Drawing ointment. Who remembers it?

pinkprincess

ElaineL
I can remember doing this when I was a student nurse.
Also Kaolin et Morph ointment, which as it's name shows contained morphine.

I thought kaolin and morphine was a liquid for stomach upsets? My father swore by it

I remember drawing ointment, my mother always kept this handy as my brother and I always seemed to have cut and grazed knees. It always healed our injuries. I recently went into Boots chemist and asked the young lady assistant for a good drawing ointment for a cut on my arm which had gone septic and normal Germoline had done nothing. She stared at me for a few moments and said we dont sell that sort of thing. I immediately realised her generation wouldn't know what I was talking about. I showed her my arm and she gave me a small pot of Magnesium sulphate. It did the trick and drew out all the poison from my cut. It seems younger generations aren't aware this wonderful ointment.

Not on the same tack as these drawing oitments but old remedies that have been neglected and which I have found as effective as and less dangerous than the modern couterparts....

must include Potassium citrate ( mist. pot.cit) near the top of the list for controlling UTIs. My ex -hospital doctor husband said there used to be huge jars of it on the female wards in the Liverpool hospital where he worked

I found it as effective as antibiotics and keep bottles in varous cupboards ready to be diluted. Haven't called a doctor to treat my previously frequent UTIs for 50 years and consequently have , I hope, not built up resistance to anti-biotics

I remember having a boil on my bottom as a child really painful and my mother used a police on that which worked well. I remember a rather battered small tin which she had for years. This was in the fifties.

My mum used a sterilised needle to poke out the splinter and then she put a poultice on it too. I still use the sharp needle, but think I'll get a pot of the ointment that's been mentioned. Thank you.

Doesn't zinc based stuff do the same? Like sudocrem?

Do people still get boils?

GillT57

Do people still get boils?

Have you never watched Dr Pimplepopper? ?

pensionpat

I remember Black Jack always in the cupboard. Don’t know if it was a “drawing” thing.

My mother-in-law always used Black Jack as a drawing paste. No idea what was in it but it worked!

i still use it for rose thorns and splinters

I have had a tube of icthamol drawing ointment in my medicine box for about 35 years, took the lid off just now, it smells exactly how I remember it, just like melts tarmac.

Used to apply kaolin poultices to patients in hospital in the 1960s. Chest infections, bronchitis etc. Kaolin is I think still used in some mouthwashes to help when mouth is tender due to radiotherapy. Never heard of the "drawing" cream, will keep it in mind though.

We called it a poultice, but used it for something that had become inflamed. My dad used to make up one with bread soaked in hot water… and we called splinters “skelfs”… but then we are Scottish!

Parts of my childhood was around stables and whenever the ponies trod on something that led to infection. They would mix a hot bran mash and pile into a tea towel and tie it over the affected hoof! Also my dad used to mash soap up with sugar and apply that to infected human fingers, it was brilliant!

Another one for Mag Sulph Paste. It was used in hospital when I was a student nurse in the 60s. I always have a jar in the medicine cabinet and recently gave it to a neighbour to remove a thorn. He was most impressed and his daughter, an A&E nurse had never heard of bit! My mother always used a kaolin poultice or, in emergency, a bread poultice! She poured boiling water over white bread, applied it to a lint bandage with gauze over it, when cool enough to bear applied to the offending splinter,thorn or whatever. I suppose it was the starch in the bread which worked.

Magnesium Sulphate, never without a pot, splinters, spots, boils, in growing hairs, wonderful stuff!!

Widgeon - I remember being prescibed "pot cit" for
urinary infections when I was a child. It was the most horrible medicine I had ever tasted. It was light green in colour and tasted like ginger beer that had gone off.
I remember having a septic finger after it being pricked by a needle and my mother applying what she called mag sulph. It did do the trick though and healed the finger.
My mother had been a nurse pre-war and always used these abbreviations.

Magnesium Sulphate is Epsom Salts, so you may have some tucked at the back of a cupboard....

I love Epsom salts.
They're lovely in a nice hot bath.

As a child, my mother would either slap a Kaolin poultice or a mustard poultice on me to relieve my asthma

I bought some a few years ago . I had a breast abscess which was drained and cleaned in hospital. A few weeks later it came back and I couldn’t be bothered going back to hospital so I made a poultice and slapped it on inside my bra then went to work . It was a bit sore and uncomfortable but when I got home my bra was full of blood and pus but my boob was much better

Another user of E.Burgess Lion Ointment, in a wooden tub.

I think that’s magnesium sulphate. Always have some in the cupboard and yes, very effective.

Tea tree oil is good for drawing out splinters etc and is absolutely brill for whitlows! Do kids still get those now? What about impetigo? You can tell I’m old - sadly surrounded by quite a few young snowflakes!

My mother would work sugar into softish household soap making a paste which was applied to the splinter. I seem to remember it always worked.