Ancient remedies that still work today - by Vijaya Schartz

 

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In this modern society of ours, dominated by the wealthy pharmaceutical industry, we tend to forget ancient medicine and healing practices, even though they worked for thousands of years… There is no profit in home remedies, so commercial advertising only focuses on marketable chemical solutions, and tends to ridicule the old ways. Worse, we now have to take secondary medicines to counteract the side effects of primary medicines.

Then, once in a while, someone realizes that acupuncture, Yoga, Chi Gong, Tai-Chi, chicken noodle soup, carrots, and other ancient medicine and disciplines can still keep modern people healthy and happy. Unlike most pharmaceuticals, these practices and remedies do not just treat the symptoms but promote general health.

In September 1991, a 5000-year-old frozen mummy later named Otzi was discovered in the frozen Alps between Austria and Italy. He was very well preserved and had 61 tattoos, corresponding to the traditional acupuncture points.

Now, scientists are curious about acupuncture. We can observe that it works. We just don’t understand how or why it works. As it happens, recent university studies discovered connections between the acupuncture points and the organs they are supposedly linked to, through what they call the interstitium, a fluid matrix permeating and linking various parts of the body, undiscovered by science until now.

8 pieces of Brocade Chi-Gong exercises

But the most important part of staying healthy is exercise. Yoga, Tai-Chi, Chi-Gong types in particular, can keep your joints flexible, your legs strong, your posture ideal. And when you have the right posture, all your organs work better. You breathe better, you digest better, your heart is not compressed… your lymphatic system (part of your immune system) is stimulated by movement.

As for food as medicine, here are a few ancient remedies that still work today:

Honey: Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians used it to dress wounds because its natural low pH and high sugar content kill bacteria. As an ointment or ingested, it’s a natural antibiotic.

Turmeric: A staple in Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine for millennia, its active compound, curcumin, is clinically shown to have powerful anti-inflammatory effects.

Aloe Vera: Historically used by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Chinese to heal burns and skin ailments, it remains a frontline natural treatment for sunburns.

Ginger: Used in ancient Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine for nausea, modern clinical trials support its efficacy in treating pregnancy-related and motion-induced nausea. It’s also good for your heart.

Chicken soup: Turns out, Grandma was right. Chicken soup can be good for a cold. Studies show it can ease symptoms and help you get rid of it sooner. It also curbs swelling and clears out nasal fluids.

My latest chicken soup creation

Carrots: They are not just good for babies. Their active compounds act as natural medicine by providing high levels of beta-carotene, dietary fiber, and antioxidants. In traditional and integrative health, they are used to support eye health, reduce inflammation, balance blood sugar, and combat oxidative damage

Green tea: This comforting drink does more than keep you awake and alert. It’s a great source of some powerful antioxidants that can protect your cells from damage and help you fight disease. It may even lower your odds of heart disease and certain kinds of cancers, like skin, breast, lung, and colon.

Garlic: Some studies show that people who eat more garlic are less likely to get certain types of cancer (garlic supplements don’t seem to have the same effect). It also lowers blood cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

Hot bath: It’s good for all kinds of things that affect your muscles, bones, and tendons (the tissues that connect your muscles to your bones), like arthritis, back pain, and joint pain. And warm water can help get blood flow to areas that need it, so gently stretch and work those areas while you’re in there. But don’t make it too hot, especially if you have a skin condition. The ideal temperature is between 92 and 100 F.

In my latest series, THE PROTECTORS, set on a feudal planet, I use ancient remedies when my characters need a healer's attention. My Celtic legends series, Curse of the Lost Isle, also uses ancient remedies. 

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Happy Reading.

Vijaya Schartz, award-winning author
Kick-butt Sci-fi Heroines, cats, romantic elements
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My Fourth Klondike Gold Rush Novel by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

Romancing the Klondike

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/romancing-the-klondike

https://books2read.com/Romancing-the-Klondike

https://www.amazon.ca/Romancing-Klondike-Yukon-Joan-Donaldson-Yarmey/dp/1772992682

Rushing the Klondike

https://books2read.com/Rushing-the-Klondike

https://www.amazon.ca/Rushing-Klondike-Joan-Donaldson-Yarmey/dp/0228622328

Sleuthing the Klondike

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/sleuthing-the-klondike

https://books2read.com/Sleuthing-the-Klondike

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0228624762?tag=books2read02-20

BWL Publishing Inc has published three different genre collections. The first is The Canadian Historical Brides. They wanted a book set in each province and territory and we Canadian authors, who wanted to participate, were invited to pick one of the provinces or territories to write a book about. I chose the Yukon and wrote my first Klondike book, titled 'Romancing the Klondike'. Then I wrote a sequel to it titled 'Rushing the Klondike'.

