Old Remedies Really Work

Old Remedies Really Work
During the past week I have had a small sore spot on the index finger of my right hand. It felt like a tiny splinter or the fine cactus spine. I kept feeling for a protruding spine, but I was unable to feel anything rising above the skin of my finger. I even nipped off the skin with nail clippers above the reddened area. I was hoping to either cut it out or create an escape route for the cause of the problem. I had no such luck. It only continued to be a sore spot, but now it was an open sore spot.
There was nothing that I could see, nothing that I could feel, and nothing that I could think was causing the problem. I even thought there may be a small sliver of glass. If there was a sliver of glass, I wouldn’t be able to see it, but I couldn’t feel anything there.
It made me think of older people telling me about “drawing” salves and potions. The first story was told by an older lady Leah Geary who said thorn that was stuck deep in her foot. She couldn’t remove it manually, so she made a poultice of a slice of fresh bread and whole milk. She wrapped it on her foot overnight and by morning, the poultice had drawn the thorn to where it could easily be removed. I had no fresh bread and only 2 % milk on hand and the sore spot was so very small, I didn’t want to try that.
Then I remembered that my old neighbor Fred Brown who ran a corner grocery store in White, Pennsylvania also butchered beef and pork in his basement shop. Not only did he cut up the animals for farmers in the community, but he saved the scraps of fat and tallow from beef carcasses. He would render it with other ingredients into a thick, greasy concoction to use for a “drawing” salve. Before he passed away, he gave me a small baby food jar of the “medication.” I remembered that I still had it…somewhere. I set out rummaging through the drawers in my bathrooms until I found it in the medicine cabinet of powder room.
Twisting off the lid, I found it had thickened, but still waiting to be used. I pried out a thin scraping and spread it on my finger and secured it with a Bandaid in the morning and by late afternoon, the redness and pain was gone. I have no idea what he used to create this salve, but it worked.