Debra Stark

When I was little, I ran into a tree branch and gashed my head.  Mom stopped the bleeding with cayenne pepper, and she then packed the wound with raw honey.  I am alive to tell the tale. 

You are aghast, I know.  Don’t worry.  Mom would have rushed me to the hospital if she thought my injury was serious.  She believed Western medicine was tops when it came to emergencies.  But she also believed in commonsense, self-reliance and self-care. 

Most wounds do heal, and our body does good work.  In the animal kingdom, earthworms re-grow much of their body when it is lost.  Crabs grow a new claw when one is lost.  We’re not that resourceful, but our cells and skin do heal. 

How can we help that process? 

The Greeks used animal fats, tree resin and minerals like zinc to heal wounds.  The Arabs added fragrant spices and balsams.  Here are some remedies our grandmothers might have used (the list is by no means exhaustive…). 

Raw Unpasteurized Honey has enzymes that build tissue and act as an antibiotic at the same time.  To use, clean the wound with warm soapy water and then apply raw honey as a dressing.  Repeat twice daily.  My mom only used a bandage if the wound was deep. 

Cayenne Pepper sprinkled in wounds stops bleeding in seconds while disinfecting with its anti-fungal and anti-bacterial capabilities.  Does it burn?  No, because the wound is already traumatized.  I retested this last week when I cut my finger in the kitchen and the blood just wouldn’t stop flowing.  I dipped my finger into cayenne pepper and it did the trick. 

What about something more severe?  Herbalist Dr. John Christopher in his book, School of Natural Healing says to use cayenne internally thusly, "...take a teaspoonful of cayenne in a glass of extra-warm water, drink it down, and by the count of ten, the bleeding will stop… Whether the bleeding is internal or external, a teaspoon of cayenne taken orally in a glass of hot water will stop the bleeding quickly."  Personally, I think drinking cayenne pepper in water would be hard to do, but I’ve not been tested that way.

Aloe Vera.  Alexander the Great insisted on having aloe in the field to treat wounded men.  If you’ve owned an aloe plant, you know that when you break off a piece, the plant regenerates. That’s some healing power in itself!   Aloe on cuts helps them heal more quickly.

Silver.  There are references to the use of silver in the treatment of wounds going back hundreds of years.  With the advent of antibiotics in the 19th century, the use of silver saw a decline.  However, silver is being used today especially with diabetic foot ulcers.  In our kitchen in West Concord, we use silver spray for burns.   

Speaking of burns, in the 1960s, the late Dr. Carl Moyer, Washington University School of surgery, noted that infection from burns remained a serious problem despite the use of antibiotics.  He successfully used silver on dressings over burns, and his work is still used today to help heal wounds.

Zinc and Immunity.  It goes without saying that we need a healthy immune system to fight infection and help heal.  My mom used to say that zinc was the mineral for that.  Topical zinc, such as calamine lotion or Weleda’s Wound Care cream, both based on zinc, are said to work because the zinc inhibits bacterial growth on the surface of skin, helping to prevent infection. 

What can you eat to increase your zinc levels?  Pumpkin seeds provide one of the most concentrated vegetarian food sources of zinc in a form that is easily absorbed and assimilated.  So help yourself to a handful or two any day. 

Vitamin C: Some studies show that vitamin C levels plummet after we suffer burns or wounds, and since vitamin C is required to make collagen, the connective tissue in the skin that helps healing and prevents blistering, supplementing with vitamin C is a good thing.  What are some foods that are rich in vitamin C?  I’m assuming you don’t want to go outside and pick rose hips (which my mother used to make us do – she planted rosa rugosa with that purpose in mind).  So other than tart rose hip berries, foods rich in vitamin C are kiwi, bell peppers and citrus fruits.  Eat the fruit, the whole fruit, and all the fruit.  Don’t just drink the orange juice, for instance, which is primarily a jolt of sugar (sugar increases inflammation and makes things worse when trying to heal wounds or cuts).

When should you call your doctor or head to the emergency room?  Certainly if your wound is jagged, the edges gape open, if it becomes tender or inflamed, if you run a temperature over 100°F, if the area around the wound feels numb, you can't move comfortably, if there are red streaks near the wound or the wound bleeds in spurts and you can’t get it to stop with cayenne pepper. 

Otherwise, you might want to reach for cayenne pepper and try raw honey.  You might want to keep silver spray or cream in your medicine cabinet too. 

Let me know what home remedies for cuts and wounds your grandmother used!

This is from a once-a-month column that appears in our beloved local, community newspaper, The Concord Journal.