Oddball Ointments, Powerful Potions & Fabulous Folk Remedies That'll Cure Almost Anything That Ails You (Jerry Baker Good Health series) [Hardcover]

Jean Karen Thomas (Author), Dan MacBride (Compiler), Laura Wallace (Editor), Megan Othersen (Editor), Carol Keough (Editor), Wayne Michaud (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Jerry Baker Good Health series | Publication Date: 2002

Recipes for homemade tonics, salves, and poultices that can prevent, heal, and cure common health ailments are featured in this reference to folk medicines. Products in the kitchen cabinet, refrigerator, medicine chest, and garden can replace or supplement many expensive medicines through the innovative formulas detailed. Easing arthritis with a hot pepper cream, relieving back pain with a hot tea toddy, and lowering cholesterol with a dash of lemon juice are examples of the benefits of using these home remedies.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For those disenchanted with over-the-counter and prescription drugs, this do-it-yourself manual offers over 1,000 tips for dealing with a range of ailments. From age spots, body odor, chronic fatigue, erectile dysfunction and hair loss to midlife crisis, pot bellies, sagging breasts, tick removal, yellowed teeth and zits, health writer Thomas, in collaboration with naturopathic physician Beth Wotton, tackles myriad health problems with natural remedies. The introduction warns that the book shouldn’t replace a doctor’s expertise, but many entries complement recipes for salubrious herbal teas, for example, with common sense diet and exercise advice. Suffering from insomnia? Try a catnip tea, block out night noises and wind down with a bedtime ritual. "Finding the Sahara where there used to be a sexy swamp?" asks the chapter on menopause. Consume soy products and red clover tea for their estrogenic effects. Thomas takes an informal, sympathetic tone: exclamations of "yow!" and "aaarrrgghh!" pepper the book, which seems aimed at aging baby boomers encountering the afflictions of maturity. Devotees of homeopathic remedies will find a treasure trove of treatments here, but adherents of conventional Western medicine might find this manual more entertaining than curative.
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About the Author

Jean Karen Thomas has written more than 30 books about health.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 470 pages
• Publisher: American Master Products, Inc./Jerry Baker; 1st edition (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0922433445
• ISBN-13: 978-0922433445
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PERSONAL HEALTH 'MAGNUM OPUS' from THE "MASTER GARDENER", November 21, 2005

By 

RBSProds "rbsprods" (Deep in the heart of Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Oddball Ointments, Powerful Potions & Fabulous Folk Remedies That'll Cure Almost Anything That Ails You (Jerry Baker Good Health series) (Hardcover)

Five Stars!! HEALTH ADVICE GALORE!! Jerry Baker has done it again. On the heels of his great gardening books, this 450 page book is a winner of personal advice, potions, ointments, and practical aids for your body, your mind, and your general health. No GARDENING advice here!! This is Jerry Baker's 'Magnum Opus' of tips, tricks, and tonics, old fashioned (and new fashioned) advice for YOUR HEALTH. We all know about Jerry's practical advice and 'tonics' for our garden from his nationally syndicated weekend radio "call-in"show "On The Garden Line", and his PBS gardening specials. We also know that the tonics use practical items found around the house to treat and feed plants and trees, while defeating bugs and plant disease: A garden sprayer loaded with ingredients from "A can of beer, a can of cola, a teaspoon of liquid dish soap, etc, etc..." is almost 'The Weekend Gardening National Anthem' to many of us weekend gardeners. Millions of us also know the "tonics" by heart, read the detailed newsletters, and use his garden equipment because they REALLY WORK. Now he tackles our health. So can we trust a gardener with our health?

Jerry's told us a million stories about his "Grandma Putt" and her gardening and personal tips. Using that as a jumping off point, this book is loaded with mountains of information about many health and environmental problems besetting us in life. From allergies to zits to body odor, from angina to rashes to sunburn, from mid-life crises to motion sickness to arthritis, from bug bites to "crows feet" to sprains and "pink eye", Jerry covers a mindboggling amount of topics. Much of this advice is very up to date, like how he addresses the computer-caused problem of "mouse shoulder", with both practical advice and two tonics for us computer finatics. I like how he uses "natural" items, but does not fall into the ardent paranoia that the 'health food gurus' have, that frankly can be scary. For example, for 'mouse shoulder' he readily recommends over-the-counter (OTC) 'Capsaisin', but also gives a powerful alternative using cayenne pepper tincture and olive oil (not to mention the 'tumeric toddy'). Imagine my surprise when I decided to check out the cayenne pepper ingredient on the web and discovered cayenne pepper CONTAINS capsaisin. (score one for Jerry!) And I personally know his advice of OTC Benzyl Peroxide for acne is true because it instantly knocked out a bad case of acne decades ago for me (and the dermatoligist charged a pretty penny to prescribe it. It was actually BP cream and soap). (Score another one for Jerry!)

Jerry readily advises you see a real medical doctor for persistent problems. Some of these techniques will have you running for your food pantry to get ingredients to try them out right away, the same way he has us whipping up a 'tonic' to feed plants, kill ants or weeds in the garden. Some oddball ointments may cause some understandable wariness, because obviously some things don't work for everyone and some things may trigger allergic reactions unknown to us beforehand. But that's true of anything in life: always exercise caution in everything you put 'on' or 'in' your body (or mind, for that matter). 'Egg whites as an alternative acne treatment?': sounds strange until you see a dermatogist agreeing. I haven't come anywhere near trying them all, but many techniques sound very intriguing: like the bay leaves treatment for eliminating warts. Trust me, it's loaded with advice, like his treatise on the importance of Calcium and many alternative calcium sources for those who are lactose intolerant.

I recommend reading this book from cover to cover, but his detailed 20 odd page Index will allow 'poaching' on very specific topics. Some of the ingredients may cause you to extend yourself to find them, but I have found the hardest on the web. This is my third Jerry Baker book (I love the "Backyard Problem Solver") and all are winners of levelheadedness, practicality, and usefullness. Thanks, Jerry! Five "Healthful" Stars!!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars oddball ointment book, December 16, 2008

By 

Anna M. Gates "Everything and yet, nothing." (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Oddball Ointments, Powerful Potions & Fabulous Folk Remedies That'll Cure Almost Anything That Ails You (Jerry Baker Good Health series) (Hardcover)

This book is interesting. It isn't the way I'd write or talk. Nor is it as powerful and readily available as the title, but it's interesting to read once in awhile. It has ideas you'd perhaps never guess, but anyone that has a good imagination deserves to see this book at least. More articles and warnings than information, perhaps you'll like it and perhaps you won't, but will wish to keep it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oddball Ointments, Powerful Potions, March 21, 2010

By 

C. Conklin (Southern Tier, NY) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Oddball Ointments, Powerful Potions & Fabulous Folk Remedies That'll Cure Almost Anything That Ails You (Jerry Baker Good Health series) (Hardcover)

I originally thought this book was a little off the wall, that is, until I received it and started reading! The suggestions in here are some that my grandmother used when I was young, the ones that worked! So many times I have wished I could remember them and now I have them all in a hard cover book. These ointments and potions have been shown to work and at much less cost than traditional "over-the-counter" or "by prescription" medications. It is not putting down any of the traditional medicines, but it is giving us a choice in how we want to heal our bodies. You won't be disappointed with this book.