Southern Folk Medicine Read online

  In Southern Folk Medicine, I can certainly see the influence of the humors of Greek medicine, the native plant use of indigenous Southeastern Native Americans, influences from the folk traditions of Northern Europe, specifically of the Irish and Spanish, and influences from both northern and western Africa.

  Settlers took what was useful and beneficial, that could improve survival in a harsh, new land, and fused them to make a new system for a new world and a new land.

  Each of the parental traditions and systems was manifest with wisdom and knowledge accumulated through centuries of observation, experience, and practice. As a result, you may find the particulars of our folk medicine very familiar if you have studied another folk medicine system. Regardless of the culture, the words to depict the Earth, the elements, and the actions of the climate tend to be described in similar language.

  The result of the combination of these systems is a model based on wellness rather than a model based on disease. This is a very important concept. In a harsh land, in a time without antibiotics and modern diagnostic techniques, it was vitally important to stay well. The saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” attributed to Benjamin Franklin, sums up the approach to health in settlement days and one that we would do well to emulate today. A strong body survived; a weak one did not.

  In folk systems, there are principles and practices that developed from careful observation of the body—recognizing patterns of dysfunction in disease states. Many diseases and disorders have been around for thousands of years—arthritis, stomach ulcers, sinus infections, abscessed teeth, hernia, malaria, digestive difficulties, colitis, or ovarian cysts to name a few, and over time, tried-and-true methods of treating them have developed which can still be useful today. In a folk system, remedies that work for a disorder are passed to the next generation, and those that don’t work are generally ignored, forgotten, or saved for some time in the future when they might be needed.

  The Global View

  Electronic communications have globalized the world, extending the boundaries of folk medicine past regional, national, and political boundaries. For example, it’s very easy for a person in the United States to now be in contact with a traditional Ayurvedic healer in India. The electronic floodgates are open and herbalists and natural health practitioners from around the world are taking advantage of the opportunities.

  People no longer stay in one location their whole lives but move from region to region or country to country, and in the process bring their folk remedies to new areas where there is an exchange of information. You can find acupuncturists in Mississippi, Southern folk herbalists in Chicago, Ayurvedic practitioners in Kansas, Russian folk healers in New York, and Traditional Western herbalists in India. Herbal and other healing techniques are now a cross-cultural exchange with one idiom: If it works, keep it.

  One particular example from my practice illustrates this quite well. On this particular day, my first client was a gentleman originally from India complaining of abdominal pain and gas. When I asked what he had been doing to help himself, he replied, “Drinking a cup of hot milk with a spoon of ghee [clarified butter] every night.” We discussed his situation, I made some suggestions, and the session ended. My next client was a gentleman originally from England complaining of abdominal pain and gas. I asked what he had been doing for himself. “Drinking a cup of hot milk with a spoon of butter in it every night,” he answered. Two different continents, two different men, the same remedy.

  Having a culturally diverse clientele helped me to realize that the basic practices of folk medicine are similar regardless of the country of origin, and that in many countries, cross-pollination with other traditions started hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Folk medicine evolved based on the health needs of people, and in general, people’s health needs are the same, no matter their culture or geographical location. We all want to be healthy, raise healthy children, do our work well, interact within our communities, and practice our spiritual beliefs. As we continue to expand into a global culture, our folk medicines will continue to evolve, assuming bits and pieces from many different cultures and areas.

  Folk Medicine Teaching Methods

  Folk medicine has been around as long as humans. The need to take care of ourselves, our families, and the members of our immediate communities and the use of plants in ritual are two major reasons people have sought out herbs and special foods for healing. Though the days of the Granny-healers have largely passed, folk medicine is still alive and well and will continue to evolve, grow, and change to meet our needs.

  Traditionally, folk medicine practices were handed down by word of mouth or oral tradition. A master of trade would teach one, maybe two, apprentices over a period of time, generally seven years or longer. Once the apprenticeship was complete, journeyman status was attained and then, with further practice, master of trade or craftsman was achieved. The apprenticeship system is a tried-and-true form of on-the-job training and instruction which developed in Europe during the Middle Ages. In my younger days, it was considered appropriate to call an established herbalist with years of experience, such as Tommie Bass, a Master Herbalist or Master Herbologist. Today, these herbal titles are considered inappropriate and politically incorrect, but they stem from an ancient approach to craftsmanship that served well in its day.

  Today, an herbal student might call themselves an apprentice when studying with an established teacher for a few weeks. Or an herbal teacher might offer an apprenticeship of a week, month, or more. The apprenticeship was the first way I learned herbal remedies from my grandparents and, later, Tommie Bass. Ginseng was the primary herb I studied for seven years learning from both my grandmother and father. There are very few herbal students who have the time, the inclination, or the stamina to apprentice for seven years these days.

  We have lost a tremendous amount of herbal information because it was never written down. I wish I knew all the information about herbs and plants and how to use them that the old herbalists knew. It can take years of studying with a teacher to fully learn what they have to teach or to understand the nuances of their plant use. Studying with a teacher for a few weeks or months is only the tip of the iceberg.

