Burns and Scalds
A piece of cotton wadding, spread with butter or sweet oil, and bound on the burn instantly, will draw out the pain without leaving a scar; also a handful of flour, bound on instantly, will prevent blistering. The object is to entirely exclude the air from the part affected. Some use common baking-soda, dry or wet, often giving instant relief, withdrawing the heat and pain. Another valuable remedy is to beat the yellow of an egg into linseed oil, and apply it with a feather on the injured part frequently. It will afford ready relief and heals with great rapidity. Some recommend the white part of the egg, which is very cooling and soothing, and soon allays the smarting pain. It is the exposure of the part coming in contact with the air that gives the extreme discomfort experienced from ordinary afflictions of this kind, and anything which excludes air and prevents inflammation is the thing to be at once applied.
Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette
For a Consumption
Take a Pint of Red Cows milk, then take the Yolk of a new laid Egg potched very rare, then stir it into the Milk over a soft fire, but do not let it boil, sweeten it with a little Sugar Candy, and drink it in the morning fasting, and when you go to bed.
Source: The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet, Hannah Wolley
For the Prevention of Wrinkles
The white of an egg, beaten with five grammes of alum in five grammes of sweet oil, applied as paste to the face on retiring, prevents wrinkles, keeps the flesh from becoming flabby, and is strengthening and softening to the skin.
Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts
Cough Syrup
One pint best vinegar. Break into it an egg and leave in, shell and all, over night. In the morning it will all be eaten except the white skin which must be taken out. Then add 1 pound loaf sugar, and for an adult, take a tablespoon three times a day. This is a most excellent remedy for a cough in any stage.
Source: Mrs Owens’ Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, Frances Owens
Hoarseness
For simple hoarseness, take a fresh egg, beat it and thicken with pulverized sugar. Eat freely of it, and the hoarseness will soon be relieved.
Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts
To destroy Cockroaches, Ants, and other household Vermin
Hellebore, rubbed over with molasses, and put round the places that cockroaches frequent, is a very effectual poison for them. Arsenic, spread on bread and butter, and placed round rat or mouse holes, will soon put a stop to their ravages. Quicksilver and the white of an egg, beat together, and laid with a feather round the crevices of the bedsteads and the sacking, is very effectual in destroying bugs in them. To kill flies, when so numerous as to be troublesome, keep cobalt, wet with spirit, in a large shallow plate. The spirit will attract the flies, and the cobalt will kill them very soon. Black pepper is said to be good to destroy them — it should be mixed, so as to be very strong, with a little cream and sugar. Great care is necessary in using the above poisons, where there are any children, as they are so apt to eat any thing that comes in their way, and these poisons will prove as fatal to them as to vermin, (excepting the pepper.) The flour of sulphur is said to be good to drive ants away, if sprinkled round the places that they frequent. Sage is also good. Weak brine will kill worms in gravel walks, if kept moist with it a week in the spring, and three or four days in the fall.
Source: The American Housewife
An Ointment for Burns
A fine ointment for burns is made by frying white clover blossoms in lard. Make it rich with the clover blossoms; then strain it and put it away in covered glasses. If a bad blister forms almost immediately, beat an egg into a teaspoonful of olive oil, spread it on a bit of linen, and cover the blister with it.
Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts
Cure for a Felon
Mix well one teaspoonful of burnt salt, one teaspoonful of Indian meal, and the yolk of one egg, ten drops of spirits of turpentine, a small quantity of home made lye soap, shaved fine. Apply as a poultice for twenty-four hours. If applied early, it will certainly effect a cure.
Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts
For Toothache or Pain in the Face
Mix salt with the yolk of an egg until about the consistency of mustard, and use same as a mustard plaster. This remedy is also good for snake bites.
Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts
Ingredient: Castor Oil
This oil is a valuable aperient; for whilst, in doses of from half an ounce to an ounce, it thoroughly evacuates the bowels, it does so with little irritation; hence it is especially useful in inflammatory cases, or where there is spasm, or where all increased action of the system is particularly to be avoided. From its quick and mild operation, it is particularly adapted for children, and females during pregnancy. It is also the best purgative that can be employed in that affection of the bowels knowm by the names of colica pictonum, or painter’s colic, the Devonshire colic, and the dry bellyache; and it is the more useful in that disease, as it may be joined with opium and other narcotics without having its purgative properties lessened. For the same reason castor oil is advantageously given in calculous affections. It has also been regarded by some continental physicians as peculiarly well suited for expelling the tape-worm. It is likewise considered the best purgative, when properly administered, for combating habitual costiveness. For this purpose a large dose must first be given in the morning, and the use of the oil continued for some weeks, gradually diminishing the dose daily, until half a tea-spoonful only is taken; on the discontinuance of which, the bowels continue to be relieved without further assistance. One disadvantage attending the use of this oil is its tendency to excite vomiting, but this is counteracted by combining it with some aromatic. The best modes of exhibiting it in general have been much canvassed; it is given floating on water with a small quantity of brandy poured over it, and when this can be swallowed at once, there is no better mode; but as this cannot always be done, it may be given with success in coffee or mutton-broth, or suspended in water by the intervention of mucilage or yolk of egg, according to the taste of the patient. Upon the whole, castor oil is a purgative of great value, and one whose operation, as it is in daily use, should be well understood.
Source: A Companion To The Medicine Chest, John Savory.