Eucalyptus comes in many forms, all of which are, by my mother’s family, thought to ward of germs and/or evil spells.

My grandmother had a liquid form, which she put on the pillowcase of the sick person. There was a powdered version that you put in a small muslin bag and wore around your neck and there were actual eucalyptus branches that you kept in a vase. The vase version must have been primarily decorative. What did it do? Could it be that the smell kept pathogens away?

But, thinking about her protocols, the most important, beyond the medicines and her prayers, was that she was there, and you knew that she cared, cared more than you could comprehend. And, in the end, it is most often the presence of a presence, one that means you are cared for, that calls you back from the edge to your place in the world, important in the life of someone. Two four letter words come to mind: home and love.

The scary thing about Covid 19 is not only that we have no reliable vaccine or treatments, with the limited therapy available, but we are also distanced from those who care for us, for whom our lives mean more than their own.

And, thinking about that last sentence, I do have to recognize the overwhelming passion that our medical professionals bring to Covid 19 patients. They are not our grandmothers and not able to be for us that focused loved one that we crave, but they, too, risk their lives for their patients. They feel your pain, your fear. They are the temporary family, hands in the darkness. God bless them.