Salve for Cuts and Burns

November 13th, 2022

Take three carrots, grate them, place in a vessel and cover with fresh lard, simmer half an hour, strain and add sufficient beeswax to make a paste. This is a valuable ointment for cuts, burns or wounds of any kind.

Source: Fray’s Golden Recipes for the use of all ages, E. Fray

Slight Wounds

December 21st, 2021

When fresh wounds bleed much, lint dipped in vinegar or spirits of turpentine, may be pressed upon the surface for a few minutes, and retained by a moderately tight bandage; but if the blood spirts out violently, it shows that an artery is wounded, and it must be held very firmly till a surgeon arrives. But when the blood seems to flow equally from every part of the wound, and there is no reason therefore to suppose that any considerable vessel is wounded, it may be permitted to bleed while the dressings are preparing. The edges of the wound are then to be gently pressed together, and retained by straps of sticking plaster. These may remain on for three or four days, unless the sore becomes painful, or the matter smells offensive, in which case the straps of plaster must be taken off, the parts washed clean with warm water, and fresh slips of plaster applied, nicely adjusted to keep the wound closed. The slips must be laid over the wound crossways, and reach several inches beyond each side of it, in order to hold the parts firmly together. By keeping the limb or part very still, abstaining from strong liquors, taking only light mild food, and keeping the bowels open, all simple wounds may easily be healed in this manner. But poultices, greasy salves, or filling the wound with lint, will have an opposite effect. Even ragged or torn wounds may be drawn together and healed by sticking plaster, without any other salves or medicines. A broken shin, or slight ruffling of the skin, may be covered with lint dipped in equal parts of
vinegar and brandy, and left to stick on, unless the place inflames; and then weak goulard is the best remedy. Common cuts may be kept together by sticking plaster, or with only a piece of fine linen rag, or thread bound round them. The rag applied next to a cut or wound of any kind, should always be of white linen; but calico, or coloured rags, will do quite as well for outward bandages. Important wounds should always be committed to the care of a skilful surgeon.

Source: The Cook And Housekeeper’s Complete and Universal Dictionary, Mary Eaton

Salve

November 11th, 2021

Four ounces of mutton-tallow, two of beeswax, one of rosin, and one-half ounce of gum camphor. Simmer well together; take off the fire, and then add one gill of alcohol. Good for all kinds of sores and wounds.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

For Bruises, Cuts, or Wounds

July 8th, 2021

Keep in the house a bottle containing a mixture of 3/4 oz. of scented trefoil, of rum, and of sweet oil.– Or: have a bottle three parts full of brandy, fill it quite full with the white leaves of the flowers of the garden lily, and cork it close. Lay some of the leaves on the wound, and keep it wet with the liquor. The root of the same lily is used to make strong poultices.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Basilicon

June 28th, 2021

Yellow basilicon is made of equal quantities of bees-wax, white rosin, and frankincense. Melt them together over a slow fire, add the same weight of fresh lard, and strain it off while it is warm. This ointment is used for cleansing and healing wounds and ulcers.

Source: The Cook And Housekeeper’s Complete and Universal Dictionary, Mary Eaton

Green Mountain Salve

January 30th, 2019

Take one pound Beeswax, one pound of soft Butter, and one and one-half pounds soft Turpentine, twelve ounces Balsam Fir. Melt and strain. Use to heal fresh wounds, burns, scalds and all bad sores.

Source: One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed, C. A. Bogardus

Arnica Liniment

November 23rd, 2018

Add to one pint of sweet oil, two tablespoonfuls of tincture of arnica; or the leaves may be heated in the oil over a slow fire. Good for wounds, stiff joints, rheumatic, and all injuries.

Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie

Bleeding, Unusual Way to Stop

December 19th, 2008

“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

Judkins’ Ointment

November 23rd, 2008

Linseed-oil 1 pt; sweet oil 1 oz; and boil them in a kettle on coals for nearly 4 hours, as warm as you can; then have pulverized and mixed, borax 1/2 oz; red lead 4 ozs, and sugar of lead 1 1/2 ozs; remove the kettle from the fire and thicken in the powder; continue the stirrying until cooled to blood heat, then stir in 1 oz of spirits of turpentine; and now take out a little, letting it get cold, and if not then sufficiently thick to spread upon thin, soft linen as a salve, you will boil again until this point is reached.

[…] it is good for all kinds of wounds, bruises, sores, burns, white swellings, rheumatisms, ulcers, sore breasts, and even where there are wounds on the inside, it has been used with advantage, by applying a plaster over the part.

Source: Dr Chase’s Recipes, or Information for Everybody, A.W. Chase

Ingredients: Daisy

October 11th, 2008

Our English Daisy is a composite flower which is called in the glossaries “gowan,” or Yellow flower. Botanically it is named Bellis perennis, probably from bellis, “in fields of battle,” because of its fame in healing the wounds of soldiers; and perennis as implying that though “the rose has but a summer reign, the daisy never dies,” The flower is likewise known as “Bainwort,” “beloved by children,” and “the lesser Consound.” The whole plant has been carefully and exhaustively proved for curative purposes; and a medicinal tincture (H.) is now made from it with spirit of wine. Gerard says: “Daisies do mitigate all kinds of pain, especially in the joints, and gout proceeding from a hot humour, if stamped with new butter and applied upon the pained place.” And, “The leaves of Daisies used among pot herbs do make the belly soluble.” Pliny tells us the Daisy was used in his time with Mugwort as a resolvent to scrofulous tumours.

