For Sore Throat

Make a gargle of cayenne pepper, honey and spirits, or sage tea, with alum and honey, or figs boiled, mashed and strained, and use it once in two hours. If it is very bad, steam the mouth with a funnel held over hot vinegar, and put on a hot poultice of hops, boiled in weak ley and thickened with corn-meal; there should be a little lard spread over; renew it every time it gets cold. Another very good poultice, is hot mush strewed with powdered camphor; put it on as hot as can be borne, and change it when cold. A purgative should be given, either of senna and salts, castor oil; or rhubarb and soap pills. An emetic is of great importance, and has caused the throat to break when persons have been very ill.

Sore throats have been cured when quinsy was apprehended, by using powdered camphor and lard on flannel. It is a good way, when persons are subject to it, to keep an ounce of camphor mixed with lard, in a wide-mouthed bottle, or jar; and corked tight. The cayenne pepper and honey gargle should also be kept ready mixed, and used when the first symptoms appear; or in a violent attack, a plaster of snuff and lard may be applied with benefit, keeping it on only a few minutes at a time. Sometimes a bag of hot ashes sprinkled with vinegar, and applied hot as can be borne, has cured a sore throat in one night. Persons that have been afflicted for years with repeated attacks of sore throat and quinsy, have been cured by bathing the throat, neck and ears with cold water every morning. The constant use of the shower bath is very important. Keep the feet warm.

Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea

A Cure for the Retention of the Urine

Any person that cannot make his water, may take a little cinquefoil, a few plantain leaves with the root, and a little sheep’s dung, and drink it as a tea.

Tea, made of nettles, is a good remedy also for the above complaint.

Source: Recipes: Information for Everybody, J.F. Landis

Summer Diseases

The food of children in summer, should be light and nourishing; if of milk, be careful that it is sweet. If you cannot get it fresh as often as you want it, boiling will keep it sweet. Sour milk and improper food sometimes bring on the summer disease, which is easier prevented than cured.

A little rhubarb tea or tincture, with a small quantity of prepared chalk, will sometimes check it in its early stages, but the most effectual medicine that I have tried is called by some apothecaries, “red mixture,” of which I will give a recipe.

Chicken water, slightly salted, is very good; make but a little at a time, and have it fresh.

Rice gruel, sweetened with loaf-sugar, and a little nutmeg, is nourishing. To make a drink of slippery-elm, shave the bark fine and put it in water; strain it, mix it with milk, and sweeten it. Elderberry and blackberry cordials are also good in cases where there is no fever.

The stomach and back should be bathed with spirits, and a little bag of pounded spices, wet with spirits, applied to the stomach, may be used with safety, when not within reach of a physician.

A bark jacket has been used with success in many instances, cut it out of fine muslin, to be double, spread it open, and cover one side with about two ounces of the best Lima bark, and twelve pounded cloves; put on the other side, sew it up, and quilt it across; put on shoulder straps and strings of soft ribbon; sprinkle it with spirits twice a day.

The child should have the benefit of the morning and evening air. If it is not convenient to ride it out, walking will answer, in the arms of a careful nurse, carried on a pillow, with an umbrella to protect its eyes from the light.

When a child is taken sick in a city, removing it to the country often has a beneficial effect. Milk thickened with arrow root is good diet for children. Flour dried in an oven for several hours, and used to thicken milk or water, is also good, sweetened with loaf-sugar, and is nutritious. They should eat but a small portion of any thing at a time.

To cut slices of lean fresh beef or mutton, put it in a bowl, and pour a pint of boiling water on it, and let it set close to the fire for an hour, is very good to give children occasionally, with but little salt; the stomach will sometimes retain this when other things are rejected. As thirst is an attendant on this disease, much salt should be avoided in all their food. Every thing about a sick child should be kept clean, and its clothes well aired before changing them. If it is too ill to carry out of doors, have it changed from one room to another, and the apartment it left well aired.

Children who are afflicted with this disease, sometimes crave fruit. Ripe peaches, fresh from the tree, or ripe apples, baked or roasted before the fire, may he occasionally administered in small quantities with perfect safety.

To make toast-water, the bread should be toasted on both sides very dry, and boiling water poured on it.

Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea

Another Cure for the Consumption

Take a newly laid hen’s egg on the third day of new moon in the morning before breakfast, break it into a glass and stir it well with a chip of pine wood, then add a gill of good wine and drink it for seven or nine days.

Source: Recipes: Information for Everybody, J.F. Landis

Elderberry Wine, &c.

To each gallon of berries, put one of water; mash them in a tub, and leave them two days, stirring them frequently; then strain them, and to each gallon of juice put three pounds of brown sugar, and to every five gallons, two ounces of bruised ginger, and one of cloves, which tie up in a bag, and boil in the wine for an hour, and put it in a cask; when it is nearly cold, put in two spoonsful of lively yeast; let it ferment two days, and put in a pint of spirits with the bag of spice, and close it up. This is excellent as a medicine for delicate or elderly persons.

Fill a bottle with elderberries, with a dozen cloves, and fill it up with spirits. It is good to give children that have the summer disease; mix a tea-spoonful of it with sugar and water for a child, or a table-spoonful for a grown person.

Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea

Indigestion

Indigestion is a breeder of disease, but may be cured by mixing one drachm of powdered colomba root, one drachm of ground ginger, and half a drachm of carbonate of soda; this divide into twelve powders, and take one in a little milk three times a day; or, one ounce of colomba root to a pint of boiling water is a most excellent and cheap remedy for indigestion. Take a wineglassful three times a day. Tried with every satisfaction.

Source: Fray’s Golden Recipes for the use of all ages, E. Fray

Granulated Cold Cream

Take white wax and spermaceti, of each one ounce; almond oil 3 ounces, otto of rose, as much as you please. Dissolve the wax and spermaceti in the almond oil, by means of heat, and when a little cool, pour the mixture into a large wedgwood mortar previously warmed, and containing about a pint of warm water. Stir briskly until the cream is well divided, add the otto, and suddenly pour the whole into a clean vessel containing 8 or 12 pints of cold water. Separate the cream by straining through muslin, and shake out a much water as possible.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness, Florence Hartley

Cheap and Invaluable Dentifrice

Dissolve 2 ounces of borax in three pints of water; before quite cold, add thereto one tea-spoonful of tincture of myrrh, and one tablespoonful of spirits of camphor; bottle the mixture for use. One wine-glass of the solution, added to half a pint of tepid water, is sufficient for each application. This solution, applied daily, preserves and beautifies the teeth, extirpates all tartarous adhesion, produces a pearl-like whiteness, arrests decay, and induces a healthy action in the gums.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness, Florence Hartley

Molasses Posset for a Cold

Take a pint of the best molasses, a tea-spoonful of powdered ginger, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and let them simmer together for half an hour: then stir in the juice of two lemons, or if you have not these, two table-spoonsful of strong vinegar; cover over the sauce-pan, and let it stand by the fire five minutes longer. Some of this may be taken warm or cold.

Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea

Another Receipt for Purifying the Blood and Strengthening the Stomach

Take mace, flour of sulphur, cloves, cinnamon, half an ounce of each, eleven penny bits worth of saffron and about half an ounce small snake root, put it altogether into a bottle and add one quart good wine, let it stand 24 hours and it will be fit for use. A teaspoonful may be taken in the morning before breakfast, or it may be taken three times a day.

Source: Recipes: Information for Everybody, J.F. Landis