Rice Water for Diarrhoea

Put one cup of rice into the frypan, and stir over the fire until it is a dark brown. If convenient, after it has been browned, pound it. Take half a cup of the rice, and pour over it nearly one quart of water, and let it stand on the stove twenty minutes; then strain, and add boiled milk and sugar to taste. Drink freely of this.

Source: Camp Cookery, Maria Parloa

For Aching Feet

Any one who has aching feet, if the feet are placed in kerosene for about ten minutes each day will receive the greatest relief. If used regularly for a month is said to cure all corns and callous places on the feet. Will not blister or do any injury.

Source: The Just-Wed Cook Book

Herb Teas

Herb teas are made by infusing the dried or green leaves and stalks in boiling water, and letting them stand until cold. Sweeten to taste.

Sage tea, sweetened with honey, is good for a sore throat, used as a gargle, with a small bit of alum dissolved in it.

Catnip tea is the best panacea for infant ills, in the way of cold and colic, known to nurses.

Pennyroyal tea will often avert the unpleasant consequences of a sudden check of perspiration, or the evils induced by ladies’ thin shoes.

Chamomile and gentian teas are excellent tonics taken either cold or hot.

The tea made from blackberry-root is said to be good for summer disorders. That from green strawberry leaves is an admirable and soothing wash for a cankered mouth.

Tea of parsley-root scraped and steeped in boiling water, taken warm, will often cure strangury and kindred affections, as will that made from dried pumpkin-seed.

Tansy and rue teas are useful in cases of colic, as are fennel seeds steeped in brandy.

A tea of damask-rose leaves, dry or fresh, will usually subdue any simple case of summer complaint in infants.

Mint tea, made from the green leaves, crushed in cold or hot water and sweetened, is palatable and healing to the stomach and bowels.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

Apple Toddy

Boil a large juicy pippin in a quart of water, and when it has broken to pieces strain off the water. While it is still boiling-hot, add a glass of fine old whiskey, a little lemon-juice, and sweeten to taste.

Take hot at bed-time for influenza.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

Eye Lotions

1. Dissolve 100 grs of boric acid in 6 oz water.
2. Add one teaspoonful Condy’s fluid to 10 oz water.
3. Dissolve 30 grs alum and 10 grs sulphate of zinc in 10 oz water.
4. Goulard water.
5. Cold tea. Useful in cases of slight inflammation.

Source: The Complete Household Adviser

Chilblains

Due to bad circulation in the parts affected — the hands, feet, and ears. A person addicted to chilblains should wear thick, warm underclothing on arms and legs, and avoid garters or anything which tends to check the circulation. As the blood comes very near the surface at the wrists, it will be less chilled before entering the hands if woollen wristlets be worn indoors in cold weather. Thick-soled boots, lined with cork “socks”, will help to prevent chilblains in the feet when standing about in cold, damp weather. Cold draughts round the feet indoors, and standing on cold flooring while dressing and undressing are productive of chilblains in the toes. Daily baths as cold as suits, followed by brisk rubbing, and plenty of exercise and good food, will do a great deal to keep chilblains at bay. If they appear, however, bathing in hot water, followed by squeezing of the swellings with the fingers and the application of camphorated oil, helps to stop the itching. Broken chilblains should be treated like chapped hands. In cases where the cracks are very feep care must be taken to prevent infection by dressing with boracic lint and powder like other open wounds.

Source: The Complete Household Adviser