Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia PDF
Preview Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia
FOLK MEDICINE IN SOUTHERN APPALACHIA FOLK MEDICINE IN SOUTHERN APPALACHIA ANTHONY CAVENDER The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill & London © 2003 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Designed by April Leidig-Higgins Set in Ehrhardt by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America The author and the publisher are not engaged in rendering medical services, and this book is not intended to diagnose or treat medical or physical problems. Any reader with medical or related needs should secure the services of a medical expert. This book is sold without warranties of any kind, express or implied, and the publisher and author disclaim any liability, loss, or damage caused by the contents of this book. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cavender, Anthony P. Folk medicine in southern Appalachia / Anthony Cavender. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8078-2824-3 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8078-2824-6 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-80785493-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8078-5493-x (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Traditional medicine — Appalachian Region, Southern — History. 2. Traditional medicine— Appalachian Region, Southern — Formulae, receipts, prescriptions. 3. Medicinal plants — Appalachian Region, Southern. 4. Materia medica—Appalachian Region, Southern. [DNLM: 1. Medicine, Traditional—history—Appalachian Region. wz 309 c379f 2003] I. Title. GR108.15.c38 2003 398’.353’0974— dc21 2003010305 cloth 07 06 05 04 03 5 4 3 2 1 paper 10 09 08 07 06 7 6 5 4 3 THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY PRINTED. To Norbert F. Riedl and Michael H. Logan CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments Introduction. An Overview of Folk Medicine Research in Southern Appalachia 1 Health and Disease in Southern Appalachia 2 The Folk Medical Belief System 3 Folk Materia Medica 4 Folk Treatments 5 Folk Healers 6 Contemporary Perspectives on Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia Appendix A. Archival and Manuscript Sources Appendix B. Frequently Mentioned Medicinal Plants in Sources Glossary Notes Bibliography Index ILLUSTRATIONS Bly family cabin, Mt. Nebo, Tennessee, 1886 “Auntie Bly” at her spinning wheel, Mt. Nebo, 1886 Two boys carrying bags of charcoal, Millers Cove, Blount County, 1886 Dorsey family at breakfast, Blount County, 1886 Caughron family farm, Tuckaleechee Cove, Blount County, 1886 Yearout’s Mill, Tuckaleechee Cove, 1886 School recess at McCampbell’s Mill, Tuckaleechee Cove, 1886 D. B. Lawson family home, Cades Cove, Blount County, 1886 Children gathered at cider mill, Blount County, 1886 Barn and mill, Pittman Center, Sevier County, Tennessee, 1940 Man plowing with an ox, northeastern Tennessee, ca. 1930s Cabin on Roaring Fork, northeastern Tennessee, ca. 1930s Basket weaver, Roaring Fork, 1926 Women hoeing, northeastern Tennessee, ca. 1930s Main Street, Sneedville, Tennessee, 1914 Domestic Medicine, 1830 The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser, 1895 Patent medicine almanacs and advertisements Drawings of demons from testimony journals of Mary Lou Clark Client and witness testimonies from journals of Mary Lou Clark MAPS & TABLE Maps 1. An Alternate Appalachian Region 2. Insiders’ and Outsiders’ Appalachia Table 1. Traditional Medicines Displaced by Commercial Medicines in Hiltons, Virginia PREFACE Contrary to the enduring notion of Southern Appalachia as a world apart from the rest of America, this book is premised on an inclusionist orientation, which is to say that Southern Appalachian folk medicine is best understood within the larger context of Euro-American folk medicine. There never was nor is there now a variety of folk medicine unique to Southern Appalachia. To be sure, one can identify nuances of difference in comparison to other Euro-American populations. The fundamental folk medical beliefs used by Southern Appalachians to explain the cause of illness, however, are not peculiar to them. The same beliefs have been well documented among Euro-American populations in other parts of the country as well as among African Americans. To some observers, past and present, the distinctiveness of Southern Appalachian people is situated not in ethnicity, for it would be problematic to argue that they are a distinct ethnic group, but rather in the commonly accepted belief that they were victimized by culture lag due to geographical isolation. As with other beliefs about Southern Appalachians, however, there is as much that rings false about the idea of culture lag as rings true. It is undeniable that some folkways persisted in the region long after they had been discarded by the more “progressive” Euro-American middle and upper classes in the North. One can easily summon examples of folk medical beliefs and practices in Southern Appalachia that have endured from the late eighteenth century to the present. This study does not dismiss the persistence of folk medicine, nor the presence of an impoverished, under-educated segment of the population that has long been viewed, quite incorrectly, as representative of the region and as the sole bearer of folk medical knowledge. The inclusionist orientation of this study, however, also recognizes the presence in the nineteenth century of a middle class of farmers and merchants and an elite class of large landholding farmers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers. These people were well educated and curious about the outside world. They were also significant agents of internal cultural change. Ignoring the existence of social stratification, as so many observers in the past did, in effect precluded an understanding of how folk medicine in Southern Appalachia evolved over time and, more important, how it mirrored the changing health care environment of America. The parallel
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