  It saddens me that Native American uses of plants and healing ways are being lost. Keeping to a traditional method of teaching, an elder might only teach one or two students their whole life, and may promise to only teach other Native Americans.

  While some teachers may still pass on their learning orally, the process is just as likely to take place in a classroom or other formalized group setting instead of a one-on-one situation. Few teachers follow the more traditional approach of apprenticeship or working with only one student at a time for an extended period. While apprenticeships are still available, teachers more often work with several students concurrently or keep year-round apprenticeship programs open to a variety of students. Internet or distance-learning classes are also available from a wide choice of nontraditional educational institutions such as small herb schools or individual teachers.

  In the recent past, folk medicine practices were seen as being confined to the uneducated or those unable to afford conventional medical care. This is certainly not true today. Herbal healing and other forms of folk medicine now appeal to people regardless of socioeconomic level. In my practice, I have consulted with rocket scientists, engineers, university professors, nurses, physicians, ministers, housewives, farmers, teachers, lawyers, physical therapists, psychologists, truck drivers, chicken farmers, and business professionals, all looking for natural ways to approach their health issues or who were looking to build and maintain good health. Folk medicine practices permeate all levels of our society today.

  Chapter Two

  Common Tenets of Folk Medicine

  Part of my ancestry is Cherokee. And in that tradition, you become an adult when you're fifty-two.

  —Alice Walker

  Arthur Lee “Tommie” Bass (1908–1996) was a blunt,
plain-spoken, funny, kind, generous, sentimental, religious, and, truly, all-around good person. The only time I ever heard him speak badly of anyone was to exclaim that, “All politicians are crooks!” No one who ever met Tommie could find fault with his character in any way.

  He was and still is, one of the most famous folk herbalists this country ever produced. And luckily, Tommie just lived a short drive away, which made it real easy to visit, study, and learn from this man.

  Tommie never married and never learned to drive a car. He often remarked that these two situations relieved him of a lot of stress and contributed to his long life. Tommie had once loved Frankie, the daughter of the landowner whose fields Tommie labored in for much of his adult life. But Frankie had a crippled shoulder and withered arm, which she viewed as an unsightly handicap and an embarrassment. She also had other health issues which led her to forsake any type of romantic relationship. But she and Tommie were close friends until she died, and Tommie never loved anyone else.

  Tommie came to the Big Farm in 1937 and lived on the property and worked the owner’s fields for payment of rent. Upon the owner’s death, Tommie was willed the big house and an acre of land. He never lived in the big house—too many memories and ghosts of his lost love. He did use the kitchen for cooking and bathroom for hygiene, but preferred his shack for sleeping and herbal work.

  Tommie began his woods training at the tender age of four by helping his father gather ginseng and other wild herbs for market. By the age of six, he was working in the cotton fields helping to pick cotton. Tommie often remarked that it didn’t matter the skin color, “we all had to sharecrop.” By the age of eight, Tommie was at the logging mill peeling bark for crossties. He soon graduated to helping his father fur trap and gather herbs on a full-time basis. He made enough money from trapping muskrat, skunk, mink, beaver, fox, and raccoon to buy his winter clothes, hunting and trapping supplies, and a few groceries.

  He never went to proper school but was taught to read by his mother from the Bible and the Blue-Back Speller. Both his mother and father were herbalists, a tradition that ran in the Bass family from England, and Tommie often remarked that his parents, “knew so much about how the body worked that they could have been doctors.”

  In addition to gathering herbs and working with his father, Tommie began working with Aunt Molly Kirby, a black herbist and midwife down the mountain from where his family lived. Aunt Molly became too old and slow to traipse along the mountain ridges, and so she employed Tommie to help gather the herbs she needed in her practice. Over the next few years, Tommie learned much about gathering and using native herbs from her.

  All told, Tommie began hunting herbs in earnest about the age of nine and didn’t stop until well into his eighties.

  As one of my influential teachers, Tommie lived eighty-eight years and most of those years were spent learning about herbs and helping people. Tommie didn’t believe in cures, but rather sought to help support the natural processes of the body. The exception to this philosophy was his skin cancer salve, which Tommie truly believed was an effective topical remedy.

  Tommie never charged for an herbal consultation but did sell herbs to his clients. No one was ever turned away due to lack of money, and he gave away as many herbs as he sold. A consult with Tommie was an adventure. He was likely to entertain you by quoting poetry, singing a song, or playing the harmonica. For Tommie, people coming for herbal aid was a social event as well as a healing one.

  He considered himself an herbist whose main job in life was bringing ease to those in need. Tommie usually saw around five or six people on average a day, but as his practice grew there might be ten or more to arrive for his help at any time. He didn’t take appointments; people just arrived and waited their turn. In the 1970s, the local paper, The Gadsden Times, ran several articles about his life and work which increased his business tremendously. By 1980, Tommie was seeing about 2,000 people a year, mostly poor African-Americans and poor whites who had no health insurance or money to pay a doctor.

