For Colic

Drink strong ginger tea, while hot, and put hot bricks to the stomach and feet; if this does not give relief, take a dose of rhubarb or castor oil. Persons subject to the colic should keep a piece of ginger about them to chew after eating; wear flannel next the skin, and be careful to keep the feet dry: they should avoid strong coffee and tea, and eat nothing that disagrees with them. Dry toast without butter, and crackers, are good for persons that have the colic. For violent cases, take two table-spoonsful of brandy, and half a tea-spoonful of black pepper.

Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea

A very excellent Receipt against Convulsions which cur’d one had 9 Fitts a Day

Take Race oynions and black pepper of each a little quantity stamp’d pretty small and lay it to y^e soals of y^e feet keep it on 7 houres, whilst y^e party is in y^e fitt force them not to take any thing inwardly but anoynt y^e wrists on y^e inside, y^e palmes of y^e hands, y^e Temples and y^e nostrills (if it be a childe) with Methridate (if not) with oyle or spirit of Amber, between y^e fitts let it drinke black cherrey water sweetned with syrrop of Cloves & syrrop of Pyonies for a weeks time after y^e fitts first and last let them ware a necklace of single pyonie roots alwayes about theire neck, avoid giving syrrop of Violets if you fear fitts, but syrrop of Roses and Succory is good to be given together when costive this may be given to children of any age.

Source: A Book of Simples, H.W. Lewer

To Cure Earache

Take a bit of cotton batting, put on it a pinch of black pepper, gather it up and tie it, dip it in sweet oil, and insert it in the ear; put a flannel bandage over the head to keep it warm; it often gives immediate relief.

Tobacco smoke, puffed into the ear, has often been effectual.

Another remedy: Take equal parts of tincture of opium and glycerine. Mix, and from a warm teaspoon drop two or three drops into the ear, stop the ear tight with cotton, and repeat every hour or two. If matter should form in the ear, make a suds with castile soap and warm water, about 100° F., or a little more than milk warm, and have some person inject it into the ear while you hold that side of your head the lowest. If it does not heal in due time, inject a little carbolic acid and water in the proportion of one drachm of the acid to one pint of warm water each time after using the suds.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

To destroy Cockroaches, Ants, and other household Vermin

Hellebore, rubbed over with molasses, and put round the places that cockroaches frequent, is a very effectual poison for them. Arsenic, spread on bread and butter, and placed round rat or mouse holes, will soon put a stop to their ravages. Quicksilver and the white of an egg, beat together, and laid with a feather round the crevices of the bedsteads and the sacking, is very effectual in destroying bugs in them. To kill flies, when so numerous as to be troublesome, keep cobalt, wet with spirit, in a large shallow plate. The spirit will attract the flies, and the cobalt will kill them very soon. Black pepper is said to be good to destroy them — it should be mixed, so as to be very strong, with a little cream and sugar. Great care is necessary in using the above poisons, where there are any children, as they are so apt to eat any thing that comes in their way, and these poisons will prove as fatal to them as to vermin, (excepting the pepper.) The flour of sulphur is said to be good to drive ants away, if sprinkled round the places that they frequent. Sage is also good. Weak brine will kill worms in gravel walks, if kept moist with it a week in the spring, and three or four days in the fall.

Source: The American Housewife

Bleeding, Unusual Way to Stop

“If fresh, sprinkle full of black pepper. It will not smart, and is soon healed. If not fresh, clean with a weak solution saleratus and cover while wet with pepper. This has been tried many times in our home and has never failed.”

Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter