Dr Le Fanu is a general practitioner who writes for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and a number of magazines. A couple of articles he has written, one an appeal for a method for removing chewing gum on eyelashes and the other about the use of acyclovir to treat cold sores, led to the compilation of this book. The article about cold sores led a number of readers to write to him about ordinary household substances like alcohol and earwax which they found more effective than prescribed drugs. When he mentioned these in a later article he received many accounts of home remedies for a variety of conditions. Apart from one account of a cure for warts, the remedies are not folk charms and magic, but cures that involve using common household products such as water, honey, chicken soup and lettuce.
The book starts with an introduction telling how the book came to be written and a review of the evidence for the possible efficacy of the more frequently recommended substances. Cures for a number of common illness are then described. These cover major conditions such as arthritis and cold sores as well as less serious problems such as snoring and hiccoughs. There is even a method for determining the sex of a child, but as he points out it is difficult to test whether the home remedy for this works because even if it is useless, 50 per cent of couples get a child of the sex they desired anyway. Clearly these cures have worked for those who wrote to him about them and there is no reason why they should not work for anyone else. None of them will do you any harm and some might do you good. He has recommended some of them to his patients, and they have reported success.
Home Remedies ought to be bought by general practitioners and medical schools, so that more doctors recommend simple remedies to their patients and so reduce their drugs bill, or at least use the money where it does most good. This may be a problem as this is obviously not an academic book. Perhaps librarians could suggest to those who teach general practice that they might like at least to look at the book in their local bookshop. It is an ideal public library item, possibly better as a loan book so that people take it home, dip into it and pick up a few ideas. The only problem is that the book is pocket‐book size, 21 centimetres tall and only 10 cm wide so it will easily get pushed behind other books. It should also sell well to the public; it looks attractive and is very reasonably priced.
