GRAEDONS | People's Herbal Pharmacy Tales about keys stopping nosebleeds are still true t oday

Q. I have read with interest your columns reporting keys as a solution for nosebleeds. I've been reading "A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur," an autobiography by Gayatri Devi.
In talking about palace guests whom she particularly admired as a child of 11 (in the early 1930s), she describes: "the especially thrilling Douglas Fairbanks Sr., the great swashbuckling film star. Later he came to Cooch Behar on a shoot and I had an even more unexpected bit of luck. My nose began to bleed, and [he] looked after me and put a key down my back to stop the bleeding."
I've never had nosebleeds but I can't help being intrigued by this lore.
A. Thank you for sharing this fascinating anecdote. We have heard from dozens of readers that putting cold keys down the back of the neck can stop a nosebleed quickly. Who knows where Douglas Fairbanks learned this folk remedy, but it has obviously been around for a very long time.
Q. Here's a remedy for carpenters and parents. If you smash your finger with a hammer, plunge the finger into turpentine and keep it there a few minutes until the pain goes away. It prevents a blue fingernail.
I keep bottles of "medicinal turpentine," available in drugstores, in every medicine cabinet. My drugstore also sells a product called Apinol. The pharmacist says it has the same active ingredient.
When my son was 2, I slammed the car trunk lid on his finger. By the time I found the key and opened the trunk, he was screaming blue murder. We were in a shopping center, so I carried him into the drugstore, found the medicinal turpentine, sat down on the floor, opened the bottle and stuck his finger in it. When he quit hollering and said his finger had stopped hurting, I paid for the turpentine. He had no more pain and no blue fingernail.
A. Although we have never heard of this remedy before, a pharmacist assures us that there is "medicinal turpentine," which contains turpentine oil. It is used as an external analgesic and is also found in Vicks VapoRub.
Apinol has been around for more than a century. It is promoted for treating insect bites, stings, scrapes and bruises. If the local pharmacy doesn't carry it, Apinol can be found on the Internet (www.apinol.com).
Q. My husband was having severe leg cramps at night. Without telling him, I placed a soap bar under his sheets for two nights before he noticed. It worked! He's had no more cramps. We still can't believe it!
A. We have heard from many readers who have had success with the bar of soap stopping leg cramps. The instructions are to put it under the bottom sheet, near where the legs will be. We don't know why it works, but the risks are low.
We have included this remedy with many others for treating leg cramps in our Guide to Leg Pain.
Q. I have a problem with depression, and, believe it or not, St. John's wort has been the only thing to offer any effective mood elevation at all. Unfortunately, it seems to also cause an outbreak of hives. Have you seen or heard of this?
A. An ingredient in St. John's wort sensitizes the skin to the sun. This can lead to rash or severe sunburn, or you may be allergic to this herb.
XIn their column, Joe and Teresa Graedon answer letters from readers. Write to them in care of King Features Syndicate, 888 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10019, or e-mail them at peoplespharmacy@gmail.com or via their Web site: www.peoplespharmacy.org.
& copy; 2005 King Features Syndicate Inc.