Magic Kidney and Liver Restorer

Two ounces of alcohol;
One and a half ounces of glycerine;
One ounce of liverwort;
Three hundred and twenty grains of saltpetre;
Forty drops of wintergreen.

Steep the liverwort in a quart of water down to half the quantity, then throw in the other ingredients while hot. Dose: One tablespoonful about four times a day.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information.

Ingredient: Caraway Seed

Caraway seeds sharpen the vision, promote the secretion of milk, and are good against hysterical affections. They are also useful in cases of colic. When used to flavour cakes the seeds should be pounded in a mortar, especially if children are to partake thereof.

When used medicinally 20 grains of the powdered seeds may be taken in a wineglassful of hot water. But for children half an ounce of the bruised seeds are to be infused in cold water for six hours, and from 1 to 3 teaspoonfuls of this water given.

A poultice of crushed caraway seeds moistened with hot water is good for sprains.

Caraway seeds are narcotic, and should therefore be used with caution.

Source: Food Remedies: Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses, Florence Daniel

Scrofulous Syrup

Take yellow dock root, two pounds; stillingia root and bark of bittersweet root, of each one pound. Boil slowly in three or four gallons of water down to three quarts; strain, and add six pounds of white sugar. Dose: Half a wineglass three times a day. A valuable remedy for scrofula, and all scrofulous skin diseases, as tetter, herpes, leprosy, and the like; also a valuable alterative in all constitutional diseases.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information

News: 1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA

The BBC report that a medieval eye remedy has been found to almost completely eradicate MRSA – equal parts of onion and another allium (garlic or leek), chopped and crushed in a mortar, then mixed with a small amount of English wine and some bovine salts.

Fever with Pains in the Limbs

Take twenty drops of Spirit of Hartshorn in a cup of water twice or thrice in twenty-four hours.

Or drink largely of Cinquefoil Tea.

Source: Primitive Physic: or an easy and natural method of curing most diseases, John Wesley.

Pills for Chronic Bronchitis

Take pulverized skunk cabbage root, two drams; pulverized extract of liquorice, one dram; sanguinaria and macrotin, of each thirty grains. Make into large sized pills (say from eighty to one hundred) with a sufficient quantity of tar, and take one pill from three to six times a day, and continue for several weeks if necessary. One of the best remedies known for chronic bronchitis, and what is sometimes called “clergyman’s sore throat.”

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information

Pile Ointment

Take say a teacupful of hog’s lard, put in a flat or pewter dish, and take two bars of lead, flattened a little, and rub the lard with the flat ends and between them till it becomes black or of a dark lead color. Then burn equal parts of cavendish tobacco and old shoeleather in an iron vessel till charred. Powder these and mix into the lard till it becomes a thick ointment. Use once or twice a day as an ointment for the piles. An infallible cure.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information

Intermitting Fever

Drink warm Lemonade in the beginning of every fit; it cures in a few days. Tried.

Or take a tea-spoonful of Oil of Sulphur in a cup of Balm-Tea, once or twice a day.

Source: Primitive Physic: or an easy and natural method of curing most diseases, John Wesley.

To Cause the Hair to Grow very Thick

One of the most powerful stimulants for the growth of the hair is the following: Take a quarter of an ounce of the chippings of alkanet root, tie in a scrap of coarse muslin, and suspend it in a jar containing eight ounces of sweet oil for a week, covering it from the dust. Add to this sixty drops tincture of cantharides, ten drops oil of rose, sixty drops of neroli, and sixty drops oil of lemon. Let this stand twenty days, closely corked, and you will have one of the greatest hair-invigorators and hair-growers that this world has ever produced.

Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information

Anti-Dyspeptic Pills

Take Socotrine aloes, two drams; colocynth, gamboge, rhubarb, and castile soap, each one dram; cayenne, thirty grains; oil cloves, thirty drops. Make into one hundred and twenty pills with extract of gentian or dandelion. Dose: For dyspepsia, inactive liver or costiveness, one or two pills once a day; as a cathartic, three to five pills at a dose. This is a splendid pill. It cleanses the stomach, gives tone and energy to the digestive organs, restores the appetite, excites the liver and other secretory organs, without causing any debility.

Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information