Castor oil if you was constipated. That was the real stuff. A couple of spoonfuls of that and you had no worries No exlax then.

Juniper was good for all kinds of sickness. They used to get that little ground juniper that the berries grows on. Well, they used to boil that out. That was wonderful; good for flu, colds and that kind of stuff. They used to use that all the time. I can't remember using that in my day, just the same, but I can remember when they was using it. The juniper and juniper berries would be all boiled up together to make a juice. I think they used to drink it, as far as I know. If you get an infection on your chest now or something well you can go to the nurse and get a few pills and in a few days it's all cleared up. I don't know if it's any better or not. You probably think it's better or something. It never worked no better, I don't know. It did work, it really worked. There's no doubt about that, it worked.

For a headache you'd get an old piece of brown paper and put some vinegar on it and stick it on your head and sure that worked too. Well I suppose, that was their headache remedy. Well, I don't know what it used to do, whether it worked or just you believed into it. Just like putting away warts. If you got a wart on your finger and I says, "Well I'm going to put away that wart." Well if you believes, that wart is going to go away, it probably will. There was people that claimed they could put away warts. And it really worked. It happened. I really got no explanation for that one. I do think that if you believe in something, it will probably happen. That's the only explanation I can tell you. Some people say if you get a piece of fat pork and rub over your wart and say a prayer and throw it back over your shoulder, it'll go away. Some more people catch hold to your finger and they rub the wart and they'll say the Lord's Prayer or I don't know what they say but if you believe in it, the wart will go away. Really, it do happen sometimes. I've known it to happen. It happened to me. Somebody had a wart. And I held on the wart and rubbed it a bit and God knows what I said. But it was only two or three days and the wart was gone. But probably it would have went away anyway.

People would use turpentine for cuts. If you had a ache in your stomach, you have a cup of dry juniper. You'd pick a lot of that in the fall of the year. There wasn't much headaches then. Put a cold cloth on your head. If you had a chest cold bad enough, you'd have a poultice made out of fat pork, pepper, mustard and that kind of stuff. They'd spread it on a rag and put it on your chest. It cured people. They'd cut up the pork fine and mix it all up. They used cod oil and red flannel. Mom used to seep it out. She'd get the liver from the fish and boil it and get the oil. If you had the flu or a sore throat, you'd get a spoon full every morning. She'd have so much done up in the fall of the year. It didn't taste very good, I know. I think it used to work alright. At least, you used to get better. Must have done some good, I suppose.

One time I had a gathered hand. It was really sore. My wife was treating it with a warm bread poultice - bread torn up in small pieces soaked with hot water and then strained and put over gathering or sore with a piece of rag. The Marvelle was coming with the doctor on board and so I went out to see him. The doctor took off the bandage and looked at the gathering on my hand. He looked for a while. Then he said, "Mr. Bradley, who has been tending to your hand?" I said, "My wife." And he said, "Go home. She has been doing a much better job than I could ever do!" And with that he put the bandage back around my hand and sent me on my way.