A Remedy For Boils

An excellent remedy for boils is water of a temperature agreeable to the feelings of the patient. Apply wet linen to the part affected and frequently renew or moisten it. It is said to be the most effectual remedy known. Take inwardly some good blood purifier.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

To Keep Out Red Ants

Place in the closet, or wherever they appear, a small quantity of green sage.

The Kansas Home Cook-Book

To Prevent Horses’ Feet from Scalding or Cracking

Coat the hoofs once a week with an ointment consisting of equal parts of soap fat, yellow wax, linseed oil, Venice turpentine, and Norway tar; melt the wax separately before mixing.

Source: The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide, Mrs Washington

Diphtheria

A gargle of sulphur and water has been used with much success in cases of diphtheria. Let the patient swallow a little of the mixture. Or, when you discover that your throat is a little sore, bind a strip of flannel around the throat, wet in camphor, and gargle salt and vinegar occasionally.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Hemlock Poultice

Two drachms of dried hemlock; two pints of water boiled down to one; add sufficient linseed meal to make it of a proper consistency. Excellent for cancerous and scrofulous ulcers, and malignant sores.

Source: The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide, Mrs Washington

To Get Rid Of Corns

Dress them every night with turpentine. After a fortnight or three weeks of this treatment, the corns, with their roots, will “tumble out.”

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

Soreness of the Chest

White wadding folded in two or three thicknesses and bound on the chest. It is equally good in sore throat, or face, produced by cold.

Source: The Kansas Home Cook-Book

Arrowroot Wine Jelly

One cupful of boiling water, one scant tablespoonful of arrowroot, mixed with a little cold water, one tablespoonful of sugar, a pinch of salt, one tablespoonful of brandy, or three tablespoonfuls of wine. Excellent for a sick person without fever.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Cough Tea

Make a strong tea of everlasting–strain, and put to a quart of it two ounces of figs or raisins, two of liquorice, cut in bits. Boil them in the tea for twenty minutes, then take the tea from the fire, and add to it the juice of a lemon. This is an excellent remedy for a tight cough–it should be drank freely, being perfectly innocent. It is the most effectual when hot.

Source: The American Housewife

Draughts for the Feet

Take a large leaf from the horse-radish plant, and cut out the hard fibres that run through the leaf; place it on a hot shovel for a moment to soften it, fold it, and fasten it closely in the hollow of the foot by a cloth bandage.

Burdock leaves, cabbage leaves, and mullein leaves, are used in the same manner, to alleviate pain and promote perspiration.

Garlics are also made for draughts by pounding them, placing them on a hot tin plate for a moment to sweat them, and binding them closely to the hollow of the foot by a cloth bandage.

Draughts of onions, for infants, are made by roasting onions in hot ashes, and, when they are quite soft, peeling off the outside, mashing them, and applying them on a cloth as usual.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette