Homemade Medicines Of The Confederacy
Olde Kinston Gazette Staff Report
February 1998
As the North began to tighten its blockade of the Southern states in rebellion,
the Confederate Army had to become more and more dependent on medicines that had
been smuggled or home grown.
When the human is deprived of something that is a necessity for survival, his
natural reaction is seek a substitute. That is the predicament in which the
Confederacy found itself during the years of 1861 through 1865 when it came to
much needed medical supplies for the sick and wounded.
On April 2, 1862, the Surgeon General of the Confederacy issued a circular
suggesting the following:
“It is the policy of all nations at all times, especially such as at present
exist in our Confederacy, to make every effort to develop its internal
resources, and to diminish its tribute to foreigners, by supplying its
necessities from the productions of its own soil.
“This observation may be considered peculiarly applicable to the appropriation
of our Indigenous Medicinal Substances of the Vegetable Kingdom — and with the
view of promoting more important Medicinal Plants, has been issued for
distribution to the Medical Officer of the Army of the Confederacy now in the
field.
“You are particularly instructed to call the attention of those of your Corps
within your district, to the propriety of an necessity for collecting and
preparing with care such of the within enumerated remedial agents, or others
found valuable, as their respective charges may require during the present
Summer and coming Winter, with directions to forward to the Medical Purveyors of
their districts, for preparation and distribution, such amounts of those
articles as they may be able to have collected, as well as their own supply, for
which they may not have storage.
“Our forests and savannahs furnish our Mat: Med: with a moderate number of
Narcotics and Sedatives, and an abundant supply of tonics, Emetics, and
Cathartics, remains in a comparable degree incomplete. The attention of the
profession should therefore be especially directed to a determination of the
relative value and specific application of such of the last mentioned classes,
as have been adopted in practice, as well as the discovery of curative virtues
in others of the same classes, not yet introduced to public notice.
Information thus elicited when of sufficient importance should be communicated
through the Medical Director of the Army Corps of Military Department, to this
Office.
Instructions relative to the procuration [Ibid] of a proper supply of indigenous
Medicinal Substances will be forwarded to the Med. Purveyors.
S.P. Moore
Surg’n Gen’l
Home Remedies
Whiskey of the home grown type became the basic ingredient of most Confederate
medicines. Whiskey and the dogwood berry (the principle substitute found for
quinine) became standard treatment for malaria.
Joye E. Jordan, Museum Administrator of the North Carolina Department of
Archives and History, wrote in his book Civil War Medicine that Confederate
malaria patients who were issued whiskey laced with medication every day showed
high approval of the prescription and were dutiful in reminding their doctors of
the hours appointed for receiving the next dose of their “favorite medicine.”
Jordan wrote: “Cotton-seed tea, cherry, the bark and root of the chestnut and
the chinquapin were other remedies for malaria. Turpentine had a variety of
uses. It was employed as a treatment for fevers, colds, sore throats, bruises,
sprains, and other aches and injuries. Mustard seed and leaves, hickory leaves,
pepper seed and leaves were used for pneumonia and pleurisy. Rheumatism,
neuralgia, and scrofula were treated with sassafras, alder, prickly ash, sumac
and pokeroot. Opium was produced by the cultivation of poppy seeds. Calomel was
replaced by the dandelion, pleurisy root, and butterfly weed. Sassafras tea was
considered a good medicine for the blood. Hemorrhage was treated with black haw
roots and partridge berries; dyspepsia and snakeroot and peach leaves. Jimson
weed mixed with spirits was described as “healing and soothing” for minor
injuries.”
The following home grown remedies can be found in Jordan’s book.
Sore Throat
Slightly boil enough cottonseed to make a poultice to spread on a cloth and bind
on the throat and let stay until cool or not until the poultice is too cold, and
the oil in the seed will quickly cure the sore throat.
For Coughs
Stir a little baking soda with about two teaspoons of molasses and eat it. Use
as often as necessary.
For Coughs
Take one cup wild cherry bark and one cup white pine bark and place in sauce
pan. Add two cups water and simmer for one hour. Remove bark and strain liquid
so there will be no drags left. Add one c up of brown sugar to liquid and boil.
Syrup may be kept in a cool place until all is used. One teaspoon makes a dose.
For Coughs
Boil the inside of red oak bark. Put ¼ teaspoon of alum in the water. Cool and
gargle. Will cure sore throat and cough.
For Asthma and Cough
Take 4 oz. fresh grated horseradish. Put 1 pt. of vinegar on it and let it stand
for 12 hours. Then put it on the fire, covered tightly to prevent the strength
going off with the steam. One teacup of honey is added after boiling. Keep
tightly covered.
