Home Remedies

Many families have their own types of ways to heal any sick person that enters their house. From grandmas special soup, to the poultice that your great-great-great grandmother made that is sure to cure a fever. In some communities that are so close that when someone that everybody knows is desperately sick or in trouble, the neighbors band together to help out. In Modern time, it isn’t as common for someone with a serious illness to stay home and not go to professional help; but pre-1970s,  African Americans sometimes did not have the option to go to a hospital for serious ailments, and had to rely on the medicines used by their ancestors. Even if they did go to the hospital designated for African Americans, since there was the common practice of racial desegregation in hospitals up to the 20th century, the care there was of low quality and subpar (Hospitals). This is no different than what happened in Home when Frank brought his sister Cee back after rescuing her from the Doctor that caused her. What happened to Cee was caused by a doctor, and even if they took her to a hospital, she was African and they were unlikely to admit her to their care, and try to cure her.

In this case, Cee was in need of the women of the small town of Lotus to heal her from the experimental damage caused to her by her boss, because Cee thought that what he was doing was great work and saw no harm in it being done to her. ‘And they knew how to repair what an educated bandit doctor had plundered’ (page 129, Home). The methods they had to heal Cee back to her somewhat former glory, was unorthodox, and for modern times they would seem like hogwash, but they worked to heal Cee, with the unfortunate side effect of her never being able to have kids. The crux of the matter here though, is that the doctor, who was educated and helped so many others, had experimented on Cee, with her approval, and almost killed her. But these women who watched her grow up, banded together to heal her of this sickness that was threatening her. Without any medical training, such as Dr. Beau had, they healed Cee and now she can live and learn from her mistakes.

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