Folk healer

..."Granny" – and one may be a grandmother young in the mountains – if she has survived the labor and tribulation of her younger days, has gained freedom and a place of irresponsible authority in the home hardly rivaled by the men of the family.

In sickness, she is the first to be consulted, for she is generally something of an herb doctor, and her advice is sought by the young people of half the countryside in all things from a love affair to putting a new web in the loom.

Inside these books, readers can find a variety of recipes, how-tos, and descriptions of what it was like to live in rural Appalachia before technology was widely adopted.

These books have been viewed as a source of the very intimate daily life of rural Appalachians throughout history and are believed to perpetuate the values and belief systems of the people of the time, and, arguably, of the region today.

Foxfire volume 11 specifically elaborates on common herbal remedies and healing procedures of historic Appalachia, all of which had been created and passed down through families and folk healers.

In the early 1900s, for example, a Virginia man named Thomas Raleigh Carter became renowned for his prowess in healing skin cancer in addition to his midwifery.