Remedial Qualities of Common Fruits

A table giving the remedial qualities of the common fruits and vegetables is herewith appended: —

Celery for any form of rheumatism and nervous dyspepsia.

Lettuce for insomnia.

Water-cress for scurvy.

Onions are almost the best nervine known. Use for insomnia, for coughs and colds, and as a complexion curer. Eaten every other day, they soon have a clearing and whitening effect on the complexion.

Spinach for gravel.

Asparagus to induce perspiration.

Carrots for suffering from asthma.

Turnips for nervous disorders and for scurvy.

Raw beef proves of great benefit to persons of frail constitution, and to those suffering from consumption. It is chopped fine, seasoned with salt, and heated by placing it in a dish in hot water. It assimilates rapidly and affords the best nourishment.

Eggs contain a large amount of nutriment in a compact quickly available form. Beaten up raw with sugar they are used to clear and strengthen the voice. With sugar and lemon juice the beaten white of egg is used to relieve hoarseness.

Cranberries for erysipelas are used externally as well as internally.

Cranberries eaten raw are one of the finest tonics and appetizers known.

In cases of yellow or typhoid fever, cranberries are almost indispensable as a tonic and to assist in clearing the system of the harmful bacteria.

For some forms of dyspepsia there is no more simple and effective remedy than raw cranberries. Carry a supply in the pocket and eat them frequently during the day. They will cure headache as well.

People who are subject to biliousness will find that with cranberries a part of each day’s food they will be free from such attacks.

Honey is wholesome, strengthening, cleansing, healing and nourishing.

Fresh ripe fruits are excellent for purifying the blood and toning up the system.

Sour oranges are highly recommended for rheumatism.

Watermelon for epilepsy and for yellow fever.

Lemons for feverish thirst in sickness, biliousness, low fevers, rheumatism, colds, coughs, liver complaints, etc.

Blackberries for diarrhoea.

Tomatoes are a powerful aperient for the liver, a sovereign remedy for dyspepsia and for indigestion.

Tomatoes are invaluable in all conditions in which the use of calomel is indicated.

Figs are aperient and wholesome. They are said to be valuable as a food for those suffering from cancer. They are used externally as well as internally.

Bananas are useful as a food for those suffering from chronic diarrhoea.

Pie-plant is wholesome and aperient; is excellent for rheumatic sufferers and useful for purifying the blood.

Peanuts for indigestion. They are especially recommended for corpulent diabetes. Peanuts are made into a wholesome and nutritious soup, are browned and used as a coffee, are eaten as a relish simply baked, or are prepared and served as salted almonds.

Apples are useful in nervous dyspepsia; they are nutritious, medicinal and vitalizing; they aid digestion, clear the voice, correct the acidity of the stomach, are valuable in rheumatism, insomnia, and liver trouble. An apple contains as much nutriment as a potato, in a pleasanter, more wholesome form.

Grapes dissolve and dislodge gravel and calculi, and bring the stomach and bowels to a healthy condition.

Ripe pineapples have been put upon the list of foods especially healthful for persons troubled with indigestion, the juice being especially valuable in such cases. Shred with a silver fork, and reject all the indigestible core. The juice of a ripe pineapple is an almost invaluable remedy for diphtheria, the acid seeming to dissolve the strangling growth in the throat.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Camphorated Oil

Put into a large bottle four ounces of olive oil and four of spirits of camphor, and shake well. When there is pain in the chest or lungs rub with the camphorated oil. This is excellent to use in case of sprains or bruises.

Source: Miss Parloa’s Young Housekeeper, Maria Parloa

For Weakness of Stomach

1 drachm of prepared Columba root, and 1/2 drachm of rhubarb root, infused in 1/2 pint of boiling water, one day: add 1 oz. tincture of Columba, and a little sugar. 2 table-spoonsful, twice a day.– Or: put about 25 camomile flowers into 1/2 a pint boiling water, with 3 cloves, and 2 hops, cover close and let it stand all night: a tea-cupful first in the morning, and again an hour before dinner. If giddiness ensues, the camomile does not agree with the patient, and must not be continued. Where it does agree, this will be found to restore the appetite.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Cure for Coughs

Three newly-laid eggs, unbroken, over which pour the juice of six lemons, and allow to stand for forty-eight hours. Then pick out any bits of eggshell which are not dissolved; add one-half pound of rock candy, and one pint of Jamaica brandy ; mix well and bottle. Dose : 1 tablespoonful three or four times a day.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Tomato Syrup

Express the juice of ripe tomatoes, and put a pound of sugar to each quart of the juice, put it in bottles, and set it aside. In a few weeks it will have the appearance and flavor of pure wine of the best kind, and mixed with water is a delightful beverage for the sick. No alcohol is needed to preserve it.

