I have been using Manuka honey for treatment of infections. I only use manuka honey with a UMF(unique manuka factor)rating 15 or higher. It is effective aginst MRSA, Helicobacter Pylori(stomach ulcers), and e-coli. It is not a miracle drug everything has it limits once infection enters the blood only antibiotics can help.

I also use oregano oil p76 for a variety of things. It is a little pricy a small vial of it is about $20.

I am a big fan of fish oil as well.

Old medicines and treatments are a mixed bag.

Some work well and, in a few cases, are the original 'miracle drug'. A few thousand years ago people were making tea with willow bark and treating headaches and pain. A closely related compound is aspirin. A thousand years ago honey and lemon was the cough medicine of choice. Recent research has shown that in many cases it is at least as effective as cough medicine with dextromethorphan. The Neti pot is a thousand year-old way of irrigating the sinuses. Human anatomy and physiology hasn't changed much and it still works.

On the other hand some medicine and treatments were useless or so dangerous that we are better off without them. Mercury pills for syphilis had a good side. If you survived the treatment regime you were cured. Down side was a lot of people didn't survive.

Bloodletting, the draining of blood as treatment was pretty much counterproductive. Except in a few rare cases where the person is suffering from a disease that causes overproduction of red cells.

Related but effective and still used: leaches.

Lobotomies have been pretty much relegated the ash heap. Of the methods used, given a choice, go for the 'icepick' lobotomy. Less invasive and likely to kill the patient. It is equally useless but at least you can do it with tools you have in your toolbox. If your going to do something counterproductive not having to buy a tool to do it is a plus.

Herbalism is full of old treatments. Ginger for nausea. Tobacco and/or wormwood for worms. Peppermint for a queasy stomach. Soaking in tea helps with for sweaty and stinky feet.

Before general anesthesia it was known that exsanguniating limb made amputations less painful and less bloody. The limb was tightly wrapped and elevated to push out the blood and numb the limb. A tourniquet was applied to keep the blood out and the operation proceeded in the normal way.

An old, and fairly effect, treatment for the sting of raw skin, like after a large blister breaks, is to apply urine to the raw area. Evidently it is the urea that causes the injury to skin over and stop hurting.

Anyone know which bark/plant produces a smoke that helps kill fungus? Or is it the stuff termite mounds are made out of? Can't remember.

My late mother-in-law had a big book, she would smack whatever hurt with it. Supposed to make things allbetter, but it reportedly did not. She was a mean alcholic by the way.

My mom was a big fan of honey and a little whiskey for a sore throat. I have been known to skip the honey part.

Vics vaporub in boiling water, head over pot on stove, towel covering the whole thing. Helps with a realy bad head cold...

Termite mounds are local sawdust and termite juices, not sure from which end. I'd hazard a guess that any anti-fungal effect is due to the type of sawdust.

The problem with herbals is that your mileage will vary depending on location.

maggot therapy - Actually this one has come back into the spot light in recent years. I hear it's used in some Hospitals now because the maggots are better at removing only the dead flesh than a surgeon is. Either way maggots are a lot cheaper to come by than surgery.

There is a book that I saw in someone's home about twenty years ago, called Old-Fashioned Health Remedies That Work Best: Low Cost Natural Time-Tested Health Boosters You Can Use at Home for Successful Self-Care by L. L. Schneider.

I never even opened it, and have no idea if it's any good.

But they have it used at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Old-Fashioned-Health-Remedies-That-Work/dp/0136337015

Sue

And don't forget Leeches.

"maggot therapy"

I remember reading an account by a prisoner in a WW2 POW camp. A prisoner would come to the 'doctor', it is unclear what his qualifications were, and 'Doc' would unwrap the wound and spend a considerable amount of time examining the festering wound. Then they would wrap it in whatever rags they had on hand. A lot of major, and massively infected, wounds healed after these examinations.

The efficacy of the examination came from Doc observing the flies landing on and depositing their eggs. In a few days the tissue was crawling with maggots and a few days later it was cleaned and on its way to healing.

The maggots only eat dead tissue. It is also said that the maggots excrete chemicals that moderate pain and fight off reinfection by bacteria. Some people reported that maggots in the wound was entirely painless and most people were unaware they were in there until they looked under the covering. Seeing maggots happily dining on their wound was quite shocking to the uninitiated.

One of the large health organizations in our area publishes a fairly decent review of supplements and gives their recommendations on many different CAM (complementary/Alternative Medicine) approaches. Unfortunately they don't have a public web address that you can download the pdf from. If you want one you can PM me and I could send you a copy.

The good news is that NIH are beginning to do well-designed studies with heretofore poorly-studied alternative medicine techniques. I would start with their website at http://nccam.nih.gov/ They will let you know if there is any scientific evidence behind many of these ancient approaches.