As scientific research catches up with anecdotal evidence, the nutrients in hundreds of folk cures are looking more and more like medicine.

At times, they would use various herbs and plants to develop medicines and folk cures that they believed would help.

People with AIDS in India avoid dealing with it, and the traditional folk cures are of little avail.

The Italian community also had midwives and folk cures (a panacea for gastric ailments among infants was chamomile tea).

It pioneered the return to whole grains, unrefined sweets, using little fat in food preparation, seldom eating animal products, folk cures, herbal medicines, and breastfeeding.

Those were the folk cures and homeopathic remedies he tried.

"A Cordiall Water," a slender volume of folk cures, was published by Little, Brown in 1961.

For nine years, the Wilens have been among a relatively small group of people collecting and studying folk cures.

They have since appeared on the "Today" show on NBC and have begun their third book about folk cures.

Dr. Stanway said the actual medical properties of folk cures may be beside the point.