Asthma

As this complaint generally attacks aged people, the best mode of relief will be to attend carefully to diet and exercise, which should be light and easy, and to avoid as much as possible an exposure to cold and frosty air. The temperature of the apartment should be equalised to moderate summer’s heat by flues and stoves, and frequently ventilated. A dish of the best coffee, newly ground and made very strong, and taken frequently without milk or sugar, has been found highly beneficial. An excellent diet drink may be made of toast and water, with the addition of a little vinegar, or a few grains of nitre. Tar water is strongly recommended, and also the smoking of the dried leaves of stramonium, commonly called the thorn-apple.

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

For Burns or Scalds

Keep in a bottle, tightly corked, 1/2 oz. of trefoil, and the same of sweet oil; apply with a feather, immediately that the accident has occurred. Linseed or olive oil, applied instantly, will draw out the fire; treacle will have the same effect, and is recommended by some persons, in preference to anything else. Others say that fine flour, applied instantly, is the best thing; as soon as it becomes warm, replace it with fresh. Wadding also laid on the part instantly is good to draw out the fire.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Almond Emulsion for a Cough

Beat well in a marble mortar, 6 drachms of sweet almonds blanched, and 2 drachms of white sugar, add 1 pint cold water, by degrees; strain, then add 2 table-spoonsful of sweet spirits of nitre. Cork, and keep it in a cool place, or in cold water. A tea-spoonful three times a day.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Perspiration, To Remedy Profuse

Take nutritious and a rather generous diet, with a tonic of citrate of iron and quinine. Locally the skin should be washed with juniper tar soap and sponged from time to time with a lotion containing one part liquid ammonia and three parts water.

A foreign physician has found the following a cure in many cases : — Take of powdered sage leaves a large teaspoonful, boil them gently for five minutes in six ounces of water, strain, sweeten to taste, and take a third part three times daily.

The following is also recommended : — To a wineglassful of water add two drams of compound spirits of camphor and forty drops of diluted sulphuric acid. Dose: One tablespoonful twice a day.

Source: Recipes for the Million

For Indigestion

1 handful senna leaves
2 teaspoonsful sugar
1 teaspoonful ground ginger
1 pint boiling water
2 teaspoonsful carbonate soda
1 teaspoonful essence of peppermint

Boil slowly, for 1/2 an hour, the senna, sugar, ginger, and soda, then strain and cool. When quite cold, put into a bottle with the essence of peppermint.

Take a wine-glass fasting, or before meals.

Source: The Northampton Cookery Book, M.A. Jeffery