Alum Whey

Mix half an ounce of pounded alum with one pint of milk. Strain it, and add sugar and nutmeg to the whey. It is good in cases of hemorrhages, and sometimes for colic.

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

Cure for Cuts and Bruises

Cut fingers and bruises of all kinds if wrapped in a cloth wet in alum water heal with a rapidity that is truly wonderful.

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

For Sore Throats

Cut slices of salt pork and simmer a few moments in hot vinegar, and apply to the throat as hot as possible. When this is taken off, as the throat is better, put a bandage of flannel around. A gargle of borax and alum dissolved in soft water is excellent to be used frequently.

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

Gargles

For sore and inflamed throat, dissolve 1 dram of alum in 12 oz of water. For ulcerated throat: 1 oz, by measure, of Condy’s fluid in 12 oz of water.

Source: The Complete Household Adviser

For A Sore Throat or Mouth

Make a sage tea by boiling some sage leaves; when strong, add honey and some alum or borax. Gargle the throat with this often through the day.

Source: The Philadelphia Housewife, Mary Hodgson

Herb Teas

Herb teas are made by infusing the dried or green leaves and stalks in boiling water, and letting them stand until cold. Sweeten to taste.

Sage tea, sweetened with honey, is good for a sore throat, used as a gargle, with a small bit of alum dissolved in it.

Catnip tea is the best panacea for infant ills, in the way of cold and colic, known to nurses.

Pennyroyal tea will often avert the unpleasant consequences of a sudden check of perspiration, or the evils induced by ladies’ thin shoes.

Chamomile and gentian teas are excellent tonics taken either cold or hot.

The tea made from blackberry-root is said to be good for summer disorders. That from green strawberry leaves is an admirable and soothing wash for a cankered mouth.

Tea of parsley-root scraped and steeped in boiling water, taken warm, will often cure strangury and kindred affections, as will that made from dried pumpkin-seed.

Tansy and rue teas are useful in cases of colic, as are fennel seeds steeped in brandy.

A tea of damask-rose leaves, dry or fresh, will usually subdue any simple case of summer complaint in infants.

Mint tea, made from the green leaves, crushed in cold or hot water and sweetened, is palatable and healing to the stomach and bowels.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

Eye Lotions

1. Dissolve 100 grs of boric acid in 6 oz water.
2. Add one teaspoonful Condy’s fluid to 10 oz water.
3. Dissolve 30 grs alum and 10 grs sulphate of zinc in 10 oz water.
4. Goulard water.
5. Cold tea. Useful in cases of slight inflammation.

Source: The Complete Household Adviser

Feuchtwanger’s Tooth Paste

Powdered myrrh, two ounces; burnt alum, one ounce; cream tartar, one ounce; cuttlefish bone, four ounces: drop lake, two ounces; honey, half a gallon; mix.

Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie

Bites

Apply vaseline and burnt alum; lemon juice for bee stings ; common bluing for bites of any insect, or vaseline, lard and burnt alum can be applied.

Source: 1001 Household Hints, Ottilie V. Ames

To Kill A Canker

Take 2 spoonfulls of honey and one spoonfull of treacle and half as much rock allum as the quantity of a wallnut beat to fine powder and boyle these together over a cheafen dish of coles till it be pretty thick then take it off and let it coole then anoint the cankers with a cloth tyed upon a stick the oftner you anoint it the better twill be you must keep stiring it as long as it doth boyle, it will be like a sirrup when tis cold.

Source: A Book of Simples, H.W. Lewer