Hay Fever, To Cure

This unpleasant complaint may be cured by aconite and white wine whey taken at bed-time. Boil half a pint of milk, add a little aconite and a glass of sherry, strain through muslin, and sweeten the whey with white sugar.

To twelve parts of absolute phenol, eight parts of carbonate of ammonia, twenty-two parts of strong solution of ammonia, half a part of oil of lavender, and one and a half parts of camphor, add a little sifted pine sawdust. Inhale five or six times a day, or when the sneezing comes on.

Relief has often been found by wearing tinted side spectacles to soften the light and lessen the glare of the sun.

Source: Recipes for the Million

An Ointment for Burns

Take a Pound of Bores-Grease, two Pints of White-Wine, the Leaves of the greater Sage, Ground- and Wall-Ivy, Sweet Marjoram, or the Greater House-Leek, of each two handfuls.

Let the whole Mass be boil’d over a gentle Fire, and having afterward strain’d and squeez’d it, let the Ointment so made be kept for use.

Source: The Compleat Surgeon, Charles Gabriel Le Clerc

For the Giddiness in the Head

Take an ounce of comming Seed and Steep it in white wine all night as much wine as will cover it and then you must dry it in an oven after the bread is drawn and dry with it an ounce of Juniper berrys & a handfull of rue then you must beat all these together to a fine powder and when you use it take as much of the powder as will lay on a Sixpence in a Spoonfull of honey well mixed together or in a Spoonfull of Sugar and take it dry.

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

How to make White Wine Whey

Put a pint of milk into a very clean saucepan or skillet, to boil on the fire; then add half a gill of any kind of white wine; allow the milk to boil up, then pour it into a basin, and allow it to stand in a cool place, that the curd may fall to the bottom of the basin; then pour off the whey — which is excellent as an agent to remove a severe cough or cold.

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

For Cold

There is no remedy so good as to go to bed and stay there, drinking nothing, not even water, for twenty-four hours, and eating as little as possible. Or, go to bed; put your feet in hot mustard and water; put a bran or oatmeal poultice on the chest ; take ten grains of Dover’s powder, and an hour afterwards a pint of hot gruel ; in the morning rub the body all over with a coarse towel, and take a dose of aperient medicine.

Violet, pennyroyal, or boneset tea are excellent to promote perspiration in case of sudden chill.

Or, take white wine whey. One pint of milk ; two wineglassfuls of white wine ; one teaspoonful of vinegar. Simmer gently; then strain, sweeten, and spice; give hot.

Source: The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide, Mrs Washington

Bloody Flux

Apply a suppository of linen dipt in Aqua Vitae.

Or, drink cold water, as largely as possible, taking nothing else till the flux stops.

Or, take a large apple, and at the top pick out all the core, and fill up the place with a piece of honey comb; (the honey being strained out,) roast the apple in embers, and eat it, and this will stop the flux immediately.

Or grated rhubarb, as much as lies on a shilling, with half as much of grated nutmeg, in a glass of white wine, at lying down, every other night. Tried.

Or take four drops of Laudanum, and apply to the belly a poultice of wormwood and red roses boiled in milk.

In a Dysentery, the worst of all fluxes, feed on rice, saloup, sago, and sometimes beef-tea; but no flesh.

To stop it, take a spoonful of suet melted over a slow fire. Do not let blood.

A person was cured in one day, by feeding on rice milk, and sitting a quarter of an hour in a shallow tub, having in it warm water three inches deep.

Source: Primitive Physic: or an easy and natural method of curing most diseases, John Wesley.