To Prevent Mold
A small quantity of carbolic acid added to paste, mucilage and ink, will prevent mold. An ounce of the acid to a gallon of whitewash will keep cellars and dairies from the disagreeable odor which often taints milk and meat kept in such places.
Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette
Frozen Feet – To Cure
Get some lumps of fresh lime and make a foot-tub full of strong whitewash mixture, and immerse the feet in it as hot as may be borne. This remedy is to cure that disagreeable itching that troubles one after having frozen the feet. This itching will come on night after night and season after season. The relief will be instantaneous. Let them remain half an hour in the whitewash. They will be shriveled up but free from pain. Rub them briskly and great rolls of dead cuticle will peel off. Anoint with mutton tallow, put on some cotton stockings, and go to bed. Repeat the application if necessary, but it will require but two or three to effect a cure.
Source: Mrs Owens’ Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, Frances Owens
How to Get Rid of Bedbugs
Bedbugs cannot stand hot alum water; indeed, alum seems to be death to them in any form. Take two pounds of alum, reduce it to a powder — the finer the better — and dissolve it in about four quarts of boiling water. Keep the water hot till the alum is all dissolved; then apply it hot to every joint, crevice and place about the bedstead, floor, skirting or washboard around the room, and every place where the bugs are likely to congregate, by means of a brush. A common syringe is an excellent thing to use in applying it to the bedstead. Apply the water as hot as you can. Apply it freely, and you will hardly be troubled any more that season with bugs. Whitewash the ceiling with plenty of dissolved alum in the wash, and there will be an end to their dropping down from thence on to your bed.
Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information