For a Dry, Irritating Cough
Smoke in a common clean pipe equal quantities of ground coffee and rich pine saw-dust. My husband finds almost instant relief when his throat and lungs are sore. Swallow all the smoke you can.
Source: Mrs Owens’ Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, Frances Owens
To Cure Watery and Inflamed Eyes
Foment frequently with decoction of poppy heads. When the irritation and inflammation occur, a teaspoonful of cognac brandy in four ounces of spring water may be used three or four times in the course of the day as a strengthening lotion.
Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information
Frozen Feet – To Cure
Get some lumps of fresh lime and make a foot-tub full of strong whitewash mixture, and immerse the feet in it as hot as may be borne. This remedy is to cure that disagreeable itching that troubles one after having frozen the feet. This itching will come on night after night and season after season. The relief will be instantaneous. Let them remain half an hour in the whitewash. They will be shriveled up but free from pain. Rub them briskly and great rolls of dead cuticle will peel off. Anoint with mutton tallow, put on some cotton stockings, and go to bed. Repeat the application if necessary, but it will require but two or three to effect a cure.
Source: Mrs Owens’ Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, Frances Owens
Warts
Warts, like chilblains, are too well known to require description. They chiefly attack the hands, and particularly the fingers, but sometimes occur on other portions of the body. They may be removed by rubbing or moistening their extremities every day, or every other day, with lunar caustic, nitric acid, concentrated acetic acid, or aromatic vinegar, care being taken not to wash the hands for some hours after. The first is an extremely convenient and manageable substance, from not being liable to drop or spread; but it produces a black stain, which remains till the cauterized surface peels off. The second produces a yellow stain, in depth proportioned to the strength of the acid employed. This also wears off after the lapse of a few days. The others scarcely discolor the skin.
Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information
Rye Tooth Powder
Rye contains carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, oxide of iron, manganese, and silica, all suitable for application to the teeth. Therefore, a fine tooth powder is made by burning rye, or rye bread, to ashes, and grinding it to powder by passing the rolling-pin over it. Pass the powder through a sieve, and use.
Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information
How to Get Rid of Bedbugs
Bedbugs cannot stand hot alum water; indeed, alum seems to be death to them in any form. Take two pounds of alum, reduce it to a powder — the finer the better — and dissolve it in about four quarts of boiling water. Keep the water hot till the alum is all dissolved; then apply it hot to every joint, crevice and place about the bedstead, floor, skirting or washboard around the room, and every place where the bugs are likely to congregate, by means of a brush. A common syringe is an excellent thing to use in applying it to the bedstead. Apply the water as hot as you can. Apply it freely, and you will hardly be troubled any more that season with bugs. Whitewash the ceiling with plenty of dissolved alum in the wash, and there will be an end to their dropping down from thence on to your bed.
Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information
To Improve the Eyelashes
Many people speak highly of this secret. Trim the tiny points slightly, and anoint with this salve: Two drams of ointment of nitric oxida of mercury, and one dram of lard. Mix the lard and ointment well, and anoint the edges of the eyelids night and morning, after each time, with milk and water. This will restore the lashes when all other remedies fail. It is not known in this country, and is a valuable secret.
Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information
Ague Pills
Take quinine, twenty grains; piperine, ten grains; Dover’s Powder, ten grains; cayenne, ten grains. Mix, pulverize, and make into twenty pills with a little gum arabic or extract of gentian or boneset. To be taken at the rate of one pill an hour when there is no fever, or during intermission, until twelve pills are taken, the balance to be taken on the third day or next well day. Good as a remedy for the chills or fever and ague.
Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information.
Hair Tonic III
Digest half an ounce of pine tar in a pint of water for forty-eight hours, stirring occasionally; filter, and put with the other fluid, then add one pint of bay rum, one ounce each of cologne and tincture of cantharides, two ounces of glycerin and ten ounces of distilled water. Apply daily, using a tonic brush.
Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter
Epileptic Pills
Take sulphate of zinc, sixty grains; rhubarb and ipecac, each thirty grains; cayenne, sixty grains. Make into sixty pills with extract of hyoscyamus. Dose: One pill night and morning for one week, then leave off for a week, and then resume again, and so on every other week. An important remedy, and has cured many cases of epileptic fits when taken in the early stages.
Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information