Before he began to write down his history man was plagued daily by obstacles to his survival.
The fact that solved these is evidenced by his rise to dominance on this planet.
These solutions included herbal remedies for common physical ailments, ways to get food, ways to find and store water and many other things which we might take for granted today.
Man's solutions separated into specialty fields such as hunter or Shaman.
This gave those family members a some what mystical aura since they knew how to cure bow string elbow and the average tribe member did not.
So if you had it you knew who to go to.
Today's shaman is the Medical Doctor.
The medicos prescribe patented drugs to treat disease and have the skill of being able to remove or replace unwanted organs and broken body parts.
A treatment is only good if it can be controlled by a patent.
Natural cures that can be found outside of the drugstore without a prescription cannot be controlled and are bad.
I was once given some tests and told that I had "chronic mono" which is caused by a virus.
It appears that it is a crime in the eyes of the medicos for one of their own to treat a virus especially if he appears to be having success unless he is using a wonder drug from an approved pharmaceutical company.
I found myself caught up in the middle of this.
It was demanded that I reveal the name of the quack that had "cured" my incurable disease.
He actually did it with high doses of Vitamin C, Bioflavonoids, Garlic, and a couple other vits that were less significant.
It allowed me to resume a normal life and I failed to see the evil in the crime that his peers felt he had committed.
There are some amazing natural remedies.
While cooking one day I spilled hot grease on the space between my thumb and fore finger.
I was shocked when a friend started smearing honey over the now blistering wound.
I screamed at her "What is the matter with you!" Are you nuts!" But almost instantly I felt relief and in a few minutes the pain was gone.
The blisters were fading and within a couple of days all evidence of the burn was gone.
There was nothing to compare it with- pain free rapid healing.
Evidently it is supposed to work better with organic honey.
There is no way I can imagine a better result.
Many years ago my business partner's son came home from school with a note saying that he could not return until he was free of head lice, which he had contracted from a classmate.
I had never experienced this as a child perhaps because no self respecting louse would put up with the cold of a New Hampshire winter, but evidently this was a common occurrence with grade school kids.
The treatment involved repeated insecticide shampoos and combing and nit picking.
I recall that it wasn't a pleasant experience.
Since I have found more than a dozen natural remedies that involve absolutely no pesticides.
These can be found in your refrigerator like Mayonnaise and olive oil or your medicine cabinet like Listerine and tea tree oil, or from your local health food store or pharmacy.
There are many other natural head lice home remedies but those are the ones that come to mind.
My Step Father used to have terrible arthritis or so he says because you would never know it to see him in action.
When driving through Vermont he got into a conversation with a farmer and they got on to the subject of arthritis.
The farmer shared a remedy with him and ever since he has sworn by his "bitters" as he calls them.
It was honey, vinegar and water.
According to him he has never had arthritis problems since and he never misses taking his "bitters" at bed time.
I cannot even begin to guess at the number of natural remedies that exist but I know there are hundreds of them.
Things like "Chinese ant chalk" that gets rid of ants just by drawing a line around your doors and windows.
There is no toxic spray that comes close to working as well.
On the other hand it is also supposed to kill roaches and I have no evidence that it will.
In tests I tried they seemed unaffected by it.
Some people may have experienced positive results.
The point is that some of these are superior to their chemical counterparts but are not promoted because they cannot be controlled by patents.
Thought of another and this will be my last.
A completely natural flu remedy, Oscillococcinum is amazing It out performs any flu shot in my experience and is safe even for children.
You can avoid getting the flu completely if you take a vial these sugar pellets when you first notice the symptoms and follow it with 2 other doses spaced 6 hours apart.
It will not out perform drug remedies if you do not catch the flu at the out set.
Keeping some on hand is a good way to make sure that you catch it on time.
OK as promised that was the last one I'll mention but those are not the only remedies known to man.
You can scour the web for hundreds of these, remember those that I mentioned were only the ones that I had personal experience with.
Years ago you would have to depend on a chance encounter to learn about a natural remedy, but today using the Internet you have hundreds and hundreds of these at your finger tips just waiting for you to ask the right question.
It truly is the information age and you are part of it.
Take advantage of it!