Go get it - picture game

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Golden Sleigh? Tough.
Santa at Macy's

 

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Mistletoe

 

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Etoile 5-row pavé diamond band ring. Pavé set round brilliant diamonds, carat total weight 3.30 (size 4.5), color grade G, clarity grade VS; platinum.
$11,000

smelling salts

 

I can't find a pic but I did find out what it is.

All my life, my father talked about his grandmother using an "asphidity bag" (I'm guessing at the spelling), and I'd like to know exactly what it was. Apparently, it was a bag put around his neck that had something awful-smelling in it, and it was supposed to benefit his health, somehow. Can you tell me what was in such a bag and what its health benefit was supposed to be?


An Asphidity bag was a folk remedy most commonly found in the appalachian region in the 18th or 19th century.

Basically, it was a back of pungent herbs, often including ginsing and yellow root. However, the exact ingredients varied by practitioner. The vapors were supposed to ward off colds or other diseases.

May 19, 1861, p. 1, c.2-3

There was a time when a person asked,"what in heck is asphidity?" and this is what she was told:

"Folks,

Gather around my camp fire.... And I will take you back to the old days in West Virginia.... The days when the 8th Virginia Cavalry fought and died and were captured and put in Camp Chase Prison; and the 16th cavalry got all the way to Gettysburg; the 36th under McClausland and the 22nd Infantry under Patton lived and died and froze in the mountains. These are some of the forgotten ones.... The Confederates of Western Virginia.

These are the "Home Town Boys." If any of them were still alive today, and you asked them what in gosh blazes is asphidity, they would say, "It is that little bag of herbs on a string around my neck that I wear to ward off the colds and the flu."

They would know all about gensing, and yellow root and what was good for this ailment and that ailment.

They would tell you that if all else failed, "My ma would put a poltice of onions on my chest and that would loosen up the membranous croop but I never could stand that blaim skunk oil."

They would also say that the best thing was the pure stuff that came from pa's still, mixed with rock candy, glycerine, and "balm of Gilead." (the buds from tulip poplar trees)

They would also tell you to "watch that popskull. Thet's thu stuff thet haint aged nuff."

They would also have said, "Burn some sulphur; it will drive off the vapors.."

Have I helped you all any?"

Poinsettia Plant

 

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The ruins of Windsor Plantation in Mississippi