My six year old son was doing a research project. He wanted to find out more about poisonous ladybugs. How he decided ladybugs were poisonous is beyond me. When we looked it up, it turns out that they are. The catch is you’d have to eat several hundred of them to even feel sick.
While we were researching ladybugs I ran across a piece of folk lore from France: If you are ill and a ladybug lands on you, when it flies away it will take the illness with it. Where’s a ladybug when you need one?
This little tidbit got me thinking. Depending on when and where we grew up, it’s possible many of us were exposed to some form of folk medicine. Many of us still use it in the form of alternative medicine.
Folk medicine is based on passed down tales of “what works” for various situations. Some of it might actually work; some of it is just fun to think about. While I’m not trying to poke fun at anyone’s healthcare beliefs, I thought I’d put together a collection of a few of these folk remedies and see how many you could recognize.
It’s not about whether they work or not, it’s trivia and fun for the day.
- A dirty sock worn around your neck while you sleep will cure a sore throat.
- A rhubarb root worn around your neck will prevent stomach aches.
- Alcohol poured in the wound cures spider/snake bites.
- An iron key pressed to the back of the neck will cure a nosebleed.
- Don’t cut your hair in the dark of the moon or you’ll go bald.
- If you cross your eyes they’ll stay like that.
- Lying on your left side can cause heart trouble.
- Rubbing your hand on a bald man’s head improves your memory.
- String worn around your neck prevents colds.
- Swallow a spider to cure your fever.
- The blood of a black chicken cures shingles.
- Tie a big red onion to the bedpost to prevent colds.
- To stop a toothache in your left jaw, tie a string around the little toe of your right foot.
- Wearing red, wool yarn around your neck will prevent nosebleeds.
Heard any other good ones? I’d love to hear about them!
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