Bark Gargle

Boil 1 oz. powdered bark and 1 drachm myrrh, in 1 1/2 pint of water, over a slow fire, till one third is wasted; strain, then add a table-spoonful of honey, and a tea-spoonful of spirits of lavender.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Excellent Cough Mixture

One cup of gum, one cup of honey, one cup of lemon juice, one ounce of glycerine; mix well, bottle, and take one teaspoonful when cough is troublesome.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Asthma, To Relieve

Best honey, two ounces ; castor oil, one ounce. Mix, and take a teaspoonful every night and morning. If the breathing be difficult the following will probably give relief : — To one ounce of spirits of wine, add a quarter of an ounce of balsam of tolu and the same quantity of ether. Put a teaspoonful into a quart of boiling water and inhale it twice a day.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Remedial Qualities of Common Fruits

A table giving the remedial qualities of the common fruits and vegetables is herewith appended: —

Celery for any form of rheumatism and nervous dyspepsia.

Lettuce for insomnia.

Water-cress for scurvy.

Onions are almost the best nervine known. Use for insomnia, for coughs and colds, and as a complexion curer. Eaten every other day, they soon have a clearing and whitening effect on the complexion.

Spinach for gravel.

Asparagus to induce perspiration.

Carrots for suffering from asthma.

Turnips for nervous disorders and for scurvy.

Raw beef proves of great benefit to persons of frail constitution, and to those suffering from consumption. It is chopped fine, seasoned with salt, and heated by placing it in a dish in hot water. It assimilates rapidly and affords the best nourishment.

Eggs contain a large amount of nutriment in a compact quickly available form. Beaten up raw with sugar they are used to clear and strengthen the voice. With sugar and lemon juice the beaten white of egg is used to relieve hoarseness.

Cranberries for erysipelas are used externally as well as internally.

Cranberries eaten raw are one of the finest tonics and appetizers known.

In cases of yellow or typhoid fever, cranberries are almost indispensable as a tonic and to assist in clearing the system of the harmful bacteria.

For some forms of dyspepsia there is no more simple and effective remedy than raw cranberries. Carry a supply in the pocket and eat them frequently during the day. They will cure headache as well.

People who are subject to biliousness will find that with cranberries a part of each day’s food they will be free from such attacks.

Honey is wholesome, strengthening, cleansing, healing and nourishing.

Fresh ripe fruits are excellent for purifying the blood and toning up the system.

Sour oranges are highly recommended for rheumatism.

Watermelon for epilepsy and for yellow fever.

Lemons for feverish thirst in sickness, biliousness, low fevers, rheumatism, colds, coughs, liver complaints, etc.

Blackberries for diarrhoea.

Tomatoes are a powerful aperient for the liver, a sovereign remedy for dyspepsia and for indigestion.

Tomatoes are invaluable in all conditions in which the use of calomel is indicated.

Figs are aperient and wholesome. They are said to be valuable as a food for those suffering from cancer. They are used externally as well as internally.

Bananas are useful as a food for those suffering from chronic diarrhoea.

Pie-plant is wholesome and aperient; is excellent for rheumatic sufferers and useful for purifying the blood.

Peanuts for indigestion. They are especially recommended for corpulent diabetes. Peanuts are made into a wholesome and nutritious soup, are browned and used as a coffee, are eaten as a relish simply baked, or are prepared and served as salted almonds.

Apples are useful in nervous dyspepsia; they are nutritious, medicinal and vitalizing; they aid digestion, clear the voice, correct the acidity of the stomach, are valuable in rheumatism, insomnia, and liver trouble. An apple contains as much nutriment as a potato, in a pleasanter, more wholesome form.

Grapes dissolve and dislodge gravel and calculi, and bring the stomach and bowels to a healthy condition.

Ripe pineapples have been put upon the list of foods especially healthful for persons troubled with indigestion, the juice being especially valuable in such cases. Shred with a silver fork, and reject all the indigestible core. The juice of a ripe pineapple is an almost invaluable remedy for diphtheria, the acid seeming to dissolve the strangling growth in the throat.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Garlic Syrup, for Hooping, or any other Cough

Put 3 roots of garlic, sliced thinly and transversely, with 4 oz. honey, and 4 oz. vinegar, into a 1/2 pint bason, and set that into a large wash-hand bason; let it infuse half an hour, then strain it. Take the first in the morning, and the last at night, a tea-spoonful of the syrup, in an equal quantity of brandy and water; put the water in the glass first.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

An Excellent Cough Remedy

Twenty grains tartar emetic;
Forty grains pulverised opium;
Four ounces sweet spirits of nitre;
Two ounces of liquorice;
Twelve tablespoons of honey and one pint of whiskey.

For an adult one dessert-spoonful three times a day, at night, when the cough is troublesome, take the same proportions; for children a teaspoonful and so on according to the age.

Source: Household Recipes, Constance Hatton Hart

Cure for a Cold

Boil two ounces flaxseed in one quart of water, strain and add two ounces of rock candy, one-half pint of honey, juice of three lemons ; mix and let all boil well, let cool and bottle. Dose, one cupful on going to bed one-half cupful before meals, the hotter you drink it the better.

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

For the Whooping Cough

Onions and garlic sliced, of each one gill; one gill of sweet oil; stir them in the oil in a covered dish; strain and add one gill of honey; one-half an ounce of paregoric; one-half an ounce of spirits of camphor. Bottle and cork for use. Dose: one teaspoonful three or four times a day.

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

Cough Mixture (The Late Sir William Gull’s)

4 ozs. honey
4 ozs. cod liver oil
The juice of 2 or 3 lemons, according to size

To mix the above put altogether into a jar and either stand it on the stove or in a saucepan of boiling water until it is well dissolved. Stir the ingredients occasionally.

A dessertspoonful to be taken three times a day, or double the quantity if the patient likes. Should the stomach reject the cod liver oil, sweet olive oil may be substituted, but the other is the best.

Source: The Northampton Cookery Book, M.A. Jeffery

Cough Mixture

Pour 1 pint vinegar over 1 dozen egg shells, let it stand 24 hours, 1 pound brown sugar, 1/2 pound rock candy, 1 pound honey, pour 2 gills rum over candy, sugar and honey, 1 tablespoon glycerine. Beat whites of 1 dozen eggs and mix all together and strain. Bottle and take 1 dessert spoon three or four times a day.

Source: Two Hundred and Fifty Recipes, Grace Church Sewing Circle