Old Wives cures.

You can still buy kaolin and morphine but it's behind the counter now and Boots will try to persuade you to buy something else!

Great for diarrhoea though.

Kaolin + Morphine was still available a few years back. Kaolin makes you constipated so you can't take much...

I had night cramps and was given a quinine prescription for them, but before I took any, I started wearing bedsocks, and the cramps went!

And I still have the Mandl's Paint that my dad used to use on my sore throats.

I love the smell of coal tar soap.

Jalima I'd forgotten the boozy gripe water! Amazing how we all survived.

Coal Tar is on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines

Panic not those who used it for their DC

Yes, I remember that
and, of course, gripe water for teething babies contained alcohol.

Did anyone else have Kaolin and MORPHINE for stomach upsets? And it was an over the counter remedy too!

If I had a cough when I was a child, my Mum used to chop a raw onion finely and place it in a cup. She then sprinkled it with sugar, cover it and leave it overnight.
In the morning a syrup would have formed which was a 'cough mixture'.
Re: Warts.
My Stepfather, as a boy lived in a village in Suffolk. His Dad was the village 'Wart Charmer". Folk would visit him to have their warts 'charmed away'.

Products containing coal tar (which is a kind of tar, derived from coal, as you'd expect) can be antiseptic if used on the skin. It was always a pretty crazy idea to inhale its vapours though. Just like still and inhale some complex hydrocarbon chemicals my pet... Just goes to show that the patent medicines of the past were a bit random. Lots of corner "chemists" invented their own branded medicines. Some were wildly successful. Many were used indiscriminately for all kinds of things they were not designed for. We got given Milk of Magnesia for diarrhoea, vomiting and constipation. Other people used to give it to babies or take it for stomach ulcers and indigestion. It might relieve constipation (magnesium causes diarrhoea) but little justification for some of the other uses. PeptoBismol is another one - more famous in the USA but it is available here and recommended for all kinds of digestive disturbances. A retired gastro surgeon I know told me it did sometimes cure ulcers in the past by killing off helicobacter pylori, but no reason to think it is any good for anything else. He went on to comment in earthy style, about the effect it can have on bowel movements.

Used corks for years and then they stopped working. I couldn't replenish them as they are now using plastic or screw caps. Mentioned it to a French friend who looked absolutely blank She said in Brittany they used a small tablet of soap... unwrapped. When the cramps strike you just rub it and the cramp goes. sceptical? try it! My informant inherited a 70 yo soap tablet from her grandmother. She thought the essence was wearing out so was going to try corks under the mattress.

I've tried the spoonful of sugar one to cure hiccups on my DP,when he was going through a phase of keep getting them. It worked. Also,the pinch of salt on the tongue one for night cramp. I go through phases of getting agonising cramp in the back of my thigh at night. About a year ago,it woke me up and as I was hopping around the room,yelping,my DD came in with the salt cellar. She told me to stick my tongue out,and she shook a small amount of salt onto my tongue. I swallowed it down with a drink of water and unbelievably,after about a minute,the cramp had gone. Coincidence? I don't know,but I have used this trick successfully several times since.

My Gran covered a large Spanish onion with brown sugar and left it overnight. The "juice" left in the morning was our cough syrup. I swear by chicken soup made with lots of onion if I am unwell.

wow this is really interesting - anything that stops snoring by any chance? Unfortunately its me who has the problem and I am driving DH mad x

Hi I have my burner to wouldn't be without it and I put eucalyptus oil or olibas oil on the stone. Just wish I had a spare stone as it really needs replacing. A friend suggested a pumice stone but can't cut it to fit sadly.

For stings:

Vinegar for Vasps
Bi-carb for Bees

Rub a wart with a piece of steak then bury the steak in the garden.
Or drop on the sap from a dandelion stalk.
Or find a -wart-charmer' and sell her or him the wart.
Put a cold spoon down the back of your neck to stop a nose-bleed.
If you feel as if you're going to sneeze, stare at something bright (eg out of the window or towards, not at, a light)

Not all tried and tested!

Sounds very uncomfortable though, Legs55!

for "night cramps" corks under bottom sheet - must be proper corks not plastic ones. Works for me

Gaggi3 I remember being dosed up with Parish's Food, too! Yes, black teeth and tongue! Also Iron Jelloids for my DF and then for me when I was older. I've only recently realised that my DM insisted that we took these, but never did herself!

It is probably all in the mind but if it works I don't care either. Look what a "kiss better" does for a child.

Pressing on the point between your nose and top lip does really stop a sneeze.

Minniesmum I still have my burner, but no fluid, don't know why I am keeping it, old times sake perhaps, it was an absolute godsend when the children had awful coughs, (and me!) About warts, if you have two, and can possibly run them together (not always possible I agree) that too will quickly get rid of them, and mine have never returned.

The milky sap from chickweed got rid of a wart on my elbow once...or so I fondly believe. I was told that another name for chickweed is wartweed. I've never had another one either.

I use the Vick foot rub cotton socks treatment and find it successful. Also my quirky one is a bar of toilet soap roving freely in bed as a solution for Tired Leg Syndrome. Phsychological? Maybe and I'll happily settle for that as I haven't had the problem since indulging. It was a nightmare regular discomfort.

Chicken soup is medicine.