Before DEET: Discover how pioneers dealt with biting insects. Part 2. Lantana.

A man had gone hunting for supper with his son and had shot a possum. The boy went to go pick it up, but unfortunately, it wasn’t dead yet.  It swung around and chewed all the way from his hand to his shoulder.  Deep bites, with chunks of ripped and missing flesh. My uncle Grant said they had ridden up long after dark, but he and mama could still remember the blood still dripping off the side of the horse. 

Now, one thing about possum bites is that they get infected fast.  My uncle Grant ran in the house for my grandmother, Dolly. She directed my aunt Rene to go get a double handful of lantana leaves and throw it in a pot of boiling water, then pull it off the fire. Grandma and great grandma washed the wounds with the lantana water, coated the whole arm in honey, then wrapped in clean white linen.

And he was fine. Amazingly it never became infected, healed well, and he retained full use of his arm. He was a family friend into my childhood and would play cards regularly with my mom and my uncle. I remember the first time I asked about where he got his scars on his arm and he laughed and told me my grandma saved his life.

Of course, many people know about honey’s medicinal use. It has been used since ancient Egypt as wound dressing, and is still being used today in medical grade honey for wounds that will not heal. Antibacterial, antimicrobial, it’s the only food that will never go bad as long as it’s properly sealed. But what did the lantana do?

Lantana is an external only medicine. It contains a numbing agent to take the itch and sting out of any bites and stings. Also with healing properties, it helps heal burns, scrapes, cuts, bites. And when you make a tincture out of the leaves, it repels mosquitoes especially well.

Next time you get a mosquito bite, grab a fresh lantana leaf, wad it up between your fingers, and crush it into the bite so you leave a little green stain. It will take away the itch and the welt.