White Camphorated Ointment

1. Take 3 ounces 2 drachms of powdered carbonate of lead (cerussa), 45 grains of powdered camphor. Mix, and then stir into 5 ounces of melted lard.

This is applied to burns and contusions with very good effect, and is much used in Austria. The surface must not be abraded when it is applied.

2. Take 4 ounces of olive oil, 1 ounce of white wax, 22 grains of camphor, and 6 drachms of spermaceti. Melt the wax and spermaceti with the oil, and when they have cooled rub the ointment with the camphor, dissolved in a little oil. Sometimes the white wax is omitted, and lard substituted for it.

It is useful in chaps, fissures, abrasions, and roughness of the skin.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness, Florence Hartley

Lotions for Ringworm

Sulphate of zinc, two scruples; sugar of lead, fifteen grains; water, six ounces. Wash the parts two or three times a day.

Or: paint the rings with black writing ink.

Tincture of iodine, applied with a feather, is considered to be a speedy cure.

Another good remedy is two drams of muriated tincture of steel (steel drops) mixed with four tablespoonfuls of soft water. Bathe with it night and morning, and let a little of the lotion dry on.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Cure for a Black Eye

Bathe it with tepid water, and then apply a piece of lint saturated with the pure extract of lead. Keep the lint continually wet with the lotion for two or three hours.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Liquid for Curling the Hair

Two ounces scrapings of lead, half ounce Litharge, one-quarter ounce Gum Camphor. Boil all in one pint of soft water for half an hour. Let it cool; pour off liquid and add to it one drachm Rosemary Flowers. Boil all again and strain, when it is ready for use. Apply about once a week.

Source: One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed, C. A. Bogardus

To Kill Cockroaches

Mix equal parts of red lead, Indian meal and molasses to a paste, put it on iron plates and set it where they congregate.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

A Recipe for the Removal of Pimples or Blotches

Fifty grains of distilled water of cherry laurel, seventy-five grains of extract of lead, seven of tincture of benzoin, and thirty of alcohol; shake the benzoin and alcohol together, and then the whole very thoroughly.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

Pile Ointment

Take say a teacupful of hog’s lard, put in a flat or pewter dish, and take two bars of lead, flattened a little, and rub the lard with the flat ends and between them till it becomes black or of a dark lead color. Then burn equal parts of cavendish tobacco and old shoeleather in an iron vessel till charred. Powder these and mix into the lard till it becomes a thick ointment. Use once or twice a day as an ointment for the piles. An infallible cure.

Source: The Ladies’ Book of Useful Information

Judkins’ Ointment

Linseed-oil 1 pt; sweet oil 1 oz; and boil them in a kettle on coals for nearly 4 hours, as warm as you can; then have pulverized and mixed, borax 1/2 oz; red lead 4 ozs, and sugar of lead 1 1/2 ozs; remove the kettle from the fire and thicken in the powder; continue the stirrying until cooled to blood heat, then stir in 1 oz of spirits of turpentine; and now take out a little, letting it get cold, and if not then sufficiently thick to spread upon thin, soft linen as a salve, you will boil again until this point is reached.

[…] it is good for all kinds of wounds, bruises, sores, burns, white swellings, rheumatisms, ulcers, sore breasts, and even where there are wounds on the inside, it has been used with advantage, by applying a plaster over the part.

Source: Dr Chase’s Recipes, or Information for Everybody, A.W. Chase

Poison Ivy, Lead Water and Laudanum Relieves

“Application of cold lead water, made in proportions of two drams of sugar of lead, half an ounce of laudanum to half a pint of water and applied by means of cloths. The patient should eat a cooling, light diet and use a good saline cathartic, such as rochelle salts, etc.”

Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Piles, Strongly Recommended Remedy for

“Extract Belladonna 15 grains
Acetate lead 1/2 dram
Chloretone 1 dram
Gallic acid 15 grains
Sulphur 20 grains
Vaseline 1 ounce

Mix.

In protruding, itching and blind piles, this ointment will give you almost instant relief. If kept up several days it will promote a cure.”

Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter