Who needs the doctor?

A friend and I were talking yesterday about how relaxed the guidelines were regarding health and nutrition when we were babies. We started sharing stories about things we experienced as children. I was amused by the things that I remembered and thought I should share them.

- For earaches, they put a cottonball in your ear that had been soaked in whiskey.

- For sore throats, they would soak a candy cane in white lightning (ahem, ahem) and then you would eat it the next day. No more sore throat! (I have no idea where my grandparents got the white lightning -- I just know that Papa used to go into the woods behind the house for hours. And he always took large bags of sugar with him.)

- My mom didn't breastfeed me so I started on formula. After about 2 weeks, my grandmother declared that it was too expensive so they switched to whole milk. I was eating solid table food at 6 weeks. My "favorite" breakfast as a baby was biscuits soaked in coffee. No lie.

- I experienced thrush as a baby. My grandmother took me to a an old woman who lived in the woods nearby. The woman was believed to have special healing powers because her dad had died the day she was born. The old woman held me up and blew into my mouth. She then handed me to my mother, passing me through a horses collar. By the next morning the thrush had become a light diaper rash. The following day it was gone completely.

I'm amazed today that I have no allergies (despite what they now tell us about giving babies milk before 1 year) and no problems related to early alcohol and caffeine abuse (at least not that I can tell).

I'd love to hear about any other granny cures that were used when we were younger.