In the midst of the madness I find myself grateful, for in the simplest of things lie the greatest of remedies.
The humble potato, for example, could save a life if conditions warrant. Blood poisoning would be one of those. Infection from a cat bite or any animal for that matter, is another. Potato has the most amazing drawing power above and beyond anything I as an herbalist could make with clay and powdered herbs. Certainly better than anything you could buy OTC if such a thing exists these days and there it is, right there in your kitchen.
Just a slice is all it takes, unless your need is to cover a large or difficult area, you may want to grate it up into a poultice in order to accomplish the necessary coverage. I’m thinking of covering a finger or a section of the arm in this case.
As an herbalist I once advised a young man to go to the emergency room as I could see the red streak headed up his arm that clearly indicated blood poisoning. I felt it was urgent enough that I could not whip something up that would be effective enough to stop it. He didn’t listen to me and went home and used the potato to draw it out successfully. Lesson learned, dollars saved.
Several years later a woman called me (interestingly enough, the organizer of a self-sustainability group) and told me that a cat’s tooth had touched her finger and it was threatening with infection, did I have a remedy? When I told her to put a potato on it I was met with utter silence on the other end of the phone. After some convincing she agreed. As I expected, she made sure I knew the remedy worked and she was going to tell everyone she knew about it. Mission accomplished. If she tells ten people, and each of them tells ten people, well, you know the rest.
I like the simple things in life and I think we can all agree on the fact that medical treatment these days is out of the reach of many people and often doesn’t result in desirable outcomes. The potato is just one tool that most of us have readily available in the kitchen and there are simple methods we can take to utilize them.
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