Page 164 - The Lost Ways

- By Susan Morrow -

“All that man needs for health and healing has
been provided by God in nature; the challenge
of science is to find it.”

– Philippus Theophrastrus (1493–1541)

When I was a little girl and I had fallen down and hurt my knee (it’s always your

knee you hurt when you’re a child), my mother would put a poultice made of bread,
warmed in milk, onto the cut. It instantly soothed the knee. She’d then leave it on,
covered by a piece of material wrapped around it to hold it in place and keep the heat in.

When I took it off hours later, my knee definitely felt much better.

The art of the poultice is part of the long history of folk medicine that human beings have
used since we came to be. Folk medicine is a way of healing by using things like plants and

herbs as well as certain practices like blood-letting to fix an ailment.

The methods, recipes, and techniques are usually passed down through generations. You
may think that the ingredients in a poultice wouldn’t really have any effect, but if you
explore the ingredients and compare them to modern medicines, you may be surprised
at the similarities. For example, a poultice I mention in the section on recipes below
contains opium.

A medicine that is available over the counter in a number of countries, called “kaolin and
morphine,” is used for a similar ailment and uses morphine (a related drug to opium and

163