For Canker Sore Mouth

Burn a corn cob and apply the ashes two or three times a day.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

French Polish

Take a quarter of an ounce of gum sandarac and a quarter of an ounce of gum mastic; pick the dirt and black lumps out very carefully, and pound them in a mortar quite fine; put them into a bottle, and add to them a quartern (old measure) of strong spirit of wine; cork it down and put it in a warm place; shake it frequently till the gum is entirely dissolved, which will be in about twenty-four hours.

Before using it, be careful to ascertain that no grease is on the furniture, as grease would prevent its receiving the polish. If the furniture has been previously cleaned with bees’-wax or oil, it must be got off by scraping, which is the best way, but difficult to those who do not perfectly understand it, because if you are not very careful, you may scratch the surface, and create more expense than a workman would charge to do it properly at first. Or it may be done by scouring well with sand and water, and afterward rubbed quite smooth with fine glass paper, being careful to do it with the grain of the wood. To apply the polish, you must have a piece of list or cloth twisted, and tied round quite tight, and left even at one end, which should be covered with a piece of fine linen cloth; then pour a little of the polish on the furniture, and rub it well all over till it is worked into the grain of the wood, and begins to look quite smooth; then take a soft fine cloth, or what is better, an old silk handkerchief, and keep rubbing lightly until the polish is complete, which will take two or three hours. It will greatly help the polish if it is done near a fire.

If it does not look so smooth and clear as it should, a little sweet oil rubbed lightly over, and cleaned off directly, will greatly heighten it. If any part of the furniture has carving about it, where it will be impossible to polish, it must be done with mastic varnish, and a camel’s hair brush, after the rest is finished.

When the polish begins to look dull, it may be recovered with a little spirit of wine.

Source: The Cook’s Oracle and Housekeeper’s Manual, W.M. Kitchener

Chapped Hands

Take common starch and grind it with a knife until it is reduced to the smoothest powder. Take a tin box and fill it with starch thus prepared, so as to have it continually at hand for use. Then every time the hands are taken from the suds, or dish-water, rinse them thoroughly in clean water, wipe them, and while they are yet damp, rub a pinch of the starch thoroughly over them, covering the whole surface. We know many persons formerly afflicted with hands that would chap until the blood oozed from many minute crevices, completely freed from the trouble by the use of this simple remedy.

To rub the hands thoroughly, when damp, with wheat bran will have the same effect as the starch. It is also an excellent remedy for tetter on the hands — will stop the itching at once and effect a speedy cure.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Remedy for Corns

When corns are troublesome make a shield of buckskin leather an inch or two across, with a hole cut in the center the size of the corn; touch the exposed spot with pyroligneous acid which will eat it away in a few applications. Besides this a strong mixture of carbolic acid, and glycerine is good, say one-half as much acid as glycerine. Turpentine may also be used for corns and bunions. A weaker solution of carbolic acid will heal soft corns between the toes. A French medical journal reports the cure of the most refactory corns by the morning and evening application with a brush of a drop of a solution of the perchloride of iron. It states, that after a fortnight’s continued application, without pain, a patient who had suffered martyrdom for nearly forty years was entirely relieved.”

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Recipes for Felons

Take common rock salt, as used for salting down pork or beef, dry in an oven, then pound it fine and mix with spirits of turpentine in equal parts; put it in a rag and wrap it around the parts affected; as it gets dry put on more, and in twenty-four hours you are cured. The felon will be dead.

Or purchase the herb of stramonium at the druggist’s; steep it and bind it on the felon; as soon as cold, put on new, warm herbs. It will soon kill it, in a few hours at least.

Or saturate a bit or grated wild turnip, the size of a bean, with spirits of turpentine, and apply it to the affected part. It relieves the pain at once; in twelve hours there will be a hole to the bone, and the felon destroyed; then apply healing salve, and the finger is well.

Another Way to Cure a Felon: Fill a tumbler with equal parts of fine salt and ice; mix well. Sink the finger in the centre, allow it to remain until it is nearly frozen and numb; then withdraw it, and when sensation is restored, renew the operation four or five times, when it will be found the disease is destroyed. This must be done before pus is formed.

A simple remedy for felons, relieving pain at once, no poulticing, no cutting, no “holes to the bone,” no necessity for healing salve, but simple oil of cedar applied a few times at the commencement of the felon, and the work is done.

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

To Kill Cockroaches

Mix equal parts of red lead, Indian meal and molasses to a paste, put it on iron plates and set it where they congregate.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

For Cutaneous Eruptions

Those who have the misfortune to contract cutaneous disorders, or from scorbutic affections or the fumes of certain medicines, each and any of which are liable to produce roughness and inflammation of the skin, will be glad of a speedy and certain cure for their affliction. It is a wash of sulphurous acid (not sulphuric) diluted in the proportion of three parts soft water to one of the acid, and used three or four times a day until relieved. Sub-rosa all parasites on furniture, human beings or pets are quickly destroyed by this application.”

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Cough Syrup

Syrup of squills four ounces, syrup of tolu four ounces, tincture of bloodroot one and one-half ounces, camphorated tincture of opium four ounces. Mix. Dose for an adult, one teaspoonful repeated every two to four hours, or as often as necessary.

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

A Remedy for Moth or Hepatic Spots

They are a sign of deep seated disease of the liver. Taraxacum, the extract of dandelion root, is the standing remedy for this, and the usual prescription is a large pill four nights in a week, some times for months. To this may be added the free use of tomatoes, figs, mustard-seed, and all seedy fruits and vegetables, with light boiled meats, and no bread but that of coarse flour. Pastry, puddings of most sorts, and fried food of all kinds must be dispensed with by persons having a tendency to this disease. It may take six weeks or even months to make any visible impression on either the health or the moth patches, but success will come at last. One-third of a teaspoonful of chlorate of soda in a wine-glass of water, taken in three doses before meals, will aid the recovery by neutralizing morbid matters in the stomach. There is no sure cosmetic that will reach the moth patches. Such treatment as described, such exercise as is tempting in itself, and gay society, will restore one to conditions of health in which the extinction of these blotches is certain.

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Refreshing Drink for Sore Throat attended with Fever

Boil two ounces of barberries with half an ounce of violets in a quart of water for ten minutes; sweeten with honey, strain off into a jug, and drink several glasses during the day.

Source: A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, C.E. Francatelli