Slippery-Elm Tea

Pour one cup of boiling water upon one teaspoonful of slippery-elm powder or a piece of the bark. When cool, strain, and flavor with lemon-juice and sugar. This is soothing in any inflammation of the mucous membrane.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

Elder Tea

Make a strong tea of elder-flowers, either fresh or dried. Sweeten with honey. This tea is to be drunk as hot as possible ,after the person is warm in bed; it produces a strong perspiration, and a slight cold or cough yields to it immediately; but the more stubborn requires two or three repetitions. Used in Russia. This is an excellent remedy for colds attended with feverish symptoms and sore throat.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

Elecampane and Hoarhound Syrup

Put a pint of hoarhound in a quart of water, and let it draw by the fire; put a tea-cupful of dried elecampane root in a pint of water, cover it close, and let it boil till all the strength is out; strain it and the hoarhound together, and put them to boil with a pound of sugar; when it is a rich syrup, pour it in a pitcher to cool, and bottle it. Take a table-spoonful at a time when the cough is troublesome. Sometimes flaxseed is a useful addition to this syrup.

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

Eau Sucré

Dissolve three or four lumps of loaf sugar in a glass of ice-water, and take a teaspoonful every few minutes for a “tickling in the throat,” or a hacking cough. Keep it ice-cold.

A simple, but often an efficacious remedy.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

For A Cough

Make a strong tea of hoarhound; then strain it, and add half a pound of the best loaf sugar, to a pint of the tea: let it simmer till thick; then bottle it, and take a little two or three times a day.

Source: The Philadelphia Housewife, Mary Hodgson

Cough Mixture

5 oz treacle
6 oz honey
18 tablespoonfuls of vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoonfuls ipecacuanha wine

Put the vinegar, treacle and honey into a jar, and stand it in a saucepan of boiling water; stir until dissolved. Add the wine and bottle the mixture, keeping it well corked.

Dose: One dessertspoonful every three or four hours.

Source: Household Management, E. Stoddard Eckford & M.S. Fitzgerald

Liverwort Syrup

Make a quart of strong liverwort tea by extracting two sets of herbs in the same water, tie a tea cup of flaxseed in a bag and put with it; keep it covered while drawing; when the strength is all out, strain it on a pound of sugar, and let it boil slowly till it is thick — keeping it covered to prevent the strength from going off, when cold, bottle it, and set the bottle in a cool place while using it. Take a table-spoonful at a time about six times a day. This has been used for a cough with great benefit.

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

For Colds on the Chest

Rub with embrocation, or camphorated oil, on the throat and chest, afterwards covering them with flannel or Thermogen. Give a cough mixture to relieve the cough. A linseed poultice will become necessary for a case of bronchitis, croup, pneumonia or pleurisy.

Source: Household Management, E. Stoddard Eckford & M.S. Fitzgerald

Toffee for Coughs

1/2 lb Demerara sugar
1 oz butter
2 oz treacle
1 teaspoonful ipecacuanha wine

Boil the butter, sugar and treacle together for 20 minutes and add the wine.

Pour out into a greased tin and when cold break into pieces and keep in a tin for use.

Give a small piece to be sucked slowly, from time to time when the cough is troublesome, but never allow a child to go to bed with a piece in its mouth for fear of choking.

Source: Household Management, E. Stoddard Eckford & M.S. Fitzgerald

Cough Compound

For the cure of coughs, colds, asthma, whooping cough and all diseases of the lungs; One spoonful of common tar, three spoonfuls of honey, the yolk of three hen’s eggs, and half a pint of wine; beat the tar, eggs and honey well together with a knife, and bottle for use. A teaspoonful every morning, noon and night, before eating.

Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie