Southern Folk Medicine

by Phyllis D. Light

  Daddy loved to read paperback Western novels and loved Zane Grey. He liked watching Westerns and Army movies on television. Daddy would watch science fiction movies, especially if there was action and adventure to be had. One of my best memories is falling asleep on the couch on Saturday nights to the sound of the blazing guns of a war movie or cowboy shootout. Me on the couch and Daddy in his easy chair. It was special times.

  Daddy taught me about the woods and to love books. We hunted ginseng and other herbs, and on these walks I learned about the wild plants. Other times, we just ambled along in the woods not looking for anything special, just enjoying nature. The woods quieted his airy soul, grounded him, and let him leave worries behind, at least for awhile. Books allowed him to escape into other times and places. Both aspects, I truly understand and love.

  Daddy didn’t come home from the TB hospital but found a new love instead—his affection blew in a different direction. This broke Mama’s heart and wreaked havoc on our family in more ways than can be explained. After being gone for ten years, and all us kids grown and gone from home, Daddy came knocking on Mama’s door and she gladly opened it. Daddy tried to pick up where he’d left off and in some ways he did. In other ways, things were never going to be the same. The blowing winds of his emotions and attention settled into a nice gentle breeze directed at Mama and they were as happy as air and water can be until his death.

  Daddy became an amazing grandfather, much loved and beloved by all his grandchildren. He taught them gardening and how to grow giant tomatoes, how to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, how to watch out for snakes, how to walk in the woods, how to hit a ball, and how to shoot a hoop. He was affectionate, loving, and supporting. All the qualities of a good father and grandfather. I miss our time together terribly. This one is for you, Daddy.

  Air or Wind

  In Southern Folk Medicine, there is air and there is wind. Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, but here I’d like to make a distinction. Air has no form and is invisible. It takes up space, can fill a container, and exert pressure. It can suspend other particles within itself. We can’t live without air, as it contains the gases required for human life.

  Wind is moving air, which is also invisible in and of itself, but you can see the effects of its passage and you can sometimes see the things it carries, like dust, smog, or garbage. This is an important concept in Southern Folk Medicine. Wind carries things; it moves things. Air isn’t fire, but wind and air can carry fire’s heat. Air isn’t water, but wind and air can carry water vapor, and wind over lakes causes waves. Air isn’t earth; wind and air can carry dust and dirt for miles. Air holds things and wind moves them. That’s an important concept in Southern Folk Medicine—there is air, and then there is wind.

  Air is traditionally defined as the gases needed for life. Wind is traditionally defined as the movement of those gases. We pass wind after eating beans. We “get wind of something” that’s new information that we didn’t have before. A person who is three sheets to the wind is drunk on their butt. You can stand straight in the wind and risk snapping or you can bend with the wind, which is somewhat like going with the flow, but not exactly. Once the wind has passed you can straighten, but you never know where the flow of water will take you. A job, task, or relationship that’s going nowhere is like pissing in the wind or spitting in the wind, take your choice of fluids. A second wind is when you’re already tired but get another burst of energy close to the finish line. Running hard until you are gasping for breath is called being winded. Anyone who is “like the wind” is sure to break your heart because they come and go, physically and emotionally, and you never seem to know what’s going on in the relationship. Throwing caution to the wind is taking a big risk or chance.

  In traditional Southern Folk Medicine, any movement within the body falls under the domain of air. Eating too many beans gives you wind, which is the crampy pain felt as the gases work their way through the colon. Their expulsion is known as passing gas, which often has an odor similar to swamp gases, slightly sulfurous. This is the type of pain that comes and goes, just like the wind.

  In addition to the gut, you can have wind in any joint, especially the fingers, in the leg muscles, shoulders, neck, eyes, and head. Any pain that comes and goes can be described as wind. Any unseen movement in the body is also under the domain of air. This is especially true of the nerves. Back then, no one knew exactly how the nerves worked, but knew they were there. I don’t know how many times Mama would say, “You’re getting on my last nerve.” Or someone would have a “nervous breakdown” or say, “My nerves are shot.”

  Wind, often working with fire, moves the body. From the creation of energy in the Krebs cycle to the movement of the fluids in our body, wind contributes. Without oxygen in cellular respiration, there would be no production of ATP energy. Here’s a perfect example of air and fire working together in the body. What a team!

  This view of air and wind definitely has its origins in the humoral system, but there is another influence on the concept of wind in Southern Folk Medicine, and that is the Native American influence. Here, I can only speak of generalities because each tribe had different legends and beliefs, especially about the wind.

  Like other parts of nature, wind was considered a force unto itself and separate from the air. If you’ve ever seen a tornado, you certainly can believe this to be true. In the ancient Creek tribes, some people were masters of the wind who would bring storms and tornadoes against the enemy in battle. The wind could bring the words and signs of the Creator to the tribe, and special people within the tribe could hear and communicate with this wind language. The four directions were based on the four winds and considered a symbol of power and life. The wind could bring illness, especially to someone who had committed a transgression within the tribe. The wind could follow you, the way smoke from a campfire does, for good or ill. Winds can be angry or gentle depending upon the mood of the Creator.

  According to Creek legend, the wind can take human form and did so to have children. The Iron Monster stole his children and took them across a great river, where they were killed and cast into the waters. Finally, the wind found his dead children and fought with the Iron Monster, but couldn’t kill him by normal means. So Wind blew a special smoke on Iron Monster and killed him in this manner. Unfortunately, when Wind brought his children back to life, they had been changed. Instead of leaving them, Wind stayed with them, promising, at some point, to rise and sweep across the Earth, destroying all in his path to avenge what had been done to his children.

  In some Native American mythology, the plant most associated with the wind was tobacco. Smoking a pipe for pleasure was common in many Southeastern tribes among men, women, and children, as well as smoking a pipe for ceremony. Legends about the wind often include blowing smoke from a pipe to subdue or kill enemies. Here’s another example of fire and air working together: You can’t light a pipe and blow smoke without a little fire.

  In West Africa, the wind can carry supernatural forces or invisible humans that attack people and can cause physical illness and mental health issues. This is called a bad wind or foul wind.

  The Air We Breathe

  Air and wind have no form but can carry heat or cold. Heat causes the molecules in the air to move faster and faster; cold causes them to move slower and slower. Air also reacts to atmospheric pressure. The closer to sea level, the warmer the air. The higher the elevation, the colder the air.

  What is air? Air is that invisible, formless mixture of gases that sustains our life on Earth. We can live without water for several days, but we can only live without air for a few minutes. Air is what makes our world, the Earth, inhabitable to human life, and the lack of it makes other worlds uninhabitable. Try living on Mars or the Moon without oxygen or the gravity to hold the atmosphere in place and see what happens.

  The air we breathe is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other trace gases. Trace gases, such as a
rgon, krypton, helium, neon, radon, and xenon, make up less than 1 percent of the remaining mixture. All the gases in the atmosphere get mixed by the wind and cover the Earth in a five- to six-mile-deep layer. Other substances in the air include pollens, dust, smoke, salt particles, chemicals, spores, bacteria, and viruses, all of which can affect our ability to breathe and our health. Air people should be cautious about any impediment to breathing. They are prone to seasonal allergies, food sensitivities, and feel the ill effects of odors and perfumes. Fresh air is one of the best medicines for air people.

  The three most important gases needed for survival are oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. We breathe in oxygen that combines with nutrients in our cells and releases ATP energy. While we can breathe pure oxygen for short periods of time, too much pure oxygen is poisonous. We breathe in air, use the oxygen in it, and release carbon dioxide and water vapor as waste products in respiration.

  Plants are our partners in breathing, especially trees. In the photosynthesis process, plants breath carbon dioxide and with water create food and energy. They release oxygen and water vapor back into the atmosphere. About half the oxygen on the planet is produced by trees and land plants, and the other half is produced by phytoplankton, or algae, in the oceans. One tree produces enough oxygen for ten people to breathe. To top that off, trees also breathe in polluted air and breathe out clean air, the best air purification on the planet. How this happens is a mystery, but a wonderful one. Air people do well surrounded by plants, and benefit from both the exercise and fresh air of nature walks and gardening.

  What happens to all that nitrogen we breathe? Since we can’t use nitrogen from the air, we immediately exhale most of it. What’s left circulates around our bodies along with the oxygen and is absorbed by the tissues. The heart, lungs, and abdominal tissues absorb nitrogen very fast, but stored fat, cartilage, and joints are slow to saturate. The amount of nitrogen saturation in the tissues is important to divers or people with impaired lung functioning.

  Nitrogen is necessary to convert protein into amino acids, but we can’t use nitrogen gas for this. Instead, we must use the nitrogen found in plants known as fixed nitrogen, and legumes are especially adapted for this purpose. Plants can take nitrogen from the air, and with the aid of bacteria, fix it at their roots, which also improves the fertility of the soil.

  Every cell in our body requires oxygen to produce ATP energy in the oxidative process discussed in the chapter on fire. Oxygen helps fund the processes that contract our muscles during work or exercise. If the muscle doesn’t have enough oxygen, then lactic acid is produced instead of energy. After physical activity, oxygen helps restore energy reserves and clears out lactic acid buildup.

  Oxygen helps repair our cells by providing additional energy sources for wound repair or cell turnover. Not enough oxygen and the wound won’t heal; too much oxygen and the wound won’t heal. Like everything else in our bodies, it’s all about the balance. Oxygen is also needed for the formation of new tissue. It is used by the liver in the detoxification process and metabolism of toxins and drugs. The liver actually requires more oxygen than any other organ, followed by the brain and then the heart.

  The best way to get more oxygen into your body is to breathe properly. Breathing consists of two phases, inspiration and expiration. For inspiration, take a deep breath while expanding the diaphragm and lower rib cage outward, which increases the volume of the lungs while lowering the air pressure. It’s easier to breathe outdoors where the air pressure is greater. Indoors, the air pressure is lower and sometimes, in well-insulated houses or shopping malls, we can’t wait to get outside and take a deep breath of fresh air.

  For expiration, let out the air while relaxing the diaphragm and intercostal muscles. This decreases the volume of the lungs and increases air pressure inside the lungs, forcing out the air. As the diaphragm relaxes, the chest cavity gets smaller; intercostal muscles squeeze the rib cage, which causes the lungs to begin collapsing as the air is pushed up and out of the body.

  The influence of the air element on the lungs and respiratory tract is a given in physiology as well as traditional folk medicines. Air people are often very sensitive to air pollution, moldy houses, odors and scents, and cleaning chemicals, and should never smoke cigarettes.

  Air folk use their sense of smell to warn of potentially damaging chemicals or bad air. These folks also unconsciously will smell or sniff their food before eating. This is especially true of air children, who will smell their food before taking a bite. Because they are so sensitive, air children do best with home-cooked meals. Fast food tends to smell bad to them. If it’s in the air, then they are aware of it.

  The Wind That Blows: All About the Nervous System

  Air also influences the brain and the nervous system. At first glance, there may not seem to be a connection, but let’s look a bit deeper. The brain is the control center of the central nervous system, which also includes the spinal cord and a gigantic network of nerves that wind through the body. It’s the source of the wind.

  For the brain to function at peak performance, it needs a constant supply of two substances: glucose and oxygen. With low oxygen levels, the brain may have trouble determining where to send blood to muscles and tissues.

