Mustard plaster...

[Raven]

do any of the oldsters here remember that treatment for a chest cold? My mother used to make dry mustard (I think) into a paste, put it between two pieces of cloth and lay it on my chest. She swore it broke up the cough. Did it work or did it burn you so bad that you forgot about the cough?!

[BrotherBuzz]

1. Whooping cough

Not me, but my mother had whooping cough as a child and indeed had awful stories of mustard plasters. Thanks to her traumatic memory of it we suffered through Vick's VapoRub and Kirby's Croup Salve instead.

[Raven]

3. Kirby's Croup Salve???

Wow, now that sounds like snake oil!

[BrotherBuzz]

4. Not really

Local Pharmacist A.E. Kirby made the stuff up. It was nothing but a Generic (and cheaper) VapoRub knockoff. I think it was less offensive then Vick's (less menthol), and as the label says, "will not blister, can be used freely on infants".

[Raven]

7. You know, that mustard plaster really did burn...

it's a wonder I survived my youth! Come to think of it, I am going to digress (I'm old enough now to get away with this). First of all, you should know that my mother (who is 89 now) was a great fisherperson. She fished for trout and even tied her own flies. I am sitting right now in a little log cabin in the woods on a lake that she bought 40 years ago. It's several miles down a dirt road and hasn't changed much in 40 years. When I was about 13, she had a spat with my father (probably one of the 2 they had in their long marriage) and she said to me "Jane, get your warm clothes, we're leaving and the boys (I have 2 brothers) can fend for themselves". This was in February. We drove to this little place which, at the time, had no heat or running water. We kept the wood for the fireplace under the house. Night came and a bear came around and was banging around under the house. It was cold, really cold and we were running out of firewood. She says to me "Janie, go out and see what that noise is and while you're there, get some wood". I said something like "are you crazy!". We survived the night and the next morning there were these huge footprints in the snow near the house. Without a word, we got back in the car and went home. This little adventure was never mentioned again.

Sorry for the sidetrack...just a funny little memory that came to me. :-)

[BrotherBuzz]

12. Blister-free-association ?

I am reminded of the story my mother-in-law (89 years, too) told me of the 'talk' that a mother had with her daughter the night before her wedding and the one nugget the mother came up with:"Don't cook bacon in the nude!" Straight, and to the point...hats off to the minimalist mothers.

My, how I digress in the spirit of remaining blister free.

"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it" - Harry S. Truman.

[Raven]

13. Hee, hee, hee!

Great story! :hi:

[soleft]

2. I don't remember but

Last week I tried spicy mustard, having recently overcome my lifelong adversion to mustard, and I don't know what's in it, wasabi, horseradich, what but it totally opened up my nasal passages.

[BiggJawn]

5. Could have been Wasabi, probably Horseradish...

But I have found that Coleman's Mustard from Englnd packs a wallop, and there's nothing in there but "Mustard Flour"...Gotta mix it up with cold water and let it sit. It's like the chinese restaraunt stuff from years ago...

[soleft]

8. so mustard in itself is spicy, cause it was Chinese Mustard

[trof]

14. mix it with stale beer

mo betta

[BrotherBuzz]

17. Now you're cooking

and if you threw in some cheese, you might have a tasty rarebit. Mmmm, stale ale, cheese, and mustard. What the heck were those crazy welsh hunters thinking about?

Interesting, Colman once said his fortune was made not from the mustard consumed, but from the mustard left on the plate.

[BiggJawn]

6. Bad backs, but not colds.

And they're back. I see that everybody and his uncle has a menthol/salicyclate plaster for aches and pains. I use one from Japan that's the cheapest and it does work.

Wonder what' it'd do for a cold? It's got plenty of menthol...

[cmd]

9. An egg roll with Chinese mustard

That's my version of comfort food when I have a cold. I can breathe freely for hours after eating one. ( I could just sniff the mustard and get the same effect, but an egg roll does wonders for the soul.)

[FlaGranny]

10. My mother insisted on mustard plasters

when she had a chest cold. When she got too sick to make them herself, she had me do it. She never burned or blistered, but you have to be careful. She swore by them.

I found a recipe for the mustard plaster by doing an internet search. Believe it or not, there are quite a few different recipes. And, yes, you do put the mustard mixture between two cloths. And you're only supposed to keep it on for a short time - don't fall asleep with one on.

I've never tried one myself, but just may one of these days.

[SOteric]

11. Much like garlic

mustard has been proven to be a pretty potent anti-bacterial. And the fumes can work wonders in clearing congestion. I'm not-too certain of the benefit of a plaster, however. Maybe it does some genuine good, but it does seem an unlikely vehicle for an effective treatment.

[FlaGranny]

18. I think the theory behind the treatment

is in the heat it produces, and possibly the fumes. Any nonharmful treatment deserves a try for relief. Jalapenos work wonders for nasal stuffiness, too.

[trof]

15. Vicks VapoRub

That's STILL what I want when I have a cold.
Although it's harder to rub into a hairy chest than it was when I was pre-pubescent.

[denverbill]

16. My mother used mustard gas.

Talk about breaking up a cough!

[pippin]

19. anybody remember the Jmmy Durante joke about mustard plaster?

I think it went something like: "on his mother's side he had three cousins, and on on his father's side there was a mustard plaster"???

[bleedingheart]

20. No..my mother plastered VicksVapo Rub around our neck

and chests and wrapped an old diaper around our neck ...no lie..

Then to bring down a fever she would slather us in rubbing alcohol...
which today verboten by pediatricians..

[Raven]

21. Wow! And you are still here!

:hi: