Nail Care

To give a fine color to the nails, the hands and fingers must be well lathered and washed with fine soap; then the nails must be rubbed with equal parts of cinnebar and emery, followed by oil of bitter almonds. To take white spots from the nails, melt equal parts of pitch and turpentine in a small cup; add to it vinegar and powdered sulphur. Rub this on the nails and the spots will soon disappear.

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

Stained Hands

To remove stains, rub a slice of raw potato upon the stains; or wash the hands in lemon juice or steeped laurel-leaves.

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

Chilblains

Chilblains are the result of too rapid warming of cold parts, generally feet or fingers. Sometimes for years after being frost-bitten, exposure to severe cold will produce itching and burning, and perhaps swelling and ulcers.

Treatment:

Rub with turpentine or alcohol. The rubbing in itself is excellent. See doctor.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer

Acid Salt

This is the composition commonly, but erroneously called salt of lemon, and is excellent for removing ink and other stains from the hands, and for taking ink spots out of white clothes. Pound together in a marble mortar an ounce of salt of sorrel, and an ounce of the best cream of tartar, mixing them thoroughly. Then, put it in little wooden boxes or covered gallipots, and rub it on your hands when they are stained, washing them in cold water, and using the acid salt instead of soap; a very small quantity will immediately remove the stain. In applying it to linen or muslin that is spotted with ink or fruit juice, hold the stained part tightly stretched over a cup or bowl of boiling water. Then with your finger rub on the acid salt till the stain disappears. It must always be done before the article is washed.

This mixture costs about twenty-five cents, and the above quantity (if kept dry) will be sufficient for a year or more.

Ink stains may frequently be taken out of white clothes by rubbing on (before they go to the wash) some bits of cold tallow picked from the bottom of a mould candle; Leave the tallow sticking on in a lump, and when the article comes from the wash, it will generally be found that the spot has disappeared. This experiment is so easy and so generally successful that it is always worth trying. When it fails, it is in consequence of some peculiarity in the composition of the ink.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Warts

To remove the hard callous horny warts which sometimes appear on the hands of children, touch the wart carefully with a new pen dipped slightly in aqua-fortis. It will give no pain; and after repeating it a few times, the wart will be found so loose as to come off by rubbing it with the finger.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Chapped Hands

Take common starch and grind it with a knife until it is reduced to the smoothest powder. Take a tin box and fill it with starch thus prepared, so as to have it continually at hand for use. Then every time the hands are taken from the suds, or dish-water, rinse them thoroughly in clean water, wipe them, and while they are yet damp, rub a pinch of the starch thoroughly over them, covering the whole surface. We know many persons formerly afflicted with hands that would chap until the blood oozed from many minute crevices, completely freed from the trouble by the use of this simple remedy.

To rub the hands thoroughly, when damp, with wheat bran will have the same effect as the starch. It is also an excellent remedy for tetter on the hands — will stop the itching at once and effect a speedy cure.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Recipes for Felons

Take common rock salt, as used for salting down pork or beef, dry in an oven, then pound it fine and mix with spirits of turpentine in equal parts; put it in a rag and wrap it around the parts affected; as it gets dry put on more, and in twenty-four hours you are cured. The felon will be dead.

Or purchase the herb of stramonium at the druggist’s; steep it and bind it on the felon; as soon as cold, put on new, warm herbs. It will soon kill it, in a few hours at least.

Or saturate a bit or grated wild turnip, the size of a bean, with spirits of turpentine, and apply it to the affected part. It relieves the pain at once; in twelve hours there will be a hole to the bone, and the felon destroyed; then apply healing salve, and the finger is well.

Another Way to Cure a Felon: Fill a tumbler with equal parts of fine salt and ice; mix well. Sink the finger in the centre, allow it to remain until it is nearly frozen and numb; then withdraw it, and when sensation is restored, renew the operation four or five times, when it will be found the disease is destroyed. This must be done before pus is formed.

A simple remedy for felons, relieving pain at once, no poulticing, no cutting, no “holes to the bone,” no necessity for healing salve, but simple oil of cedar applied a few times at the commencement of the felon, and the work is done.

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

Soap for Whitening The Hands

Into a wineglass of eau-de-cologne and a wineglass of lemon-juice, scrape two cakes of brown Windsor soap very finely, and mix well. When it becomes hard it will be an excellent soap for whitening the hands.

Source: Cassell’s Household Guide

For a Felon

Spread strong mercurial ointment on a linen cloth and apply when the sore first appears.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Cosmetic Gloves for the Hands

Yolks of two fresh eggs; sweet almond oil, two teapsoonfuls; rosewater, one ounce; tincture of benzoin, thirty-six grains. Beat the yolks with the oil, and add successively the rosewater and the tincture. Put inside the gloves, which you keep upon your hands till morning.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts