This brings back so many wonderful memories. My grandma (God rest her soul) did it ALL! Sobadas de empacho, yerba buena, manzanilla, alcohol con marijuana, eggs to cure el mal de ojo.

Awww, I miss her so much. We NEVER went to see the doctor when we were sick.

When I read this post I just had to contact the author. He happily agreed to share it with Muy Bueno.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

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El Remediosphereยฎ
by Joe Ray

My mother was raised on a rancho in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. When you got sick, you had remedies that worked for everyone, you went to a sobadora or a curandera. And if things were really bad, you were taken into town.

This is old school. No pinche WebMD for research. If you wanted to know something, you asked your comadre about it. You were part of the Collective Comadre Network.

One common herbal remedio is yerba buena. Yerba buenaโ€™s great stuff, itโ€™s used for everything from stomach ailments or flavoring mojitos. My mom also kept around a glass jar filled with rubbing alcohol that contained marijuana, which she would rub on her varicose veins. Aloe vera was always around as well.

Having asthma as a kid, my mom would rub Vicks (AKA vaporu, vivaporu, or el veex) all over my chest, usually along with other very nasty smelling herbs/weeds. Not yerba buena but my guess is that it was probably more along the lines of yerba mierda. After rubbing it on my chest, sheโ€™d make me put on a heating pad over my shirt and blanket. I canโ€™t stand Vicks. I knew some kids ate the stuff. I like the smell of eucalyptus, which she would also boil leaves into a tea but I still find Vicks to be quite repulsive.

Growing up in Arizona, we were only 2 hours from the Mexican border, so we would go visit family, shop and so forth. I recall going to a yerberia for dried rattlesnake strips to eat daily in order to cure my asthma. Never having seen a snake cough, this made perfect sense to me. The meat tasted okay (like jerky), but didnโ€™t really cure me.

Prior to that trip, Doรฑa Yoya in San Luis once gave me a little black bunny. I think the rabbit was supposed to absorb the asthma and Iโ€™d be cured. She lived a couple of houses away from my aunt and was a curandera who had a bunch of animals. Anyway, that didnโ€™t work. This rabbit was the first pet I ever had. The rabbit proved to be quite the trouble maker, and eventually we ate it.

I also remember one family friend using bleach for everything from ant bites to other skin ailments. That always had a nasty smell to the rub. Every once in a while I smell bleach and think of that. But it still doesnโ€™t repel me the way Vicks does.

I went online the other day and asked friends a little about what type of remedios they remember from their childhoods.

Hereโ€™s a small sampling of what I heard back:

Suzi: We all know what cures-VICKS and 7-UP!

Veronica: I thought all cures came from a lil shot of tequila

Tony: Lemon honey and tequila for coughs-Mexican Nyquil. Olive and castor oil after a hot bath in the winter.
Note- Tony also remembers his father using the pot in the alcohol for arthritis.

Celeste: Vaporu. That with some salpicot y una limpia con huevo and whatever weeds grew in the backyard. Santo remedio! Anything that was sting related had saliva in it: aver que te pongo ajo, con un poco de saliva.

Gennaro: Mi madre used to pull the skin on our back really hard to cure empacho, until today I donโ€™t know wtf that was about.

Lonnie: Mentholatum smeared under the nose. My suegra would shove it up her nose. I think she used a couple of tablespoons.

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Culturally, we have a lot of herbs, beliefs and rituals that we relate to. These range from lighting candles, to a limpia con huevo (go ask about that one), to rhymes. Think of that little kiddie healing rhyme:

โ€œsana, sana,
colita de ranaโ€ฆโ€

Before the internet, before WebMD, there was the Collective Comadre Network, which will always be around. Many of us continue these healing traditions. They are part of who we are and where we come from. Itโ€™s all part of the Remediosphereยฎ. What are some of the remedios you remember?

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This guest post originally appeared onLatinaish.com

Author Bio: Joe Ray is a Latino painter and printmaker living in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Creative Director and President of Estudio Ray, a visual branding/marketing agency in Phoenix.

Photography byย Jeanine Thurston