  In 1985, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page essay about him. This was followed by a double-volume scholarly look at his life and herb use by John Crellin and Jane Philpott, A Reference Guide to Medicinal Plants and Trying to Give Ease published by Duke University. There were also several popular books, one by Darryl Patton, Mountain Medicine: The Herbal Remedies of Tommie Bass, a couple of documentaries, and even more newspaper articles. Tommie Bass, who never learned to drive, became the most well-known folk herbalist in the country.

  In addition to the people who made the trip to Shinbone Ridge to see Tommie, many others would simply mail him a letter stating their symptoms and asking for herbs. He answered every single letter, mailed folks the herbs, and hoped for some sort of payment in return. As Tommie’s reputation spread, new clientele arrived who were able to pay in cash money. These folks were well-educated and would visit their physician and then visit the herbist. Tommie felt that doctors do a “good job with what they’ve got to work with,” and that someday, “they will find out about herbs and do their job a bit better.” But fame didn’t change Tommie at all, and he never took advantage of those who could pay the big money.

  He had strong opinions on health and never hesitated to relay those opinions. Tommie would show a client where to find the needed herb in the woods, how to harvest it, and how to cook it up. It was quite an adventure to be Tommie’s client. At the very least, you left with a bag of dried herbs and directions on how to cook them. As the years passed, fewer and fewer people were willing to cook up the herbs themselves, too busy or “too lazy” as Tommie said, and either relied upon him to make the brews or bought encapsulated products. This became so common that in his mid-seventies, Tommie switched to using over-the-counter products, believing that “at least they were getting down some help.”

  Tommie sold his popular cancer salve to individual clients, at trade day flea markets, and in shops around the local area. The basic salve recipe came from his English grandparents who had made Bass’s Salve in England and modified it for the available herbs found in the Southeast. The primary ingredients were pine tar, wild tobacco, summer cedar, and black walnut or slippery elm bark. Sometimes yellow sulfur was added to boost efficiency. The oil base was either hog lard or beef tallow. The salve was used on any type of skin spot, skin cancer, or bed sores, and for hemorrhoids, as well as cracked skin.

  In addition to Bass’s Salve, Tommie’s other popular herbal product was his cough syrup. This compound formula contained a number of local plants, and the recipe often changed with availability of herbs. One of his favorite recipes for coughs and colds was wild cherry bark, sweetgum bark or leaves, boneset, red root, mullein, yellowroot, rabbit tobacco, and sumac. Sometimes he also added calamus, bugleweed, or skullcap. The herbs were decocted for about twenty minutes, strained, and then sugar was added to make a syrup. Another favorite cough remedy was wild cherry bark, sweetgum bark, slippery elm bark, and mullein leaves.

  For rheumatism, Tommie used cucumber magnolia, dogwood bark, prickly ash, skullcap, and bay. He viewed formulas as herbs “working like a team to get the job done.” But as a true Southern herbalist, Tommie also used whatever substances were available that would work whether it was an herb or not. His liniment rub was composed of green rubbing alcohol, vinegar, ammonia, camphor gum, and turpentine. This was all mixed in a jar to sit overnight. He sold it for years to use on bee stings, poison ivy, and rheumatism, and it worked amazingly well.

  Before the popularity of milk thistle, Tommie recommended either wild cherry bark or red oak bark for nonspecific problems with the liver or those symptoms brought on by a “chill on the liver.” This would include pain on the right side and a certain feeling of hardness on palpitation. Later, he did use milk thistle and felt it was effective. He also recommended topical herbal poultices and a heating pad on the liver to help break the chill.

  For diabetes and other endocrine problems, Tommie used Queen Anne’s lace, Queen of the Meadow
(also known as Joe Pye or gravel root), red root, or huckleberry. In combination with skullcap, passionflower or blue vervain, the herbs for high sugar could also help with high blood pressure because the two disorders were so often found together.

  Over his lifespan, Tommie saw herbal medicine change from an almost forgotten vocation to an active profession. Although his practice changed with the times, the reality of who Tommie Bass was never did. Fame didn’t diminish him. He stayed devoted to his community, accessible and open to his clients, and nonjudgmental and personable in session. When he passed, a huge depository of traditional herbal knowledge passed with him. I miss Tommie, but I’m also proud of the influence his teachings have had on my life and profession.

  Similarities of Folk Medicine Systems

  In folk medicine, there are no magic bullets, no quick fixes, and no instant cures. Coaxing the body into lifestyle habits takes time, energy, and a willingness to make those lifestyle changes. Understanding the directing principles of folk medicine can provide guidelines for making those changes. Tommie Bass used to say, “A person will change when they don’t have a choice. And that’s when they get desperate and think they’re gonna die.” Doesn’t it make more sense to change unhealthy behaviors before desperation sets in?

  Generally, the tenets of folk medicine were passed orally within teachings or were so common that they were inferred and understood by all. The tenets provide a framework for good health practices that are common to many folk systems.