Honey Butter as a medication, was Re: SC - Help! Cabbage! Cakes!

[Bonne of Traquair]

>
>Ah....I am not surprised that honey was used medicinally. It still has the 
>reputation of being good for you, and I believe that it has 
>anti-bacterial/preserving properties in it. I think that I have heard 
>somewhere that it is used on wounds to help healing, and that it really 
>does work to help prevent infection.
>

Yes, a book on non-standard medical technique was in my last pile from the 
library, don't recall the name of this book, except that honey was in the 
name.  It discussed leeches, bandaging with cellophane, maggots, plastering 
wounds and then leaving them to heal without continually cleaning and 
re-dressing, the water-bath cures popular until the last century,  and all 
sorts of old-fashioned medical ideas that have been left behind due to some 
inconvenience or mis-conception.  At various times, old wives cures are 
re-discovered by necessity.

As for the honey as wound dressing:  a good thick smear of honey over a 
previously cleaned wound  kills bacteria due to osmosis, the sugars suck the 
water out of the bacteria.   Sugar syrups will work as well as honey. I 
beleive there was also some aspect involving the sugars nuturing the body 
tissue during the re-building process, so that the flesh re-grew and there 
was much less scarring than with antibiotic treatment.

Bonne
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