Home remedies · Mouth, teeth, eyes & feet
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Simmer one to two tablespoons of oak bark in half a litre of water for ten minutes, strain and pour into a bowl of lukewarm water. Stand the feet in it for ten to fifteen minutes, then dry thoroughly, especially between the toes. Every other day for one to two weeks, then judge. Sage tea works the same way.
The substance is the tannins — up to a fifth of the weight in oak bark. Tannins bind to protein at the skin surface and tighten it; the outlets of the sweat glands narrow, and less moisture reaches the surface. Less moisture means less food for the bacteria that make the smell out of sweat — sweat itself does not smell. Sage holds the same group of substances and is used the same way.
Not on broken, cracked or inflamed skin — tannins burn there and dry it further. The baths stain skin and tub brownish; that goes. With a tendency to very dry skin, cream afterwards. And it changes nothing about athlete’s foot — that needs its own treatment, and damp toe clefts stay its home.
With diabetes or a circulation problem, nothing on the feet without advice. Likewise with weeping cracks, redness with warmth, and if the sweating is suddenly new, comes at night, or goes with weight loss.
To the doctor or dentist: facial swelling with fever, toothache with trouble opening the mouth, a knocked-out tooth — that is an emergency with a short window. For the eye: sudden loss of vision, severe pain, flashes of light. Sore places in the mouth lasting beyond three weeks.