The James T. Callow Folklore Archive

For helping a baby with colic, take a teaspoon of baby
formula or milk and blow cigarette smoke on the teaspoon of milk
and give it to the baby.

James Callow comment: Cf. Puckett, Ohio, no. 2476: "To cure a breast-fed baby with
the colic, put some breast milk on a spoon, blow smoke from a
pipe on it, and feed it to the baby (M.M., F, 36, pract. nurse,
Negro, Cleveland, 1960); ... blow tobacco smoke on a teaspoonful
of mother's milk, etc. (Mrs. M.R., F, 74, farmw., Negro, New
Vienna, 1956)."

For other applications of tobacco smoke in the cure of
colic, see Puckett, Ohio, nos. 2477-2480, and Wayland Hand, North
Carolina, nos. 293-294, 1175. A powder of home-cured tobacco,
when made into a pill, has also been recommended for colic; see
Hand, idem,

Where learned: DETROIT

Date learned: 00-00-1951