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Curious cures for odd ailments

Lincoln woman Maureen Sutton is compiling a book on old household medical cures, with particular reference to Lincolnshire and Nottingham- shire, and although she has a great deal of information from the Lincoln area, she would very much like to receive more examples from Newark and its environs.

She says it is "essential that the old household remedies are gleaned from the generation who practised and recorded them.

They are part of our folklore and our social history."

One Newark resident who can remember some of the old remedies used by her mother in the Twenties and Thirties is Mrs Mabel Barber of Parliament Street.

Now in her 81st year, Mrs Barber was born and brought up in the old bleach houses on Lincoln Road, quite a distance from any of the town doctors or chemists (even if her family could have afforded to consult them).

As a child Mrs Barber can remember beginning each winter swathed in a sheet of Therogene whose herbal vapours were thought to be effective in keeping colds at bay.

For the treatment of coughs Mrs Barber remembers that her mother made an excellent elderberry syrup, and goose grease was applied to the chest and back to ease bronchial complaints.

Using a hot salt bag for curing earache, or applying a bread poultice to boils and septic sores, recalls Mrs Barber, were also among her mother's repertoire of home treatments.

Gargling with salt water or diluted vinegar were tried and trusted methods for treating a sore throat, although other people swore that wearing a sweaty sock or stocking around the throat was just as effective.

This last, rather curious treatment may be contrasted with a sore throat cure unearthed by Maureen Sutton in Lincolnshire which involved drinking a basin of snail juice.

The recipe runs as follows:- "Get a bucketful of snails, cover them in brown sugar and put them in a clean meat cloth. Hang the cloth over a basin and let the juice drip into it. Leave overnight, and in the morning drink the liquid."

How effective snail juice was in curing a sore throat one can only wonder, although Mrs Barber can perhaps match it for curiosity with her memory of treating chilblains by immersing the feet in a used chamber pot.

Working alongside these many and varied homespun remedies were a whole raft of medicines and potions prepared by local pharmacists.

With no National Health Service and every visit to the doctor having to be paid for, many people preferred to rely on the knowledge and expertise of their local chemist when it came to treating seasonal or long-term ailments.

In Newark old established pharmaceutical businesses such as Cherrington's in the Market Place or Sheldrake's on Appletongate maintained their own recipe books in which the ingredients for many individual and personalised medicines were recorded.

Mr Reginald Sheldrake, for instance (pictured) adapted some of his original recipes from a local herbalist, Mr Hoffen Blades, whose business and premises on Appletongate he took over before moving into his own chemists' shop.

Many people in Newark may also remember Mr Sheldrake's Crown Sand medicine or his P31 cough mixture.

Away from the dispensaries of these chemists' shops, the manufacturers of so-called patent medicines also vied for the public's attention through the small-ad columns of local newspapers.

Every week the pages of such papers as the Newark Advertiser were filled with announcements and testimonials from people whose lives had been transformed through the use of such preparations as Beecham's Pills (a general purifier and pick-me-up), Clarkes' Blood Mixture (for skin disorders, glandular swellings, rheumatism and gout), Dr Cassell's Nerve Tablets for "sleeplessness, overstrain, and brain fog," or Dr Williams' Pink Pills (to revitalise the blood after illness).

Many people may also recall Mother Seigel's Syrup for indigestion and flatulence, Bile Beans for constipation, Doan's Backache and Kidney Pills or Indian Brandee for fevers. Toothache could be cured by Bunter's Nervine - "prevents decay, saves extraction," and Richer's Stop-Kof herbal tablets were recommended for coughs and colds. Local manufacturers, too, made sure they did not miss out on this lucrative market. In Southwell Mr H. Pointon of Queen Street announced that, having been discharged as incurable from hospitals, he had cured himself of rheumatism, lumbago and sciatica by using an embrocation of his own creation. It became a medicine he went on to advertise nationwide. Also advertised at this time were Drury's Great Southwell Remedies - an Infants Preservative - "simply invaluable - for teething, colic and griping," and Drury's patent pills, for the treatment, amonst other things, of "intemperence, costiveness and redundant bile." Locally produced in Newark, meanwhile, was Nicholls' pain cream, manufactured by Joseph Nicholls of 42 Beacon Hill Road. This most useful application could be used to treat everything from chest complaints to inflammations, eczema and all manner of skin complaints. Anyone interested in offering suggestions for inclusion in Maureen Sutton's book - particularly examples of homespun remedies which may not be recorded elsewhere - should write to her at 20 Vernon Street, Lincoln, LN5 7QR. o In compiling this article I am indebted to Mrs Mabel Barber and Mr Andrew Sheldrake of Newark. ABOVE Mr Reginald Sheldrake in his chemists' shop at 35 Appletongate, now Ian G. Howe's wine shop. Many of the ingredients for Mr Sheldrake's medicines may be seen in the jars arranged on the shelves behind him.

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