Mumps

I was recently reading some letters that my grandmother had and in one, my grandmother's aunt Flo writes about an, um, interesting cure for mumps:

(from December 1933)

"Take a can of cheap oysters and rub your face with the juice and put the oysters in a cloth, making a compress of them and tie it on your jaw. I remember trying it and if I am not mistaken I was most well in 4 days."

I thought about posting the letter in its entirety online but due to privacy concerns for living relatives, I just chose the passage above. Apparently, oysters weren't an unheard of treatment back in the day...

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