Despite progress we always have those among us who believe the "old
fashioned" ways or products are better. It has to be said that in some instances
they are correct. Sadly, with each passing generation, some of this old
fashioned wisdom disappears.

Progress is so contemporary and so closely a part of our daily lives that we
sometimes fail to recognize that we, ourselves, may fail to keep up with what is
happening. Things that we would have considered very modern because we witnessed
their creation only a few years ago may already be "old fashioned" to high
school students.

In the medical world, treatment that might have been popular for a disease in
1986 may be completely outmoded in 2006. Even medical discoveries of the 1990's
may be old fashioned today.

However, over the years, and for generation after generation, a great number
of home remedies for many illnesses have managed to stay alive. They have been
passed down from elders to youngsters in each country throughout the world. Many
of them are strikingly similar although they may have originated on separate
continents among completely alien peoples.

This area of medicine is commonly called "folk medicine." Few people will
have failed to have come into contact with this term at one time or another.
Usually folk medicines are the "old fashioned remedies, the cure that "Grandma
used"; the wisdom of the oldster who remembers when "My old friend Betty would
have died if they hadn't used that old remedy! Yes sir, even the doctor had to
admit it worked."

Periodically there seems to be a revival in folk medicine. We appear to be
now experiencing such a time as more people are becoming concerned, not only
about the high cost of medicine, but also the increasing discoveries of side
effects.

Basically most folk medicine is closely associated with herbs, food, oils,
minerals and components found in any household. Techniques and methodology of
folk medicine are especially adaptable to home use.

It is not difficult to understand how many of these medicines and treatments
originated and why they were popular. Among pioneers and peoples where doctors
were few and far between, or nonexistent, medical aids were the products of
experience and necessity. People used what they had at hand. Sometimes what they
"had at hand" are still used by our most modern medical experts.

For instance, over two centuries ago an English woman herb doctor used a
concoction of over twenty herbs to treat symptoms of dropsical. Dr William
Withering of Shropshire in England became interested in her success and, after
considerable research, concluded that the foxglove in her treatment was the
answer to her success. Medicine, derived from foxglove, is still considered an
excellent treatment.

Nature has given us many natural remedies, with little or no side effects. I
am sure, with more research in this area, she would be more than willing to give
up more of her healing remedies.