BWL decided to publish a second set, The Canadian Historical Mysteries, I again chose the Yukon and wrote 'Sleuthing the Klondike'. Now, BWL is presenting The Paranormal Canadiana Collection. I don't read paranormal novels or nor do I know much about paranormal phenomena but I like a challenge. I read a lot of books, watched paranormal shows, and researched on the Internet to learn about hauntings and ghosts and Haunting the Klondike is the result. It is set in the 1930s and is the fourth and final of my Klondike novels.

The main characters of Romancing the Klondike were cousins, Pearl Owens and Sam Owens, so it seemed fitting that they should be the main characters in this last one.

Here is the first chapter for your enjoyment.

Death in Darkness - Doug Fletcher mystery #19 - by Dean Hovey

 As always, research is a big part of my preparation for writing a book. My wife and I toured Jewel Cave National Monument and were inspired by the beauty, and intrigued by the possibilities offered by the remote Black Hills location. I had conversations with Kristina Doyle, a member of the "Paha Sapa Grotto" South Dakota spelunker's group, and Natalie Lund, who worked at Mammoth Cave National Park. By piecing together bits of what I saw and heard, I came up with a story that originates as a forest fire arson investigation (thanks Brian Garvey, MN Forestry Department arson investigator).

My investigative team of Doug and Jill Fletcher are assisted by Susie Rickowski, Jill's cousin, and caretaker of Jill's parents. Susie is an unemployed arson investigator who is brought in to determine the cause of a forest fire. She quickly determines the fire's origin is inside the US Park Service property. A burnt brush pile includes human remains.

While checking out the origins of the fire, the Fletchers are summoned to Jewel Cave where a member of an underground survey team reports that a team member has been injured and his remaining crew are carrying (and pulling, and pushing) her out of the maze of narrow passages inside the cave. Because the team was several days of travel into the cave, a rescue team is called in to assist them with the transport of the injured caver, who dies during her transport.

They determine the woman's death wasn't an accident, leaving Doug and Jill with the small, closeknit team of spelunkers as the only suspects. There's no open animosity among the team members, and none have an obvious motive.

Doug and Jill struggle to investigate a murder where the murder scene is inaccessible and the only suspects don't seem like suspects until an FBI intern uncovers one suspicious tidbit in the victim's past.

Check out "Death in Darkness" on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and at your favorite bookseller next month.

Rough Travels in the Eighteenth Century, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

The sequel to "Escape the Revolution", to purchase "Hostage to the Revolution", click HERE (or scroll to the bottom)

In modern times we take travel for granted. We can fly around the world if we wish. But in the eighteenth century, it was a rough, often dangerous trip, where you didn't get very far in a day.

Enjoy the ride.

Writing novels set in this era, I had to take into account how far my characters could get from point A to B. Were there even roads where they wanted to go?

When my heroine sailed to New York in 1796, she found she had to take another ship to New Orleans as no roads existed to travel on land that far.

The foreign traveler to England usually came across the English Channel, a stormy and uncomfortable sail in raging water, when at last they rejoiced to see the white cliffs of Dover. 

Then they had to clear the Customs' House. Their person and luggage were thoroughly searched, and any precious items could be confiscated. The richer could bribe the customs men to let them pass easily.

Once onshore a group of bawds, pimps, and pickpockets waited to take advantage of them. The Englishmen considered foreigners suspicious; people who ate snails and disregarded good English beer.

The visitors might be lodged in noisy, dirty inns, waiting to secure a coach to other cities, especially London--eighty miles away. It would take up to twelve days to make the journey.

The rich could hire a carriage and horses, or a post-chaise, but the average traveler was forced to board a crowded coach. The poorer among them rode on top of the coach, suffering the wind and rain. Even the luggage basket at the rear might hold a passenger or two.