  About 70 percent of the brain is composed of water. Of the remaining 30 percent dry matter, about 60 percent of that is composed of lipids or fats, including cholesterol, essential fatty acids, vitamins A, D, and E, and phospholipids. While the brain’s structure is dependent upon lipids, it must have a steady supply of glucose and oxygen for activity. Have you ever wondered why you get so hungry when you are working hard, studying, or learning something new? Your brain is in overdrive and requires fuel for thought. That’s why it’s easy to reach for the carbohydrates in these situations.

  The brain uses about 25 percent of the oxygen we breathe in. That’s quite a percentage considering its mass in comparison to, say, the liver or the large muscles in the legs. Lack of oxygen to the brain is called brain hypoxia and can be caused by smoke inhalation, choking, cardiac arrest, carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, stroke, and any other condition that restricts oxygen flow to the brain. Mild symptoms include those that are often called brain fog—poor judgment and poor decision making, inability to think, and clumsiness or lack of coordination. Severe symptoms lead to death. Ways to increase oxygen to the brain include exercise, meditation, deep breathing, drinking adequate water, and antioxidants from food.

  Without the central nervous system and the brain, your senses won’t function. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching would not exist. Neither would dreaming, breathing, laughing, running, sleeping, jumping, singing, remembering, painting, writing, or spitting. And neither would pain, pleasure, fear, hope, love, despair, depression, happiness, or any emotions. There would be no thought and no action.

  Wind is the movement of information along the neural pathway. It can manifest in the personality as any emotion or physically as pain and discomfort. Wind is in charge of fight-or-flight and the stress reaction. It’s all about the nervous system and how information moves around the body. Air carries information and wind moves the information.

  Nerves are thin threads of cells, or neurons, that run throughout the body. They carry messages back and forth just the way telephone wires and computer lines do. There are three types of nerves: sensory, motor, and interneurons. Sensory nerves send messages to the brain and central nervous system, and are linked to the sense of touch and feeling. Motor nerves carry messages back from the brain to all the muscles and glands in your body, which tell the muscles and glands what to do and when to do it. For example, when you touch a hot surface, sensory nerves let the brain know that the surface is hot to touch. The motor nerves carry the signal back to the hand to move away from the hot surface. All this happens in an instant. Interneurons are found only in the central nervous system and connect neuron to neuron.

  All along the length of a nerve are synapses, the junctions
between two nerve cells. Synapses are separated by a space called the synaptic cleft, which is just an open space (air) or narrow gap along the nerve. When a nerve impulse moves along a nerve, the impulse has to jump the open space or cleft to continue along its route. Neurotransmitters are released across the synaptic cleft to carry the nerve message across the gap. Think of neurotransmitters like helicopters that are lifting the message from one side of the open space to the other. The neurotransmitters can inhibit or stimulate the next neuron, depending on the message being sent.

  Neurotransmitters that cross the cleft or gap bind with receptor sites, which ensures the transmission of the message along the nerve. They are only active a short time before being inactivated and reabsorbed (reuptake). About forty-one known neurotransmitters have been identified, but the most well-known are acetylcholine, noradrenaline, dopamine, histamine, glycine, oxytocin, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and serotonin. Some neurotransmitters are excitatory and stimulating, and others are inhibitory and relaxing. The dominant air person should be cautious with too much stimulation, which can release excitatory hormones in excess and the feeling can become addicting. Think adrenaline junkies.

  Diseases and disorders of the nervous systems are generally considered air or wind disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, ALS, neuromuscular disorders, and palsy. For example, Parkinson’s disease is due to a deficiency in the neurotransmitter dopamine, and the signal can’t cross the air space or gap. The majority of the neurotransmitters are made from protein. Without neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers of the nervous system, information from one brain cell to another or one neuron to another won’t be sent or received. Mood and mental health disorders are also considered air or wind disorders. Sometimes these are due to neurotransmitter issues, and sometimes they are due to trauma, nutritional deficiencies, or injury.