To Remedy A Sluggish Liver

Boil two ounces of freshly-sliced dandelion root in two pints of water until the liquor is reduced to one pint, then add one ounce of compound tincture of horse-radish. Use occasionally.

Or, take occasionally ten minims of tincture of rhubarb, ten grains of bicarbonate of soda, and twenty grains of Epsom salts, in a wineglassful of water.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Wheat Gruel for Young Children with weak stomachs, or for Invalids

Tie half a pint of wheat flour in thick cotton, and boil it three or four hours; then dry the lump and grate it when you use it. Prepare a gruel of it by making a thin paste, and pouring it into boiling milk and water, and flavor with salt. This is good for teething children.

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

Hallett’s Gout and Bilious Cordial

Infuse in a gallon of distilled aniseed water, 3 oz. Turkey rhubarb, 4 oz. senna leaves, 4 oz. guaiacum shavings, 3 oz. elecampagne root, 1 oz. fennel seed, 14 oz. saffron, 14 oz. cochineal, 1 lb. sun raisins, 1 oz. aniseed; shake it every day for a fortnight; strain and bottle it. A table-spoonful (or two) an hour after dinner.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Cure for Hiccough

A good cure for hiccough is slippery elm-bark boiled and made sweet with sugar.

Source: The New Galt Cook Book, M. Taylor & F. McNaught

Seidlitz Powders

Two drachms of Rochelle salts, and two scruples of bicarbonate of soda, in a white paper; thirty-five grains of tartaric acid in a blue one.

Dissolve that in the white paper in nearly half a tumbler of water, then add the other powder, dissolved in another half tumbler of water.

Syrup mixed with the water makes it more agreeable. It is a gentle laxative.

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

For Bruises and Swellings

Use distilled witch-hazel, wetting a cloth and applying frequently. Both better and cheaper than arnica.

Source: The New Galt Cook Book, M. Taylor & F. McNaught

For Burns

Wet cotton batting with coal oil and put on the burn, keeping there until it is well.

Source: The New Galt Cook Book, M. Taylor & F. McNaught

A Mild Aperient (To Take In The Spring)

Put 1 oz. of senna into a jar, and pour 1 quart of boiling water over it; fill up the vessel, with prunes and figs; cover with paper, and set it in the oven, with household bread. Take every morning, one or two prunes, and a wine-glass of the liquor.– Or: dissolve 3 oz. of Spanish liquorice in one pint boiling water, add 1 oz. socotrine aloes in powder, and 1 pint brandy. Take 1 tea-spoonful in a wine-glassful of water, either in the morning, at night, or both.– Or: a large tea-spoonful of magnesia, a lump of sugar, a dessert-spoonful of lemon juice, in 1/2 pint of spring water.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Toothache

Apply chloroform to the nerve of the tooth, by means of a quill tooth pick. Chloroform is so volatile that when introduced through cotton it seldom reaches the nerve.

Source: Tried and True Recipes, F.D.P. Jermain

Egg Gruel

Beat the yolk of an egg with a spoonful of white sugar, and then beat the white separately, to a stiff froth. Pour water when boiling to the yolk, then stir in the white and add spice, or any seasoning, to suit the taste. When a person has taken a violent cold, after being warm in bed give this as hot as it can be taken, and it is often a perfect cure.

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