Kitchen Medicine Part V

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ECZEMA: Follow the diet suggested under ACNE OR PIMPLES, with lots of green salads, sunflower seeds, whole oranges, and fresh or dried apricots. Take the vitamins listed in that section, with extra B6 and E. According to Adelle Davis, vitamin B6 applied to the skin will relieve itching almost instantly. You can mash the tablets finely and dissolve them in honey and peach kernel oil lotion, which is healing in itself.

HIVES OR INSECT BITES: Wash the skin with cool water and apply honey and peach kernel oil lotion to relieve itching. A friend of ours-a hospital administrator successfully treated severe hives with mashed-up antihistamine tablets combined with cold cream. Some antihistamines, however, can increase the skin's sensitivity to sun and cause even worse hives. I'd rather stick to my own method.

CHAPPED SKIN, SORE LIPS, CRACKS AT CORNERS OF MOUTH:

Eat wheat germ, liver, and food yeast for their pantothenic acid and take a 100milligram tablet of the same vitamin each morning. A delicious natural lotion for chapped lips: Mix a drop of honey with one-half to one teaspoon of apricot kernel oil with the fingertips. Apply it to the lips and rub them together. Try not to lick off the medicine!

SUNBURN: Bathe the affected skin gently with vinegar water, a wet tea bag, or peppermint tea. This cools the skin, deals with bacteria, and starts the healing process. Replace the natural oil with apricot or peach kernel oil lotion. Paraaminobenzamine lotion cools inflammation, relieves itching, and promotes healing.

POISON IVY, OAK, OR SUMAC: Know the toxic plants and avoid them. Remember the old warning rhyme, "Shiny leaves three, don't touch it, flee." The poison sumac of the northeastern U.S. is a swamp-loving shrub or tree resembling the common stag horn sumac but with untoothed leaves and white berries. While camping in Maine (York County, near the coast) I had a very unpleasant experience with a plant which a local Girl Scout leader identified-too late as poison mercury. (I used a leaf for toilet paper and it took weeks to get rid of the blisters.) The culprit doesn't look a bit like any of the other toxic species: It's a shrub two to three feet high, somewhat resembling the elderberry except that the bush is smaller and twiggier, the wood firmer, and the leaves shorter and fatter. They grow three or five sometimes seven to a spray and are about the same length as poison sumac leaves, but lighter and wider. The foliage is matte, not shiny, and a nice inviting apple green in color. The plant grows along railroad tracks, at the edges of woods, and by roads through wooded areas. (None of the nature guides I've consulted list poison mercury. Can any Maine botanists furnish more information?-MOTHER.) If the worst happens, take Euell Gibbons' advice and apply the juice of jewelweed immediately after exposure. Or scrub the skin immediately with soap and cold water. (Beware of hot water! It spreads the rash.) Then apply cool soda packs, followed by calamine lotion to relieve itching. Vitamin C-1,000 milligrams with a glass of milk every four hours-will help combat the toxin from inside.

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