The medical properties of the tomato are in high repute, and it is supposed that this syrup retains all that is contained in the fruit.

Source: Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, Catherine Beecher

To Relieve Neuralgia

When one is suffering from neuralgia in the head, put him in a warm bed. Make a brick very hot and cover it with several thicknesses of flannel. Fold a coarse, thick cloth and place it on the pillow. Lay the brick on this and wet thoroughly with rum. Rest the most painful part of the head or face on the brick, and throw a blanket over the patient, covering the head. Keep covered in this way until the pain ceases. When the blanket is removed, wipe the moisture from the head, face, and neck; then bathe in alcohol or rum, to prevent taking cold.

Another remedy is to make salt very hot by stirring it over the fire in a frying-pan; then pour it into a bag, which should be securely tied. Have the patient lie down, and cover him well. Place the bag of hot salt on that part of the head or face where the pain is located. The salt will retain the heat a long time. This method is much easier than the first, but it will not relieve one so quickly nor so thoroughly.

Source: Miss Parloa’s Young Housekeeper, Maria Parloa

Mustard Whey, for Dropsy and for Rheumatism

Boil 1 1/2 oz. bruised mustard seed, in a quart of milk and water, till the curd which forms is separated. Strain it and take a tea-cupful three times a day.

Another for Rheumatism: A handful of scraped horse-radish, and a table-spoonful of whole mustard seed, infused in a bottle of Madeira; the longer the better. A wine-glassful in bed at night, and another before the patient rises.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

For Children Teething

Tie a quarter of a pound of wheat flour in a thick cloth, and boil it in one quart of water for three hours; then remove the cloth and expose the flour to the air or heat until it is hard and dry; grate from it, when wanted, one tablespoonful, which put into half a pint of new milk, and stir over the fire until it comes to a boil, when add a pinch of salt and a tablespoonful of cold water, and serve. This gruel is excellent for children afflicted with summer complaint. Or, brown a tablespoonful of flour in the oven or on top of the stove on a baking-tin; feed a few pinches at a time to a child, and it will often check a diarrhoea. The tincture of “kino” — of which from ten to thirty drops, mixed with a little sugar and water in a spoon, and given every two or three hours, is very efficacious and harmless — can be procured at almost any druggist’s. Tablespoon doses of pure cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt, has cured when all else failed.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Garlic Syrup, for Hooping, or any other Cough

Put 3 roots of garlic, sliced thinly and transversely, with 4 oz. honey, and 4 oz. vinegar, into a 1/2 pint bason, and set that into a large wash-hand bason; let it infuse half an hour, then strain it. Take the first in the morning, and the last at night, a tea-spoonful of the syrup, in an equal quantity of brandy and water; put the water in the glass first.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Turpentine Applications

Refined turpentine is often very valuable in the sick-room. In cases of inflammation of the bowels, kidneys, or bladder, and of congestion of the lungs, a turpentine application often will relieve the most intense pain. Indeed, this remedy is good and safe for almost any pain that can be reached by external applications.

There are two ways of using the applications. When the turpentine is to remain on the patient for a long time, mix it with lard, and spread the mixture on flannel. Lay this on the seat of pain. It may be kept on for several hours. Use a tablespoonful of spirits of turpentine to half a pint of lard. If the pain be intense, two or three tablespoonfuls of turpentine may be used.

Another method is to wring flannel out of hot water, sprinkle the turpentine on this, and lay the flannel on the seat of pain. Cover with a dry flannel, and upon this lay a soft towel. Use a teaspoonful of turpentine for a surface about a foot square. In case of great pain even more turpentine may be required. Few patients can endure this hot application more than twenty minutes or half an hour. When the flannel is removed cover the inflamed part with a piece of soft linen.

If the pain come from gas in the stomach or bowels, put eight or ten drops of spirits of turpentine on a lump of sugar and let the patient eat this. Turpentine is very good to give in this way whenever there is bloating of the bowels from an accumulation of gas.

Source: Miss Parloa’s Young Housekeeper, Maria Parloa