The Bee Guy

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

John Wesley’s Honey Cures

<> John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, wrote the run away best seller of the 1700’s titled Primitive Physic which could be translated, “Simple Medicine for Dummies”. At that time, physicians were busily lining their pockets by catering to the rich, concocting exotic potions containing numerous weird ingredients. Wesley felt medicine ought to be available both rich and poor. He promoted good health through good hygiene (“cleanliness is next to godliness”) and curing with common and inexpensive ingredients, including honey. Wesley didn’t make these recipes up. He collected remedies from sympathetic physicians and tried many of them himself. Here are some honey cures according to Wesley: <>

Boils: make a plaister of honey and wheat flour <>

Colds: To one spoonful of oatmeal, and one spoonful of honey, add a piece of butter, the bigness of a nutmeg: pour on gradually near a pint of boiling water: drink this lying down in bed. <>

Cough: make a hole through a lemon and fill it with honey. Roast it, and catch the juice. Take a teaspoonful of this frequently: Tried. <>

Costiveness (constipation): Take the bigness of a large nutmeg of cream of tartar mixt with honey, as often as you need. <>

Deafness with a headache and buzzing in the head: Peel a clove of garlick: dip it in honey and put it into your ear at night with a little black wool. Lie with that ear uppermost. Do this, if need be, eight or ten nights. Tried. <>

Gravel (kidney stones): Drink largely of warm water sweetened with honey. <>

Hoarseness: Boil a large handful of wheat-bran in a quart of water; strain, and sweeten it with honey. Sup of it frequently. <>

The King’s Evil (scrofula or swelling of the neck glands): Set a quart of honey by the fire to melt. When it is cold, strew into it a pound and a half of quick-lime beat very fine, and sifted through a hair-sieve. Stir this about til it boil up of itself into a hard lump. Beat it when cold, very fine and sift it as before. Take of this as much as lies on a shilling in a glass of water, every morning, and hour before breakfast, at four in the afternoon, and at going to bed. <>

Rheumatism: mix flour of brimstone with honey, in equal quantities. Take three tea-spoonfuls at night, two in the morning: and one afterward, morning and evening, till cured. This succeeds oftener than any remedy I have found. <>

To cure baldness: Rub the part morning and evening, with onions, till it is red; and rub it afterwards with honey.

2 Comments:

  • At 4:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "tried" but did it work?

    NSF

     
  • At 7:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hey there NSF, if John Wesley said it, it must be SO! kk

     

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