Power of poultices: reclaim the “old ways”
By Evelyn Wolff, MD
Before modern western medicine there were healing traditions practiced by hundreds of thousands of women and men around the world, basically herbalists using drugless methods who had learned their skills from their mothers and grandmothers. Only recently medicine is looking to reclaim the old ways that were lost.
For example, attention to good nutrition to prevent illness, and drugless methods of detoxification that strengthened the immune system rather than attack the cause of the illness. The story below illustrates the use of clay poultices and the holistic natural approach.
Stepping out of my studio, I see a friend’s car pulling into my driveway. Inside is a very sick woman who has signed herself out of a hospital in Toronto and asked to be brought to my door. After giving the woman some water and making her comfortable, my friend tells me what happened: The woman had been heavily into recreational drugs, including cocaine, for many years, when she develops an infected sebaceous cyst on her back just below her neck. Her doctor puts her on a powerful oral antibiotic, but when it does not bring the infection under control, he gives her an even stronger broad-spectrum antibiotic. In spite if this, the wound develops reddish purple striations spreading out from the boil so they hospitalize her now giving the antibiotics intramuscularly and increasing the dose. Her kidneys start to shut down and she starts to swell, but the infection is not abating. They give her more antibiotics, now intravenously. Instead of improving she becomes even sicker and begs my friend to take her to me for a natural approach. Frightened by the responsibility of this person’s life in my hands, I know I must do something very different.
Western medicine has done what it knows, yet she is close to death. Her immune system is badly suppressed due to her drug habit having strained her liver function. From the natural medical perspective her body is valiantly trying to release her toxic load through the boil. Power of poultices in healing skin infections, if it were allowed to come to a head, it would release a lot of pus and clear a great deal of this woman’s accumulated poison. Unfortunately, antibiotics suppress this process, and the toxins are pushed back into the body.
Having used a plantain-clay compress successfully in the past, gives me confident about using it to bring this infection to a head. Previously I had seen a poultice clear a chronic bone infection in a neighbour’s finger cut off with a jig saw heal in a week when antibiotics had not cleared it in six months. Beginning to prepare the poultice I mix a tablespoon of purified gray clay with a quarter capsule of golden seal root powder and two finely crushed fresh plantain leaves, made into a mushy paste with some water. Then I secure the mixture over the sebaceous cyst with a thick bandage. There the clay and plantain can draw out the toxins, while the golden seal root powder acts as a natural local antibiotic. Indigenous people had great success using golden seal root with eye infections, surface wounds and even as a poultice at the entrance of arrow head wounds. Now it’s time to prepare a fruit and vegetable juice drink to hydrate her and clean out her blood. An apple and three carrots for sweetness are added to the juice of cucumber and celery stalks for kidney cleansing, and a red beet for blood purification. Knowing the bowel bacteria have been greatly imbalanced by all the antibiotics, I also add several capsules of probiotics, which contain various strains of lactobacillus and other good bacteria to repopulate her bowel. We dilute the juice: two-parts water to one-part juice. The woman is so weak we hold up her head while she sips the drink with a straw and repeat this process several times during the night. She awakes at noon feeling somewhat clearer. After another glass of juice, she passes some urine for the first time in two days. Then we take off the clay poultice which has dried and become brittle. The swollen infected area does not look quite so angry. The purple streak is gone! After two more days of warm saline compresses alternating with the clay poultice at night, the boil is starting to come to a head. A steady infusion of the diluted fruit and vegetable juice, alternates with a fresh warm organic chicken broth, with parsley, garlic and onion continues her rehydration. On the third day she is sitting up to drink, holding her own broth and juices, and chatting a bit. The boil is clearly filling with more and more pus, and to my great relief, her kidneys are producing a normal amount of urine, consistent with what she is drinking.
Later that day, her first bowel movement fills the entire toilet bowl. The fourth morning I take her into the washroom to remove the clay poultice and as I pull it off, the infected boil bursts painlessly and the pus under pressure splats against the tiled wall. That is the foulest gore I have ever smelled in my life, unmatched by any cesspool. After squeezing out the pus, at first yellow, then green, and finally brown, I set about cleaning the wound, just barely able to keep myself from upchucking in reaction to the smell that still lingers in the air. Then I pack the hole left behind with a short length of bandage, soaked in melted bee’s wax to keep the passage open, and keep draining.
For three more days we persist with the clay compresses and increase her solid intake as she regains her appetite. One week after she arrived, the friend who drove her to me comes to celebrate. Eyes bright, the woman tells my friend she wants to take a walk.
In the second week her wound closed over, she is helping me drywall my studio. A few days later I watch as the car rolls away, I recall my original fear that she might leave in a hearse. Instead, her parting words ring in my ears: “Thanks so much! I am feeling stronger and clearer than I have felt in my entire adult life.”
This story is an Excerpt from Volume I “Calming Dr. Twitch-A-Lot”-a memoir by Evelyn Wolff. Evelyn Wolff, MD combined careers as a Holistic Physician, Educator and Stained-Glass-Artist for almost 40 years, till her retirement in 2012. She shows glassworks in Belleville ON, and is an author. Her 38-year practice of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, has been a healing, and guiding force, informing her life and creativity. www.evelyn-wolff.pixels.com
