The Days before the National Health Service (1948)

These days nothing is thought about attending the local health centre, A & E or  E.R.  for the least reason.  Prior to 1948, our mothers or grandmothers had their own remedies for everything, almost.

Getting the doctor in cost money.

Full of the cold with a stuffy head, then take a whiff of menthol crystals in boiling water with a towel over your head.  Soon unblocked you with runny eyes into the bargain.

If this didn`t work, then off to bed with a mustard poultice or Thermogene cladding on the chest.  Adults would often allow themselves a toddie, hot whisky and lemonade.

Aye, even a bleeding nose required a drastic cure.  Pinch you nose. hold your head back whilst a cold key attached to a string was slipped down your back.  Seemed to work.

Constipation called for a dose of liquid paraffin.  Somehow I could take this for it seemed tasteless.  Failing this. then laxatives were called for as well as doses of castor oil.

Ipecachuana wine syrup of squills and glycerine.  Cure for headaches and migraine.

Feeling wabbit?  Then try a dose of Syrup of Figs.  Even a Zube Zube or a Fisherman`s Friend could do you good.  After the introduction of the NHS, my own children were encouraged to drink Lucozade if they were not eating.  TCP great for mouth ulcers and TCP spray to daub on cuts.

When outside if you came into contact with nettles, you looked around for the nearest docken leaf.  Rub this onto the sting and it soon eased it.  I still swear on this.

And of course we had the usual standbys.  Aspro, vaseline, cod liver oil, abdine (I used to think this was a refreshing drink), elastoplasts, lint and bandages.

A speil in the finger would be extricated with a needle after it was sterilised in boiling water.

From  Bill McPhillips

At the beginning of every spring we McPhillips children had to suffer the old Sulphur and Treacle treatment, it consisted of a spoonful of sulphur powder and a spoonful of treacle mixed in a tin mug and we had to consume it all. It was Ghastly Stuff; in my imagination I still shudder thinking of it. We were also dosed up on cod liver oil every week followed by hot watered down concentrated orange juice. I could handle the cod liver oil and would take my sisters dozes in return for their orange juice. Well John guess that’s all for now.  Bill McP