Yankee Baker's School of Witchcraft and Homeopathy

We remember this guy, yes?

The Weber Grill of Death, and how it tried to sear my flesh with a flare up that was likely seen from outer space?

Remember how it scorched my knuckles?  Today's post is about the remedy I used to treat said burn, and pretty much any burn I suffer in the pursuit of delicious.  And it doesn't involve turning to the medicine cabinet--unless you happen to be an 18th century housewife.  Which I happen to be.  In spirit, at least.

I have always had an interest in medical things, my mother being a nurse, and thought semi-seriously about going to medical school (I wanted to become a sports physician so I could become the trainer to the New Jersey Devils and play with boys' groins!  Er, or something helpful and upholding of the Hippocratic Oath...).  Eventually I decided the time and money to be spent on medical school was rather less than appealing, so I chose instead to pursue history.  Along the way I discovered the medicinal aspects of the past and how dang awesome it is to play with plants--especially when it turns out the quacks of ye olde dayes were sometimes spot on!

NERD ALERT

By the 18th century (the period I consider my area of expertise, seeing as how that's where I've spent the last nine years of my life), there are a few approaches to medicine and treating what ailed you.  Most important to note is the approach that didn't yet exist, and that is germ theory.  While an early version of the microscope was around in 1590, it wasn't yet allowing scientists identify germs, much less make the connection between microorganisms and disease.  The folks of the past being a very practical people, they figured a serious disease must be transmitted by something equally large, a la the theory that an elephant on a rampage will cause you serious injury, while an itty bitty mosquito surely couldn't do you any harm.  This is why we call malaria malaria, literally from the Latin, "bad air."  Mosquitoes live in swampy regions (like my neck of the woods where the English first set up permanent quarters in 1607), and swamps give off bad vapours.  The high concentration of this bad air, they conjectured, must be what causes malaria.  Of course now we know it is in fact the protists genus Plasmodium, transmitted by mosquitoes, that does the damage, but we can see already that our colonial brethren weren't too far off the mark in their assessment: they were on to something when the made the connection between marshy areas and malaria, they just didn't have the correct vector.

When it came to treating ailments, 18th century physicians were looking more at individual symptoms rather than diseases as a whole, and had a couple methods to help them with their prescriptions.  First is the notion of temperaments: symptoms were classified as being either dry or wet and hot or cold, and the appropriate treatment would be the opposite so as to counteract the effects of the symptom.  For example, a fever is clearly a hot, dry symptom, so it needs a cool, moist treatment.  These are qualities ascribed to white willow bark, so clearly this is an effective treatment.  And it worked.  For realsies, homeopaths today still prescribe willow bark tea to treat fevers.  Except they do it today knowing that willow bark contains salicylic acid, the main ingredient in aspirin. 

My personal favourite 18th century guide to curing your ills is the doctrine of signatures.  Essentially this boils down to if it looks like what hurts, it'll fix what hurts.  My favourite example of the doctrine of signatures is clove oil.  How many of you have gone to the dentist and had clove oil applied for toothaches (my hand is up--two dry sockets after wisdom tooth extraction)?  There's something in the essential oils of cloves that makes it a marvelous anodyne, and going WAY back to the BC times, folks were chewing on cloves and using clove oil to treat toothaches.  Why?  Because a clove has a crown and a root.  Just like a tooth. 

Of course a lot of remedies were discovered via trial and error or by observing other cultures during the contact periods of the early colonial days.  When the Spanish Jesuits entered Peru in the 17th century, many of them were struck down with the quaternary fever (aka malaria.  I just like throwing out fancy words to you).  The Andean natives had a treatment for it, a tincture made from the bark of the cinchona tree.  And it worked.  The Jesuits brought the bark back to Europe with them to treat cases of malaria, earning the plant the secondary--and easier to pronounce--name of Jesuit bark.  In 1820, the active ingredient of Jesuit bark was isolated and identified: quinine.  To this day, pure quinine remains the sole effective treatment for malaria.  Scientists have attempted to create synthetic versions, but nothing so far has proven as effective.  So drink your gin and tonics, folks, and add a twist of lime to prevent scurvy while you're at it.

Okay, most of this as just been me showing off and revelling in my own nerdiness.  Now we get down to the good stuff: A Receipt for Calendula Paste for the Treatment of Burns, Receipt Being an Archaic Word for "Recipe."

Calendula, or pot marigold, is in fact a member of the marigold family and looks rather like the little fellas you plant in your garden.  The big difference though, is that calendula is the ONLY marigold with medicinal properties, the most significant in the life of this Yankee Baker who occasionally thinks grabbing the handle of a cast iron pot with her bare hands because she can't find the pot hook, is that it treats minor burns (also small cuts and scrapes--should have tested this on my sister as she was going through her awkward phase and came home almost daily with skinned knees from tripping over her own feet).  I have a box full of a variety of dried herbs, some of which may be featured here at later dates, all useful in the treatment of common ailments, including fever, insomnia, cough, sinus congestion, sore throat, headache, and the theme of the day, burns.  What you want to do, if you find yourself with a small burn in the kitchen, or backyard because your grill wants to roast you, is first run the burn under cold water.  No use making a calendula paste if you're still cooking.  Cool the burn sufficiently, then put a few pinches of your dried calendula into a mortar.  Add roughly an equal number of pinches of white sugar and a few drops of water, just enough that you can grind the flower petals and sugar together into a paste.  Shmear the paste over your burns and let it work its magic.  Sometimes I'll slap a Band-Aid over the paste to keep it in place.  The calendula paste will relieve the pain of the burn and also minimise or prevent blistering.  Remember, this is only for MINOR burns.  If you are badly burned, please for the love of sweet baby gee seek professional medical care.

And there you go.  An old timey cure for burns.  Aren't you glad you read this blog?