The hot pepper tincture burned my lips, and the soap tasted putrid.

Still, I continued to chew my fingernails until I was 22.

Those awful home remedies were just two of many odd “cures” summoned up from my childhood.

As friends and I looked back at the unusual remedies prescribed by our mothers and grandmothers, we couldn’t help but laugh.

My husband remembers being embarrassed as a youth when the school nurse conducted physical exams and found a sticky black patch on a large cut that today would warrant stitches.

He recalls the nurse asking in horror, “What is that?”

It was some concoction his mother, and his grandmother and great-grandmother before her, made and kept in jars in the basement as a quick fix for any cut, scrape or major injury that came along.

To this day he has no idea what its ingredients were or whether it worked. He just remembers his mother lighting a match to heat the ointment and then letting it drip onto a piece of gauze which she applied, still hot, to the wound.

“They swore by this salve,” he recalls.

Another home remedy my husband had to endure as a child sounds even worse.

When he was about 10 years old and sick with pneumonia, his grandmother’s neighbor insisted the family put a piece of raw salt pork on his chest and cover it with gauze. They did.

I’m amazed he lived to adulthood.

To treat earaches, my siblings and I were subjected to warm vegetable oil poured into our ears (and all over the pillows and clothing).

The “medicine” seemed to be effective, probably because I willed my ear to feel better so I could avoid another dose.

A friend said her father, a smoker, would blow smoke into her ear to cure an earache. She insists it worked.

Some of the old remedies were no punishment at all and actually tasted good. I admit I still use them today.

My grandmother’s favorite medicine for a head or chest cold was the juice from half a lemon mixed with an equal amount of brandy and a tablespoon of honey.

Sometimes if I even imagine I am getting a cold I take this cure. It always makes me feel better.

Another old fashioned remedy I carried over to my adult life is salt. Gargling with warm salt water soothes a sore throat today just as it did when I was a child.

The remedy administered to us kids for an upset stomach also tasted good. My mother would break up a slice of bread in a bowl and pour milk and sugar on top. The soggy bread was yummy, especially to a kid with a sweet tooth.

Often we would pretend to need another dose of that “medicine” for our still-ailing tummies.

Vicks was a staple in almost every home when we were young. Whenever we had a cold or cough, my mom rubbed our chests liberally with the ointment and put a warm cloth over the top. The pleasant menthol smell opened my breathing passages quickly.

Even today I keep a jar of the stuff handy and use it whenever a cold strikes. Unlike some friends, I never put Vicks up my nose, which they have been doing since childhood.

An elderly neighbor’s cure for almost everything was iodine. Rare was the day I didn’t see him with orange skin.

I declined a friend’s childhood cure for any skin disorder, from poison ivy to acne. He remembers using a cotton ball to dab urine onto the affected area. Revolting as that remedy sounds, my friend swears it cleared up the problem in a day.

Hiccups continue to evoke scores of oddball remedies. One I will never forget came from the mother of a young friend. This woman insisted the hiccup victim immediately ingest something granular. Since we kids were playing outdoors, the mother scooped up a little sand from the sandbox and told me to eat it.

My hiccups stopped, but I later learned a spoonful of granulated sugar works just as well and goes down a lot easier.

Did these unusual treatments work? Certainly some have withstood the test of time.

As for the more bizarre home remedies, perhaps the only place for them nowadays is in our childhood memories.