The Medicine Cabinet

Do any of you readers out there still have a medicine cabinet? I don't mean the fancy mirrored item purchased from a home supplies chain store that sits above your bathroom sink either :). I mean the real old fashioned deal. The made from wood kind that extended quite a bit from the wall and were closed with a small latch. Well I actually live in a house that has such a contraption and I know for sure that it is older than I am. While the medicine cabinet of my childhood was affixed to my parents' bedroom wall, this one juts out next to my bath stall and I love it.

  

Thought of painting it once then changed our minds, like the wood.:)

Front view...mirror bringing in light from opposite window.

Notice the little top latch and the wooden knob!

But what can you find in a medicine cabinet? 

I know I still keep some of the staples my mother did!

 Like Iodex, Vicks vapour rub, BNT powder, Spirits of Turpentine and a few new additions of my own. For dental health I keep clove oil and oregano oil. Cuts and infections are treated with tea tree oil and colds with mucous are cured with mullein. Some random Chinese rubs for aches and pains :) and my partner's bulk supply of Egyptian musk.

 The top shelf holds sulphur from St. Lucia and red clay from Morocco. They are used as poultices and masks. A nice paste of red clay with a bit of water will take a pimple away overnight especially if you zap it up with a drop of tea tree oil!
Now in today's modern world this medicine cabinet may seem sparse and it surely lacks the usual Paracetamols, Advils, Nyquils etc. This is intentional. Back in the days of the medicine cabinet people were so much healthier weren't they. They ate more natural foods and used more natural remedies. And hence why my cabinet is so scant. I do however, have other "medicines" in my kitchen.

 Atop a tile sits lavender, more tea tree :), nutmeg, lemongrass, rosemary, lemon and rose essential oils, and another rub Caribe Balsam. Those prickly thingies up front are echinacea heads which are drying.
Then I also keep herbs from the health store in a few bins. Like...........

 These two contain slippery elm, mullein, red clover, nettle, horsetail, yellow dock root and white oak bark. I believe like Imhotep that my food should be my medicine and so I grow my own collection of local herbs which I dry. I currently have a shelf packed with ceraasee, blue vervain, basil, moringa, bayleaf, pear and soursop leaves. Too messy for photos :).

But back to the medicine cabinet...lol What kinds of medicine did you grow up with in your medicine cabinet? I know I missed some of the Bajan staples like Limacol, Alcolado and Alcohol, mecuricome, gentian violet, camphor etc.......brings back such memories I tell you. We were all sent running at some point to that cabinet after some childhood accident weren't we?
Have a great day folks and be well!