Bad roads could turn to mud, and bogs, and coaching accidents were frequent.

The stage-coaches were heavy and lumbering. And your fellow travelers might be smelly and loud. The ride would be jolting, especially before the 1750s when springs were introduced.

The traveler paid by the mile and was expected to tip the driver and guard; the awful trip could be expensive. The guard rode next to the driver and carried a shotgun, hence the term "I call shotgun." Highwaymen often watched who boarded and if they looked rich, they'd rob the coach out on the open road.

When the coach entered an inn yard, the roof passengers had to climb off or be knocked over by an archway. Staying at the coaching inns, men and women crowded in beds, sharing with strangers, and might come away with fleas or bedbugs.

A bill was introduced in Parliament in the 1780s to regulate how many passengers could be allowed to ride inside and on the coach roof. It didn't pass.

All in all, travel is much more convenient now. And hotels cleaner. But putting these details into my writing brings the story to life.

To find out more about me and my books.

                    

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with one naughty dachshund.

Vikings, Shipwrecks and Ice cream!...by Sheila Claydon

 

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Cabin Fever was the first book BWL published for me. I'd had other books published elsewhere over the years, but making long distance friends with Jude, who started BWL, and is and will remain much missed following her recent sudden death, felt like coming home.

Cabin Fever, as is clear from the cover, is a cruise ship romance with many a mishap along the way. It has proved to be a favourite with many readers and it is also now available as a listening book on Audible. All good, but not as good as the true tale below.

I live in a small town of approximately 25,000 people that, until relatively recently, was a village of about 6,000! Indeed the main street is still referred to as the Village Centre, and it has an atmosphere to match. People are friendly and helpful, dogs are welcome everywhere (even in clothes shops!) and in the good weather the pavement cafes are full. Its history can be traced back thousands of years to when the Vikings 'invaded' with many local names having Viking roots.  I've put invaded in inverted commas because the invasion seems to have been no more than the norsemen setting up homesteads, marrying into the local population and making a living by farming and fishing.

For the next few thousand years, that was all there was. That and shipwrecks, because the 'village' is on the North West coast of the UK, facing the Irish Sea. And just a bit further down the coast is Liverpool Bay and Liverpool Docks. In the winter the sea can be stormy and uninviting and the skeletons of a few of the ships that were sailing into the port in treacherous weather can still be seen poking out of the sea bed at low tide. How many perished over many years is unknown but by the 1700s there were so many that eventually the Liverpool Dock Master decided something had to be done about it.  

Now as I've said, Formby (Fornebei in its original old Viking/Norse) was a tiny insignificant village. Looking into its past history I'm not sure it can even be called a village as it was more a scattering of farms surrounded by fields and woodland. It did, however, have pretensions! So in 1776 it became the home of the first lifeboat station in the world! 

How many lives the brave lifeboatmen (and they were all men in those days) saved between 1776 and 1916 when it closed, is unknown. Nowadays all that can be seen of what for 150 years was a very active lifeboat station is a pile of stones in the sand, and a small plaque. Formby Village, however, is not going to let its 250th anniversary go by without celebrating it. From 26-28 June there will be concerts, a gospel choir, live music and entertainment in the village, sea creatures, mermaids and King Neptune, and Lifeboat displays. Then, on the final day, there will be a service of thanksgiving led by a former Royal Navy chaplain, followed by a community concert compered by a TV presenter in one of the two local parks. It promises to be a fun weekend, especially for the families with young children who will be able to see a lifeboat up close, as well as having ice cream and their faces painted to, no doubt, a nautical theme.

Everything is free and Formby is gearing up for some fun. There will, of course, be sunshine! 

What those early settlers would make of it is anyone's guess. I think even the lifeboatmen of the 1700-1800s would be startled, but it's good to know that their bravery has not been forgotten. Nor the bravery of the huge dray horses who had to pull the lifeboat from its station across the beach to the sea. Sadly I cannot display any of the very old photos available as they are all copyrighted, but for anyone interested, an online visit to The Formby Civic Society's Flickr account (free) will give you the whole story.

And, for a romance fiction writer, there is a story in there somewhere. I just have to find it.