Thieves’ Vinegar

Take a large handful of lavender blossoms, and the same quantity of sage, mint, rue, wormwood and rosemary. Chop and mix them well. Put them into a jar, with half an ounce of camphor that has been dissolved in a little alcohol, and pour in three quarts of strong clear vinegar. Keep the jar for two or three weeks in the hot sun, and at night plunge it into a box of heated sand. Afterwards strain and bottle the liquid, putting into each bottle a clove of garlic sliced. To have it very clear, after it has been bottled for a week, you should pour it off carefully from the sediment, and filter it through blotting paper. Then wash the bottles, and return the vinegar to them. It should be kept very tightly corked. It is used for sprinkling about in sick-rooms; and also in close damp oppressive weather. Inhaling the odour from a small bottle will frequently prevent faintness in a crowd.

It is best to make it in June.

This vinegar is so called from an old tradition, that during the prevalence of the plague in London the composition was invented by four thieves, who found it a preservative from contagion; and were by that means enabled to remain in the city and exercise their profession to great advantage, after most of the inhabitants had fled.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Colds

For a cold in the head just appearing inhale spirits of camphor. Put one or two drops of camphor on a small lump of sugar, dissolve in a wine glass of water, (one gill) and take a teaspoonful every half hour. Take a good cathartic or drink four or five glasses of hot water at bed time and in half an hour follow with four more glasses of hot water. Gargle sore throat with warm water and alcohol or warm water and salt using one level teaspoon of salt to a pint of water. If cold has made the throat or lungs sore, dip a cloth in cold water, wring dry and spread it on throat or chest. Cover with three thicknesses of dry flannel and bind it on securely. Take a hot foot bath and go to bed. This treatment should cure your cold. If is doesn’t it will be a wise thing to call a physician in the morning before alarming symptoms are developed. Bathe frequently, drink plenty of water and keep the bowels in regular action and prevent colds.

Source: Civic League Cook Book

Green Ointment

Take two or three large handfuls of the fresh-gathered leaves of the Jamestown weed, (called Apple Peru in New England,) and pound it in a mortar till you have extracted the juice. Then put the juice into a tin sauce-pan, mixed with sufficient lard to make a thick salve. Stew them together ten or fifteen minutes, and then pour the mixture into gallipots and cover it closely. It is excellent to rub on chilblains, and other inflammatory external swellings, applying it several times a day.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Flax-Seed Lemonade

To a large table-spoonful of flax-seed allow a tumbler and a half of cold water. Boil them together till the liquid becomes very sticky. Then strain it hot over a quarter of a pound of pulverized sugar candy, and an ounce of pulverized gum arabic. Stir it till quite dissolved, and squeeze into it the juice of a lemon.

This mixture has frequently been found an efficacious remedy for a cold; taking a wine-glass of it as often as the cough is troublesome.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Good Liniment

One ounce of camphor, four ounces olive oil. Dissolve the gum in the oil and add one quarter of an ounce of chloroform. Shake well and apply to affected parts. This is for external use only.

Source: Civic League Cook Book

Warts

To remove the hard callous horny warts which sometimes appear on the hands of children, touch the wart carefully with a new pen dipped slightly in aqua-fortis. It will give no pain; and after repeating it a few times, the wart will be found so loose as to come off by rubbing it with the finger.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Molasses Possets

Put into a sauce-pan a pint of the best West India molasses; a tea-spoonful of powdered white ginger; and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Set it on hot coals, and simmer it slowly for half an hour; stirring it frequently. Do not let it come to a boil. Then stir in the juice of two lemons, or two table-spoonfuls of vinegar; cover the pan, and let it stand by the fire five minutes longer. This is good for a cold. Some of it may be taken warm at once, and the remainder kept at hand for occasional use.

It is the preparation absurdly called by the common people a stewed quaker.

Half a pint of strained honey mixed cold with the juice of a lemon, and a table-spoonful of sweet oil, is another remedy for a cold; a tea-spoonful or two to be taken whenever the cough is troublesome.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Nose Bleed

Snuff powdered alum up the nose. This alum is also good for checking hemorrhage, sometimes caused by extracting teeth. Fill the cavity with the alum. Apply cold salt water to bleeding nose if you haven’t alum.

Source: Civic League Cook Book

To Make a Meath Good for the Liver and Lungs

Take of the Roots of Coltsfoot, Fennel and Fearn each four Ounces. Of Succory-roots, Sorrel-roots, Strawberry-roots, Bitter-sweet-roots, each two Ounces, of Scabious-roots and Elecampane-roots, each an Ounce and a half. Ground-ivy, Hore-hound, Oak of Jerusalem, Lung-wort, Liver-wort, Maiden-hair, Harts-tongue of each two good-handfulls. Licorish four Ounces. Jujubes, Raisins of the Sun and Currents, of each two Ounces; let the roots be sliced, and the herbs be broken a little with your hands; and boil all these in twenty quarts of fair running water, or, if you have it, in Rain water, with five Pints of good white honey, until one third part be boiled away; then pour the liquor through a jelly bag often upon a little Coriander-seeds, and Cinnamon; and when it runneth very clear, put it into Bottles well stopped, and set it cool for your use, and drink every morning a good draught of it, and at five in the afternoone.

Source: The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, K. Digby

Summer Complaint or Diarrhoea

In early stages unless alarming symptoms appear, give the child or patient a generous dose of castor oil and keep patient on a light diet for a day or two or refrain from eating at all for twelve hours. If passages are green and full of mucous membrane call a physician immediately as delay may be fatal. Whites of two eggs mixed with a little water sipped frequently is often healing also to stomach and bowels.

Source: Civic League Cook Book