Cure for Dyspepsia

Mix together equal quantities of bran and sugar, brown like coffee, and take two or three times a day.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

For Canker Sore Mouth

Burn a corn cob and apply the ashes two or three times a day.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

French Polish

Take a quarter of an ounce of gum sandarac and a quarter of an ounce of gum mastic; pick the dirt and black lumps out very carefully, and pound them in a mortar quite fine; put them into a bottle, and add to them a quartern (old measure) of strong spirit of wine; cork it down and put it in a warm place; shake it frequently till the gum is entirely dissolved, which will be in about twenty-four hours.

Before using it, be careful to ascertain that no grease is on the furniture, as grease would prevent its receiving the polish. If the furniture has been previously cleaned with bees’-wax or oil, it must be got off by scraping, which is the best way, but difficult to those who do not perfectly understand it, because if you are not very careful, you may scratch the surface, and create more expense than a workman would charge to do it properly at first. Or it may be done by scouring well with sand and water, and afterward rubbed quite smooth with fine glass paper, being careful to do it with the grain of the wood. To apply the polish, you must have a piece of list or cloth twisted, and tied round quite tight, and left even at one end, which should be covered with a piece of fine linen cloth; then pour a little of the polish on the furniture, and rub it well all over till it is worked into the grain of the wood, and begins to look quite smooth; then take a soft fine cloth, or what is better, an old silk handkerchief, and keep rubbing lightly until the polish is complete, which will take two or three hours. It will greatly help the polish if it is done near a fire.

If it does not look so smooth and clear as it should, a little sweet oil rubbed lightly over, and cleaned off directly, will greatly heighten it. If any part of the furniture has carving about it, where it will be impossible to polish, it must be done with mastic varnish, and a camel’s hair brush, after the rest is finished.

When the polish begins to look dull, it may be recovered with a little spirit of wine.

Source: The Cook’s Oracle and Housekeeper’s Manual, W.M. Kitchener

Chapped Hands

Take common starch and grind it with a knife until it is reduced to the smoothest powder. Take a tin box and fill it with starch thus prepared, so as to have it continually at hand for use. Then every time the hands are taken from the suds, or dish-water, rinse them thoroughly in clean water, wipe them, and while they are yet damp, rub a pinch of the starch thoroughly over them, covering the whole surface. We know many persons formerly afflicted with hands that would chap until the blood oozed from many minute crevices, completely freed from the trouble by the use of this simple remedy.

To rub the hands thoroughly, when damp, with wheat bran will have the same effect as the starch. It is also an excellent remedy for tetter on the hands — will stop the itching at once and effect a speedy cure.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Remedy for Corns

When corns are troublesome make a shield of buckskin leather an inch or two across, with a hole cut in the center the size of the corn; touch the exposed spot with pyroligneous acid which will eat it away in a few applications. Besides this a strong mixture of carbolic acid, and glycerine is good, say one-half as much acid as glycerine. Turpentine may also be used for corns and bunions. A weaker solution of carbolic acid will heal soft corns between the toes. A French medical journal reports the cure of the most refactory corns by the morning and evening application with a brush of a drop of a solution of the perchloride of iron. It states, that after a fortnight’s continued application, without pain, a patient who had suffered martyrdom for nearly forty years was entirely relieved.”

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook