Medicine men and Mom

  When I was born things were a little different than now, that's probably true for most people, unless they're only 2 or 3 years old.
  The doctor that delivered me, Dr. Head, was also the doctor you saw when you were sick at any time during your life.  He took out my tonsils and my brothers appendix too.  There weren't a lot of specialist in small town Maine in the 1940's.
  I was thinking about what my mother kept in here "medicine closet" which in her case was one of the kitchen cupboards.  We didn't have an indoor bathroom so the stuff, along with everything else, was in the kitchen.  She kept some Band Aids (Johnson&Johnson trademark), Mecurochrome (no longer in use), Mentholatum, Aspirin, Castor Oil and Epsom Salts, that's it.
  Band Aids have been with us since 1920 when Earle Dickson, a Johnson&Johnson employee, came up with the idea.  In the 1940's they were coated fabric, plain gauze pad and sticky as the devil.  In 1951 the first "kids" band aids were introduced.  They came in a tin.
  Mercurochrome was used because kids didn't like iodine.  Mercurochrome was red, came in a glass bottle (small) and was applied to cuts before the band aid went on.  Mercurochrome is no longer allowed to be used, it contained mercury, not a beneficial mineral.  It was applied, out of the bottle, by a glass rod attached to the cap.
  Mentholatum was the Vicks Vapor rub of the day, my source says it was not made after 1935, but my mother was buying the stuff in the '40's.  Anyway, it worked.
  Aspirin was made by Bayer, period.  It came in a glass bottle, or a small tin of ten, with a screw on top, no little plastic strip or childproof cap.  The bottle was not sold in a paperboard box and I don't know if grocery stores sold it or not, maybe just the drug store.
  Castor Oil is the scourge of the earth, well maybe Dick Chaney is, horrible tasting, wicked and the damned stuff did not keep a kid from catching a cold.  It was administered every night a bedtime by the "Medicine Woman of North Lebanon, Maine" forcefully if need be.  I can taste the damn stuff just writing about it.  Ptooey.
  Epsom Salts were used for soaked sore spots, there was also some brown grain, maybe flax seed meal, she used to soak boils.  I had boils on my butt, one after the other, for a year or two, she, the Medicine Woman, would cook it up, wrap it in cloth, and hold the boiling hot stuff on my little ass until it cooled off.  She must have learned about that kind of thing from her mother - she made everything.
  So there you have it, medical care in the '40's, and I'm sure World War Two made an impact on how much of any of this stuff was available.  Things like Band Aids and Mercurochrome were probably sent to the military first and anything left over went to the public.
  Have a healthy day.  If you don't have a healthy day take some Castor oil.