For Children Teething

Tie a quarter of a pound of wheat flour in a thick cloth, and boil it in one quart of water for three hours; then remove the cloth and expose the flour to the air or heat until it is hard and dry; grate from it, when wanted, one tablespoonful, which put into half a pint of new milk, and stir over the fire until it comes to a boil, when add a pinch of salt and a tablespoonful of cold water, and serve. This gruel is excellent for children afflicted with summer complaint. Or, brown a tablespoonful of flour in the oven or on top of the stove on a baking-tin; feed a few pinches at a time to a child, and it will often check a diarrhoea. The tincture of “kino” — of which from ten to thirty drops, mixed with a little sugar and water in a spoon, and given every two or three hours, is very efficacious and harmless — can be procured at almost any druggist’s. Tablespoon doses of pure cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt, has cured when all else failed.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Dried Flour for Teething Children

1 cup of flour, tied in a stout muslin bag and dropped into cold water, then set over the fire.

Boil three hours steadily. Turn out the flour ball and dry in the hot sun all day; or, if you need it at once, dry in a moderate oven without shutting the door.

To use it—

Grate a tablespoonful for a cupful of boiling milk and water (half and half). Wet up the flour with a very little cold water, stir in and boil five minutes. Put in a little salt.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

Prickly Heat

Rash, especially on young children, caused by heat. Wash with warm water and soap. Apply alcohol (one part to three of water). Dust with talcum powder.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer

When A Button Is Swallowed

Children sometimes swallow buttons, fruit stones, thimbles and pennies. When the mother is sure that the child has swallowed a foreign substance the child should be encouraged and even compelled to eat plentifully of mashed potatoes, thick mush and coarse bread. Then follow with syrup of rhubarb or castor oil. Do not give the cathartic immediately on finding out the accident but make sure that much bulky food is taken. Give a child slippery elm to chew when it swallows a penny or button or hard object. This forms a slippery coating on the surface of the penny in the stomach which aids it in passing easily through the intestine and prevents its lodging there and was the remedy applied by a physician when called.

Source: Civic League Cook Book

Warts

To remove the hard callous horny warts which sometimes appear on the hands of children, touch the wart carefully with a new pen dipped slightly in aqua-fortis. It will give no pain; and after repeating it a few times, the wart will be found so loose as to come off by rubbing it with the finger.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Hyssop Tea: a Remedy for Worms

To a quarter of an ounce of dried hyssop flowers, pour one pint of boiling water; allow the tea to infuse for ten minutes, pour it off, sweeten with honey, and take a wine-glassful three times in the course of the day; this will prove an effectual cure when children are troubled with worms.

Source: A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, C.E. Francatelli

Colic Mixture for Infants

Eighty drops of laudanum, fourteen of oil of anise, two tablespoonfuls of alcohol, and a piece of asafoetida as large as a pea; put these in an eight-ounce phial, and fill with warm water. Sweeten with loaf sugar. Dose from four to six drops to a child a few days old. Increase the dose as the child grows older.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Castor Oil Made Palatable

Boil castor oil with twice its quantity of milk, and sweeten it with sugar. Let it cool. Children will not refuse it.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

Children’s Sore Mouth

Get the pulverized borax, and to about one-third of a teaspoonful of borax, mix about one and a half teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar. Mothers should wash their babies’ mouths out every other morning with a solution of borax and water, they should keep a bottle of it dissolved all the time, pour a little into a cup, and with a cloth wrapt around the finger and dipped into the solution, wipe the child’s mouth out well with it; this will prevent children ever having sore mouths.

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Simple Cure for Worms

One spoonful of syrup of peach-blossoms, taken in a glass of the water from the steeped leaves, is a most safe and certain remedy for worms in children.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott