Remedies for Stings

The basis for successful treatment of stings is immediate action. Do not let stings and bites from insects and animals stay untreated, to inflame and swell.

            1. Ants. Pulp up some cloves of garlic or take slices of raw onion and apply
            at once. Further soothe the irritated parts with cucumber juice or pulped
            parsley or garlic in vinegar.

            2. Bees and Wasps. First remove the sting, ten press out the poison from the
            skin. Soothe the fire of the sting with a paste of whitewash. After an hour,
            wash off, as whitewash itself lightly burns the skin. Then soothe with herbal
            oil, and bind over with leaves of dock or plantain. Or apply parsley or
            garlic in vinegar, as above for ant bites.

            3. Scorpions, Poisonous Spiders, Medusae (jellyfish). If first-aid is
            necessary, cut the place with the point of a sharp knife and press or suck
            out (of course, not swallowing) all the surface poison. Then apply pulped
            leaves of wormwood, rue, and sage, as available. Preferably heat the leaves
            for a few minutes in hot water to make their volatile oils more easily
            available to the human skin. Bind in place with cotton bandages soaked in a
            mixture of hot water and vinegar, equal parts. Even more effective is an
            application of extracted oils of wormwood, rue and rosemary (see pages 7-8),
            if available, likewise covering with bandages soaked in hot vinegar water. (I
            have cured numerous cases of severe bites, several being from the giant
            species of scorpion, considered fatal, using this treatment.) The most
            effective and the speediest remedies are the essential oils of these herbs
            applied on swabs of cotton wool first dampened in hot water.

            4. Mosquitoes and Midges. To keep away when spending evenings out of    doors:

Gather some of the aromatic herbs, such as sage, southernwood, rue, rosemary, elecampane and others, add some dry paper or dry grass, place in quite large open cans, sprinkle the herbs with paraffin and ignite. The pungent smoke will clear the air of mosquitoes and kindred biting insects. The Mexican Indians burn thuja pine.

An excerpt from Common Herbs for Natural Health
by Juliette de Bairacli Levy.