The leaves are acrid and pungent, being ungrateful to cattle, and even rejected by geese. These and the flowers, when chewed experimentally, have provoked giddiness and pains in the arms as if from coming boils: also a development of boils, “dark, fiery, and very sore,” on the back of the neck, and outside the jaws. For preventing, or aborting these same distressing formations when they begin to occur spontaneously, the tincture of Daisies should be taken in doses of five drops three times a day in water. Likewise this medicine should be given curatively on the principle of affinity between it and the symptoms induced in provers who have taken the same in material toxic doses, “when the brain is muddled, the sight dim, the spirits soon depressed, the temper irritable, the skin pimply, the heart apt to flutter, and the whole aspect careworn; as if from early excesses.” Then the infusion of the plant in tablespoonful doses, or the diluted tincture, will answer admirably to renovate and re-establish the health and strength of the sufferer.

The flowers and leaves are found to afford a considerable quantity of oil and of ammoniacal salts. The root was named Consolida minima by older physicians. Fabricius speaks of its efficacy in curing wounds and contusions. A decoction of the leaves and flowers was given internally, and the bruised herb blended with lard was applied outside. “The leaves stamped do take away bruises and swellings, whereupon, it was called in old time Bruisewort.” If eaten as a spring salad, or boiled like spinach, the leaves are pungent, and slightly laxative.

Being a diminutive plant with roots to correspond, the Daisy, on the doctrine of signatures, was formerly thought to arrest the bodily growth if taken with this view. Therefore its roots boiled in broth were given to young puppies so as to keep them of a small size. For the same reason the fairy Milkah fed her foster child on this plant, “that his height might not exceed that of a pigmy”:–

“She robbed dwarf elders of their fragrant fruit,
And fed him early with the daisy-root,
Whence through his veins the powerful juices ran,
And formed the beauteous miniature of man.”

“Daisy-roots and cream” were prescribed by the fairy godmothers of our childhood to stay the stature of those gawky youngsters who were shooting up into an ungainly development like “ill weeds growing apace.”

Daisies were said of old to be under the dominion of Venus, and later on they were dedicated to St. Margaret of Cortona. Therefore they were reputed good for the special-illnesses of females. It is remarkable there is no Greek word for this plant, or flower. Ossian the Gaelic poet feigns that the Daisy, whose white investments figure innocence, was first “sown above a baby’s grave by the dimpled hands of infantine angels.”

During mediaeval times the Daisy was worn by knights at a tournament as an emblem of fidelity. In his poem the Flower and the Leaf, Chaucer, who was ever loud in his praises of the “Eye of Day”–“empresse and floure of floures all,” thus pursues his theme:–

“And at the laste there began anon
A lady for to sing right womanly
A bargaret in praising the Daisie:
For–as methought among her notes sweet,
She said, ‘Si doucet est la Margarete.'”

The French name Marguerite is derived from a supposed resemblance of the Daisy to a pearl; and in Germany this flower is known as the Meadow Pearl. Likewise the Greek word for a pearl is Margaritos.

A saying goes that it is not Spring until a person can put his foot on twelve of these flowers. In the cultivated red Daisies used for bordering our gardens, the yellow central boss of each compound flower has given place to strap-shaped florets like the outer rays, and without pollen, so that the entire flower consists of this purple inflorescence. But such aristocratic culture has made the blossom unproductive of seed. Like many a proud and belted Earl, each of the pampered and richly coloured Daisies pays the penalty of its privileged luxuriance by a disability from perpetuating its species.

The Moon Daisy, or Oxeye Daisy (Leucanthemum Orysanthemum), St. John’s flower, belonging to the same tribe of plants, grows commonly with an erect stem about two feet high, in dry pastures and roads, bearing large solitary flowers which are balsamic and make a useful infusion for relieving chronic coughs, and for bronchial catarrhs. Boiled with some of the leaves and stalks they form, if sweetened with honey, or barley sugar, an excellent posset drink for the same purpose. In America the root is employed successfully for checking the night sweats of pulmonary consumption, a fluid extract thereof being made for this object, the dose of which is from fifteen to sixty drops in water.

The Moon Daisy is named Maudlin-wort from St. Mary Magdalene, and bears its lunar name from the Grecian goddess of the moon, Artemis, who particularly governed the female health. Similarly, our bright little Daisy, “the constellated flower that never sets,” owns the name Herb Margaret. The Moon Daisy is also called Bull Daisy, Gipsies’ Daisy, Goldings, Midsummer Daisy, Mace Flinwort, and Espilawn. Its young leaves are sometimes used as a flavouring in soups and stews. The flower was compared to the representation of a full moon, and was formerly dedicated to the Isis of the Egyptians. Tom Hood wrote of a traveller estranged far from his native shores, and walking despondently in a distant land:–

“When lo! he starts with glad surprise,
Home thoughts come rushing o’er him,
For, modest, wee, and crimson-tipped
A flower he sees before him.
With eager haste he stoops him down,
His eyes with moisture hazy;
And as he plucks the simple bloom
He murmurs, ‘Lawk, a Daisy'”!

Source: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, William Thomas Fernie

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    NOTE: these remedies are listed only for information and/or amusement. They are not to be construed as medical advice of any type, nor are they recommended for use. Consult your doctor or other medical professional for any medical advice you require.