Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Home remedies

More than a century ago when doctors were scarce and people more self-sufficient South Texans had their own remedies for home treatment.
   Some remedies sound sensible. There was chamomile tea for insomnia and kerosene for head lice. Others sound totally ineffective - like a paste made from parched flour and milk used to treat cholera. Whether old home treatments worked or not perhaps can be judged by the short life spans people had back then. I figure that of them must have worked, but I wouldn't try any without asking a doctor first.
   Many early families planted pomegranates. The late Ruth Dodson of Mathis once noted that deserted homesteads could be found by the pomegranates which continued to blossom long after the families had departed. Pomegranate seeds were said to reduce malaria fevers.
   Another way to reduce fevers was to apply a poultice of hot, stewed tomatoes to the feet. Sassasfras tea also was said to lower a high temperature. A few teaspoonfuls a day of vinegar that had been steeped with rusty nails added iron to the blood. Kerosene, besides killing lice, was used to treat cuts. Sulphur mixed with molasses was a spring tonic forced on youngsters, whether they needed it or not.
   J. Frank Dobie wrote that the best poultice for poison was made from crushed tumblebugs. "It will draw the bucket out of the well. Just mash them up and put them on raw."
   Vaqueros rendered oil from rattlesnakes to treat sore joints and rheumatism. Hog lard, rubbed into joints, was also said to be good for rheumatism. Vaqueros used crushed prickly pear leaves mixed with goat tallow to treat snake bites. They sucked the poison out, then applied the prickly pear poultice to draw out the rest of the poison.
   Rattlesnake oil was said to be good for toothaches, but it had to be obtained from a snake that was killed before it rattled; otherwise, the oil would be tainted with poison. (Rattlesnake oil was also prized by gunfighters who used it to grease their holsters.)
   Mrs. S.G. Miller, a rancher's wife in the Nueces Valley, had her own treatment for snakebite. She would "scarify" the bite, then apply a poultice of salt and the yellow of an egg, afterwards applying a mush poultice made from whiskey and cornmeal as hot as it could be borne. Leaves from the canna plant were used for headaches. The leaves were soaked in water, then tied around the head with a damp cloth.
   There were a number of remedies listed in the Mercer logs. Bruised geranium leaves were applied to cuts. A cure for earache was to "Take a tobacco pipe, place a wad of cotton in the bowl. Drop in six or ten drops of chloroform and cover with more cotton. Place stem in the afflicted ear and blow in bowl." A treatment for flesh wounds was to take a pan full of burning coals, sprinkle them with brown sugar, and hold the wound in the smoke for a minute or two.
   A cure-all in Corpus Christi was the mineral water from the well in Artesian Square that was first dug by Zachary Taylor's troops. Many people believed the water would cure all kinds of ailments, even though it had an odor like rotten eggs and wet dogs.
   George Washington Grim, who owned the Grim Ranch west of town (this was later the Kostoryz area) drank a gallon a day of the smelly water. "I've been told that I'm drinking myself to death," Grim once said, "but I'm not keeping it a secret that that water's keeping me alive. Folks who say it smells too bad to drink are letting their noses do them out of something that's good for their stomachs." An analysis of the water found it contained sulphurate of hydrogen gas, carbonic acid gas, sulphate of soda, chloride of calcium, sodium, and bicarbonate of iron.
   The historian J.W. Willbarger told the story of a visitor to Corpus Christi who tried the water in Artesian Square. He dismounted, tired and thirsty, and took a long drink. The visitor, clawing at his neck, rode to the nearest drug store, where he "bought a bottle of Number Six, swallowed its contents, and then tapered off with three or four doses of cold-pressed castor oil" before he could get rid of the taste.
   "Since then, I have often wondered that the citizens of Corpus Christi have not long ere this erected a monument to the memory of Colonel Kinney, not because he was the founder of the city, but because he has furnished them with an ample supply of the most economical water in the world, one drink of which will satisfy a man for a lifetime."
  
   (Sources include Caller-Times archives; the Mercer diaries; "Man, Bird and Beast" by J. Frank Dobie; "Sixty Years in the Nueces Valley" by Mrs. S.G. Miller; and "Indian Depredations in Texas" by J.W. Willbarger.)
   (Correction: I made an error in last week's column. Tower Theater at Six Points was not built in the 1950s. It was built in 1937.)
  

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