In spite of the fact that most Americans aren't insured, so are turning more to alternative medicine, (indeed, insurance is even covering alternative medicine these days), I wouldn't suggest trying these. Even in the most dire circumstances don't try these. Now, some folk remedies do work and I encourage you to look around the internet for some more down to earth ones, (like potatoes really do cure warts if you rub them with one and tobacco certainly helps bee stings). These are just fun to read.

1. To cure a nosebleed, have someone repeat a Bible verse while walking around you in a circle, then blow your nose 3 times.

2. To cure a cold, drink a mixture of coal oil and sugar. (Doubt even sugar would make that taste but so good.)

3. To cure a cold, sleep with your head to the West.

4. To cure a cold, inhale the smoke of burning feathers.

5. To cure a cold, crawl east through a double-rooted briar.

6. To cure a cold, Tie dirty socks around your neck at night, when you lose them as you sleep, you lose the cold.

7. To cure herpes, eat cold boild frog each week.

8. To cure a nosebleed or hiccups, run a cold knife, (or key), up and down your back. Another remedy says to hold the knife against the back of your neck.

9. To cure hysteria or other mental illness, dunk patient in icy stream at night.

10. To cure a chest cold, place mashed potatoes on the chest.

11. To cure a cold, drink kerosine and sugar.

12. To stop bleeding, apply chimney soot.

13. To cure a cold, drink tea made from hogs' hooves.

14. To cure a stuffy nose, stand on your head.

15. To cure cold sores, put the dry membrane of an egg on your lip.

16. To cure a cold, drop a spider, (or a red ant), in a thimble, cork it and wear it around your neck.

17. To cure shingles, kill a black cat and put the skin on you before it gets cold.

18. To cure a stomachache, put a hot coal in a cup of water, shake salt over it 3 times, spit in it, then throw it in a fire.

19. To cure a cold, pound 6 nails in the wall and tie a string to each. Say with sincerity that the cold will leave and leave the nails in until the patient recovers.

20. To cure a cough, shave the patients' head and hang the hair on a bush. When birds carry the hairs away, they carry the cough with it.

21. Or, it was believed that you could sell your cough or cold, (but the amount of money asked for it was, of course, small).