Family Remedies

My eldest sent me a text this week about one of her cats and an injury it had sustained.  "Gumbo has a boo boo" were her exact words.  She instructed her husband to put Neosporin on it "because it will grow back lost body parts." He had never heard that particular inside family joke. His response was to Google if it's safe to put on cats.  As a matter of fact, it is. My mother would be proud.  She used it for everything. It does NOT, however, grow back lost body parts. Not for lack of trying on her part, though. She never recovered the last section of her index finger that was taken off by her Bassett hound, Wilber. (She probably blamed that on the fact the hospital ER did not use Neosporin in a timely fashion!)

The fact that my daughter remembered my mother's favorite first aid remedy took me on a stroll down memory lane. Both of my grandmothers had a favorite topical treatment. My father's mother preferred Dr. Tichenor's. (I love a company with a sense of humor.  This website just made me smile.) She kept a bottle in her bathroom medicine cabinet.  She used it as a mouthwash. As a child, I recall being lured in by the peppermint smell, then shocked by the experience of the actual taste! *Shiver* But if my brother or I scraped a knee or got bitten by mosquitoes or ants, that bottle came out, accompanied by a large cotton ball to dab it on with.

My mother's mother used a different remedy:  S.T.37. (*sigh* Alas, no sense of humor with this link.) It came in a beautiful blue glass bottle and smelled so sweet. Like the Dr. Tichenor's across town, it lived in the bathroom medicine cabinet and was applied with a cotton ball when not being used as a mouth wash. It was used liberally on the skin ailment of a certain dachshund residing in her household. He didn't seem to mind it a bit. Until recently, I had no idea that S.T.37 was still on the market. I was having a prescription filled at our local pharmacy, Edwards Discount Drugs, and happened to see it on the shelf. (note: if you have never experienced a local pharmacy, you owe yourself a visit. Edwards has a soda fountain and diner, as well as a nice gift section and gun department - a little something for everyone!)

I suppose if I had to name my go-to remedy for cuts and scrapes, it would be the generic bottle of hydrogen peroxide under my sink.  Yes, I have a small tube of Neosporin in the Band-Aid box, but I'm much more likely to open the peroxide bottle and just pour it on my finger over the sink. 

I know: no imagination . . . no magic. I think my daughters enjoy the idea of the mythical properties my mother attributed to her favorite.