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

For a Sore Throat

Take tops of rosemary fennell sage marygolds with the black middles sinkfoins of each a like quantity a good handfull altogether. a little cammomile boyle it in a quart of ale till tis very strong of the herbs then strain it and sweeten with honey or Sugar, you may boyle a piece of gold or a gold Ring if you please in it.

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

To Prepare Fumigating Powder

Take equal parts of cascarilla bark, in coarse powder, camomile flowers, and anise-seed, powdered and well mixed together. Two ounces of each will be sufficient to use for several times. Take up some hot coals upon a shovel, and sprinkle the powder over them very slowly; and as the smoke arises, carry the shovel into all parts of the room, and fumigate the air thoroughly. It destroys all disagreeable odors, and is said to prevent contagion in infectious diseases, such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, and the like.

Source: Household Hints and Recipes, Henry T. Williams

Camomile Tea

Put about thirty flowers into a jug, pour a pint of boiling water upon them, cover up the tea, and when it has stood about ten minutes, pour it off from the flowers into another jug; sweeten with sugar or honey; drink a tea-cupful of it fasting in the morning to strengthen the digestive organs, and restore the liver to healthier action. A tea-cupful of camomile tea, in which is stirred a large dessert-spoonful of moist sugar, and a little grated ginger, is an excellent thing to administer to aged people a couple of hours before their dinner.

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

Specific for a Cough

Take equal quantities of camomile flowers, elecampane, life-everlasting, mullen, a few races of ginger, and as much fat lightwood splinters as camomile. Boil to a strong tea; strain it, and add enough honey and sugar mixed in equal quantities; boil down to a syrup; add enough good apple vinegar to give a pleasant acid taste. Pills made of fresh tar, brown sugar, and the yolk of an egg,
are good for a cough. Pills of fresh rosin taken from the pine tree are also good.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Grandmother’s Family Spring Bitters

Mandrake root one ounce, dandelion root one ounce, burdock root one ounce, yellow dock root one ounce, prickly ash berries two ounces, marsh mallow one ounce, turkey rhubarb half an ounce, gentian one ounce, English camomile flowers one ounce, red clover tops two ounces.

Wash the herbs and roots; put them into an earthen vessel, pour over two quarts of water that has been boiled and cooled; let it stand over night and soak; in the morning set it on the back of the stove, and steep it five hours; it must not boil, but be nearly ready to boil. Strain it through a cloth, and add half a pint of good gin. Keep it in a cool place. Half a wine-glass taken as a dose twice a day.

This is better than all the patent blood medicines that are in the market–a superior blood purifier, and will cure almost any malignant sore, by taking according to direction, and washing the sore with a strong tea of red raspberry leaves steeped, first washing the sore with castile soap, then drying with a soft cloth.

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

Receipt for Chronic Diarrhea

Cinnamon seed one-half ounce, cardamon seed one-quarter of an ounce, carroway seed one-quarter of an ounce, orange peel two ounces, English gentian one ounce, camomile flowers one-half ounce. Put on to the above one quart of old rye whisky. (They must all be ground up first).

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Ingredient: Chamomile Flowers

A strong tepid infusion of these flowers, administered in doses of from three to four ounces, operates as a powerful emetic; a weaker infusion is a useful diluent in promoting the operation of other emetics, when the stomach is weak and likely to be too much oppressed by the use of simple water. A small tea-cupful of cold chamomile tea, taken in the morning fasting, is often serviceable in dyspeptic affections, and intestinal debility. They are also used, either alone or in combination with poppyheads, for fomentations in colic, but are little preferable to hot or warm water; excepting that the infused flowers, rolled up in a cloth or flannel, serve to retain the heat of the application.

Source: A Companion To The Medicine Chest, John Savory.

For an Ague

Go into the cold bath, just before the cold fit. Nothing tends to prolong an Ague, than indulging a lazy indolent disposition. The patient ought, therefore, between the fits, to take as much exercise as he can bear; and to use a light diet; and for common drink, Lemonade is the most proper.

When all other means fail, give Blue Vitriol, from one grain to two grains, in the absence of the fit; and repeat it three or four times in twenty-four hours.

Or take a handful of Groundsell, shred it small, put it into a paper-bag, four inches square, pricing that side which is to be next the skin, full of holes. Cover this with a thin linen, and wear it on the pit of the stomach, renewing it two hours before the fit. Tried.

Or apply to the stomach, a large Onion slit.

Or, melt two penny worth of Frankincense, spread it on linen, grate a Nutmeg upon it, cover it with linen, and hang this bag upon the pit of the stomach. I have never yet known it fail.

Or boil Yarrow in new milk, till it is tender enough to spread as a plaster. An hour before the cold fit, apply this to the wrists, and let it be on till the hot fit is over. If another fit comes, use a fresh plaster. This often cures a Quartan.

Or drink a quart of cold water, just before the cold fit. Then go to bed and sweat.

Or make six middling pills of Cobwebs. Take one a little before the cold fit, two a little before the next fit, (suppose the next day,), the other three, if need be, a little before the third fit. This seldom fails. Or put a tea-spoonful of Salt of Tartar into a large glass of spring water, and drink it by little and little. Repeat the same dost the next two days, before the time of the fit.

Or two small tea-spoonfuls of Sal Prunellae an hour before the fit. It commonly cures in thrice taking.

Or a large spoonful of powdered Camomile Flowers.

Or a tea-spoonful of Spirits of Hartshorn, in a glass of water.

Or eat a small Lemon, rind and all.

In the hot fit, if violent, take eight or ten drops of Laudanum; if costive, in Hiera picra.

Dr Lind says, an Ague is certainly cured, by taking from ten to twenty drops of Laudanum, with two drachms of Syrup of Poppies, in any warm liquid, half an hour after the heat begins.

It is proper to take a gentle vomit, and sometimes a purge, before you use any of these medicines. If a vomit is taken two hours before the fit is expected, it generally prevents that fit, and sometimes cures an Ague, especially in children. It is also proper to repeat the medicine (whatever it be,) about a week after, in order to prevent a relapse. Do not take any purge soon after. The daily use of the flesh brush, and frequent cold bathing, are of great use to prevent relapses.

Children have been cured by wearing a waistcoat, in which Bark was quilted.

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

News: Bolivia embraces traditional healers

“EL ALTO, Bolivia — When Sabino Quento was involved in a serious car accident, the hospital was the last place he thought to seek treatment for his broken bones and nerve damage.

“Instead, he went to Emiliano Cusi, a traditional healer and Bolivia’s new vice minister of traditional medicine. Cusi was appointed by President Evo Morales as part of a plan to expand public health to include indigenous healing.”

Full story: Miami Herald, 26th September 2008