For Bronchial Trouble
Make a pillow out of life-everlasting weed and let the child sleep on the pillow
regularly. This will cure the bronchial trouble.
For Pneumonia
One quart of cornmeal, 1 qt. onions, and 1 qt. vinegar. Cook the onions with the
vinegar and corn meal and make a poultice. Put a poultice on the person’s chest
as hot as he can bear it. When it begins to get cool, have another hot poultice
ready to put on his chest. Repeat this until the pneumonia has broken.
A Liniment
Make a mixture of 4 tablespoons vinegar, 2 tablespoons turpentine and 3
tablespoons lard. Mix well and rub in 3 times a day.
For Sprains
Make a plaster of red clay and vinegar, put it on the sprain and wrap with brown
paper. Keep moist.
For Rheumatism
Make a tea from the roots of the pokeweed and rub into the affected areas.
For Earache
Take a piece of cotton and in the center put a small amount of black pepper and
wrap the cotton securely around the black pepper and then dip the cotton ball
(with pepper inside) into castor oil. Heat the ball over a fire until it is nice
and warm and then place it inside the ear. This is for an earache.
For Cuts
Rub pine rosin on the infected area.
For Cuts
Boil lion roots (a little spotted plat that grows in the woods under wood mold),
some wild cherry tree bark, and sarsaparilla bark. Boil all together until a
strong solution is obtained. Strain into a jar. Sweeten it. Add enough whiskey
to keep from souring. Take two good doses twice a day.
For Cuts
Bathe wounds in Epsom salts. Will stop blood poisoning.
For Burns
Make a saturated solution of alum - 4 oz. to a quart of hot water. Dip a cotton
cloth in this solution and apply immediately on the burn as soon as it becomes
hot or dry, replace it by another. This will be every few minutes at first. The
pain will immediately cease and after 24 hours of this treatment the burn will
be healed, especially if commenced before blisters are formed. The astringent
and drying qualities of the alum will entirely prevent their formation.
For Colic
From Dr. Williams. Dissolve 45 drops of oil of peppermint in 1 oz. of spirits.
To this add 1 oz. of laudanum and shake up. Whenever attacked with colic give 50
or 60 drops in a wine glass, nearly filled with cold water, after which give ½
the quantity every three quarters of an hour until the pain is relieved. It will
be the safest way six hours after the pain is relieved to give a large dose of
calomel, and two or three ours after, a dose of castor oil which should be
repeated every two hours until it operates freely.
For Sick Stomach
Butterfly weed tea: Dig up the root, wash and cut it up. Place it in a cup, pour
boiling water over it and let it soak for a few minutes. After cool give at
least two teaspoons every two or three hours for one day. Give fresh churned
buttermilk and boil drinking water. Keep off sweets for a few days.
For Bowel Complaint
Take a handful of strawberry leaves and pour on them half pint of boiling water,
let it remain 1 hour and drink the tea. If you cannot get boiling water, chew
the leaves and swallow the juice. This is a very efficient and valuable remedy.
Scarlet Fever and Small Pox
Place 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar into a bowl and pour on it 1 pint of
boiling water. Stir well and then cover with a thin cloth until cold. Pour the
clear liquid off into a jar or pitcher. Give this clear liquid to the patient as
often as he can be induced to take a few swallows. It is quite acid and will be
difficult to take much at a time. It is much better if a good drink of it can be
taken every couple of hours.
For Typhoid Fever
Make a poultice out of garlic. Bind to the bottom of the feet. This will draw
out the fever and has cured typhoid fever. Let stay overnight. Beat garlic up
into very fine pieces.
For Cholera
Mix 5 grains calomel, 5 grains camphor, 3 grains cayenne, and 1 grain opium in
whiskey. Take a dose every 2 hours.
For Kidney Trouble
Take watermelon seed. Boil them, then strain the tea and drink sweetened or as
it is. A cup or two will cure kidney trouble.
For Kidney Trouble
Take a cupful of peach tree leaves and make a strong tea.
For Erysipelas
Make a torch of fat lightwood. Place a container beneath it. Hold a piece of fat
rancid hog meat over the torch. The grease and pitch dripped from this, applied
to the affected parts will cure erysipelas.
For Hiccups
To stop: take ½ teaspoon Damson Preserves every 15 or 20 minutes. Take it by
itself.
For Tonic
To make 1 pint of a good tonic to use in the springtime, take half water and
half vinegar and put in nine square nails. Let it stand for about a fortnight,
Take a tablespoon each morning.
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