I got a phone call from Daughter the other night, breathless to tell me with great glee that her best friend’s dad, a rancher and veterinarian drug rep, had found the elixir for longevity. Yep. He decided somehow that dog de-wormer was the key to long life and disease prevention. He was taking a dose every day.
This doesn’t surprise me. Our region is noted for its high acceptance of alternative medicine. People who claim to cure all sorts of things by moving one’s cerebral-spinal fluid in the opposite direction with magnets thrive here.
My paternal grandmother believed that aspirin could cure insomnia. My father was a great believer in massive doses of Vitamin E. I can’t tell you the number of bottles of vitamins and supplements we threw out after he died. He also believed that cherries would cure arthritis. He once ate a whole lug of cherries over the course of 24 hours. My mother believed for a while that that drinking the colostrum milk from cows that had just had their calves would cure her Multiple Sclerosis. She said it tasted dreadful. They both lived into their 90’s, so I can’t say that it harmed them. (I know for a fact, though, that had my father had a colonoscopy in his 70’s or 80’s he would have not died of colorectal cancer at 93. I don’t know why he never had one.)
What are your favorite home remedies? What are some of the more fantastical home remedies you have heard of?
