Cough Tea
Make a strong tea of everlasting–strain, and put to a quart of it two ounces of figs or raisins, two of liquorice, cut in bits. Boil them in the tea for twenty minutes, then take the tea from the fire, and add to it the juice of a lemon. This is an excellent remedy for a tight cough–it should be drank freely, being perfectly innocent. It is the most effectual when hot.
Source: The American Housewife
Cold Cream
Take of the oil of almonds two ounces, of spermaceti half an ounce, and white wax half an ounce. Put them in a close vessel, and set the vessel in a skillet of boiling water. When melted, beat the ingredients with rosewater until cold. Keep it in a tight box, or wide-mouthed bottle, corked up close.
Source: The American Housewife
Moss Jelly
Steep Carragua, or Irish moss, in cold water a few minutes, to extract the bitter taste–then drain off the water, and to half an ounce of moss put a quart of fresh water, and a stick of cinnamon. Boil it till it becomes a thick jelly, then strain it, and season it to the taste with white wine and white sugar. This is very nourishing, and recommended highly for consumptive complaints.
Source: The American Housewife
Thoroughwort Bitters
Make a strong tea of the thoroughwort–strain it, and when cool, put to a couple of quarts of it half a pint of French brandy, the peel of two or three fresh oranges, cut into small bits, and half a dozen bunches of fennel, or smallage seed. The seed and orange peel should be crowded into a bottle, then the tea and brandy turned in. The bottle should be corked tight. The bitters will keep good almost any length of time, and is an excellent remedy for bilious complaints, and can often be taken when the thoroughwort tea will not sit on the stomach. A wine glass of these bitters to a tumbler of water is about the right proportion. It should have a little sugar added to it before drinking it.
Source: The American Housewife
Lip Salve
Dissolve a small lump of white sugar in a table-spoonful of rosewater, (common water will do, but is not as good.) Mix it with a couple of large spoonsful of sweet oil, a piece of spermaceti, of the size of half a butternut. Simmer the whole well together eight or ten minutes, then turn it into a small box.
Source: The American Housewife
Preservatives against the ravages of Moths
Moths are very apt to eat woollen and fur garments early in the summer. To keep them from the garments, take them late in the spring, when not worn, and put them in a chest, with considerable camphor gum. Cedar chips, or tobacco leaves, are also good for this purpose. When moths get into garments, the best thing to destroy them is to hang the garments in a closet, and make a strong smoke of tobacco leaves under them. In order to do it, have a pan of live coals in the closet, and sprinkle on the tobacco leaves.
Source: The American Housewife
Aromatic Vinegar
Mix with a table-spoonful of vinegar enough powdered chalk to destroy the acidity. Let it settle–then turn off the vinegar from the chalk carefully, and dry it perfectly. Whenever you wish to purify an infected room, put in a few drops of sulphuric acid–the fumes arising from it will purify a room where there has been any infectious disorder. Care is necessary in using it, not to inhale the fumes, or to get any of the acid on your garments, as it will corrode whatever it touches.
Source: The American Housewife
Stomachic Tincture
Bruise a couple of ounces of Peruvian bark, one of bitter dried orange peel. Steep them in a pint of proof spirit a fortnight, shaking up the bottle that contains it once or twice every day. Let it remain untouched for a couple of days, then decant the bitter into another bottle. A tea-spoonful of this, in a wine glass of water, is a fine tonic.
Source: The American Housewife
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