Natural Remedies for Common Ailments

What is a Natural Remedy?

 
A natural (home) remedy is a treatment to cure a disease or ailment that employs certain spices, vegetables, or other common items. Home remedies may or may not have medicinal properties that treat or cure the disease or ailment in question, as they are typically passed along by laypersons (which has been facilitated in recent years by the Internet). Many are merely used as a result of tradition or habit or because they are effective in inducing the placebo effect. One of the more popular examples of a home remedy is the use of chicken soup to treat respiratory infections such as a cold or mild flu, and according to one in vitro study, there may be benefit from this use. Other examples of medically successful home remedies include willow bark tea to cure headaches and fevers (willow bark contains salicylic acid, which is chemically similar to acetylsalicylic acid, also known as aspirin); duct tape to help with setting broken bones; and duct tape or superglue to treat plantar warts; and Kogel mogel to treat sore throat.

In earlier times, mothers were entrusted with all but serious remedies. Historic cookbooks are frequently full of remedies for dyspepsia, fevers, and female complaints. Many European liqueurs or digestives were originally sold as medicinal remedies. In Chinese folk medicine, medicinal congees (long-cooked rice soups with herbs), foods, and soups are part of the healing repertoire. Many people also use aloe leaves to cure ailments of the skin. All cultures and societies have knowledge best described as folk medicine. Although there is large overlap, the denotative and connotative definitions differ. Folk medicine often coexists with formalized, education-based, and institutionalized systems of healing such as Western Medicine or Great traditional medicine systems like Ayurvedic, Unani medicine, and Chinese medicine, but is distinguishable from formalized or institutionalized healing systems. Some examples of strong informal and to some degree institutionalized folk medicine traditions are: Traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Korean medicine, Arabic indigenous medicine (source of Unani medicine, along with ancient Greek medicine), Haitian folk medicine, Uyghur traditional medicine, Various African herbal folk remedies, Celtic traditional medicine (in part practiced by the Irish medical families), Japanese Kampō medicine, traditional Aboriginal bush medicine, Georgian folk medicine, and others.

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