Remedy for a Cough
Five cents worth of rock candy, five cents worth of gum arabic, five cents worth of licorice, all dissolved in a pint of water over a slow fire. When cold add five cents worth of paregoric, and five cents worth of syrup of ipecac; bottle and take a teaspoonful several times a day.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
For the Teeth
A very agreeable dentifrice is made from an ounce of myrrh in fine powder, and a little powdered green sage, mixed with two spoonfuls of honey. The teeth should be washed with it every night and morning. Spite of all that is said against it, charcoal holds the highest place as a tooth-powder. It has the property, too, of opposing putrefaction, and destroying vices of the gums. It is most conveniently used when made into paste with honey.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
Children’s Sore Mouth
Get the pulverized borax, and to about one-third of a teaspoonful of borax, mix about one and a half teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar. Mothers should wash their babies’ mouths out every other morning with a solution of borax and water, they should keep a bottle of it dissolved all the time, pour a little into a cup, and with a cloth wrapt around the finger and dipped into the solution, wipe the child’s mouth out well with it; this will prevent children ever having sore mouths.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
Pepper Tea
Six red peppers broken in small pieces, one pint of boiling water poured over them, one teaspoonful of salt, one-half pint of vinegar. This is a good remedy for sore throat.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
A Sovereign Remedy for Earache
As soon as a child complains of earache, give it sufficient syrup of ipecac to vomit it freely. It will act like a charm, and the child will be asleep and free from the pain fifteen minutes afterwards. If a mother will only use this remedy she will save her child from a great deal of suffering, and herself from many sleepless nights. My plan is to give a teaspoonful of ipecac, after waiting ten or fifteen minutes (giving the child in the mean time plenty of water to drink,) if it then does not produce the desired effect, give another spoonful, this last will usually be sufficient.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
Preparation for Rough Skin
A delicate and effective preparation for rough skins, eruptive diseases, cuts or ulcers, is found in a mixture of one ounce of glycerine, half an ounce of rosemary-water, and twenty drops of carbolic acid. In those dreaded irritations of the skin, occurring in summer, such as hives or prickly heat, this wash gives soothing relief. A solution of this acid, say fifty drops to an ounce of the glycerine, applied at night, forms a protection from mosquitoes. Use the pure crystallized form: it is far less overpowering in its fragrance than the common sort, Those who dislike it too much to use at night, will find the sting of the bites almost miraculously cured, and the blotches removed by touching them with the mixture in the morning. Babies and children should be touched with it in a reduced form. Two or three drops of otter of roses in the preparation will improve the smell so as to render it tolerable to human beings though not so to mosquitoes.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
Receipt for Paregoic
Powdered opium two drachms, gum camphor two scruples, oil of anise seed one fluid drachm, whisky one quart, add lastly three tablespoonfuls of honey. Place all in a bottle together, and for one week shake the mixture twice a day ; after standing awhile it will become very clear, then pour off into a small bottle what you wish to use from day to day, and set the other away.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
Treatment of Scarlet Fever
Rubbing the body with hogs’ lard or fat reduces the temperature of the skin. A celebrated German physician recommends to incorporate one or two grammes of carbolic acid, into one hundred grammes of lard, and with this to rub the whole body, excepting the head, two or three times a day. The acid operates to destroy the germs or spores of the disease, the lard softens the skin and reduces the temperature.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
An Indispensable Powder
A trouble scarcely to be named among refined persons is profuse perspiration, which ruins clothing and comfort alike. For this it is recommended to bathe frequently, putting into the water a cold infusion of rosemary, sage or thyme, and afterward dust the under-garments with a mixture of two and a half drachms of camphor, four ounces of orris-root, and sixteen ounces of starch, the whole reduced to impalpable powder. Tie it in a coarse muslin bag, (or one made of flannel is better if you wish to use it on the flesh,) and shake it over the clothes. This makes a very fine bathing powder.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook
Oranges as a Medicine
A distinguished physician once said that if his patients would make a practice of eating a couple of good oranges every morning before breakfast, from February until June, his practice would be gone. The medicinal effect of pure fruit acids is excellent upon the physical system.
Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook