For Rheumatism

Persons are liable to have the rheumatism from taking cold in the winter. Where the pain is most violent, put on plasters of Burgundy pitch, spread on leather. Persons that are subject to it, should always keep pitch in the house to use, as it will give relief; a silk handkerchief tied round the joint, keeps it warm and relieves stiffness. If the pain is in the back part of the head, put a blister on the neck, by all means. When persons have a bad spell of rheumatism, they should always take medicine, and avoid eating meat for a few days. Equal parts of rhubarb and castile soap, made into pills, with a little water, is a valuable medicine for rheumatism, and suits aged persons; the pills should be taken at night on going to bed. They are easily made, and should always be at hand: it is valuable as a cathartic in almost every case where mild medicine is necessary. The use of the shower bath is also beneficial. Flannel should always be worn next the skin, and the feet kept dry. Bathing with camphor sometimes relieves the pain, but there is a danger of driving it to a more vital part. Salt and water is useful to bathe for the rheumatism, when it is of long-standing.

Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea

Several Ways of Preparing Chickens for the Sick

Chicken tea is made by boiling any part of the chicken, and using the broth weak with only a little salt.

Chicken broth is made by boiling a chicken a good deal, and skimming very thoroughly and seasoning with salt. A little rice, or pearl barley improves it, or a little parsley may be used to flavor it.

Chicken panada is made by pounding some of the meat of boiled chicken in a mortar, with a little broth, and also a little salt and nutmeg. Then pour in a little broth and boil it five minutes. It should be a thick broth.

Source: Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, Catherine Beecher

Bruises

The only treatment that does any good is to bathe the bruised part with cold water — the colder the better — to check the diffusion of blood through the tissues. The part should be kept as still as possible and not be rubbed. Applying a piece of raw meat to a black eye may not do any harm, but it certainly has no useful effect.

Source: The Complete Household Adviser

To Prevent Mold

A small quantity of carbolic acid added to paste, mucilage and ink, will prevent mold. An ounce of the acid to a gallon of whitewash will keep cellars and dairies from the disagreeable odor which often taints milk and meat kept in such places.

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

Scurvy

Scurvy is a disease accompanied by a depraved state of the blood, attributed to improper diet, assisted by bad air and mental depression. It is generally cured by a good mixed and fresh diet. Sound potatoes, and other vegetables containing salts of potash, are said to prevent it; but as a substitute for these, lemon juice, when much salt food is used, has been found very efficacious, and it is therefore always provided for the use of the Royal Navy, which, though once dreadfully afflicted with this disease, is now nearly exempt from it ; a result mainly attributable to a great and general improvement in discipline, ventilation, and diet.

This disease was very prevalent and destructive in England before the general cultivation of the potato, and it became again a common disease among the poor in several parts of the country, when the extensive potato-blight occurred in 1846. At that time Dr. Baly remarked, that the military prisoners at Millbank, dieted like the other prisoners, except that they had no potatoes, were alone attacked by scurvy on that occasion, and when potatoes were supplied to them the disease ceased. It is probable that the citric and tartaric acids existing in the potato are combined with the nutriment in such a manner as to be peculiarly adapted to the blood, since the potato is found even more advantageous in many cases of scurvy than lemons and oranges. I dwell on this point because it proves that small variations in diet are capable of producing vast effects on health, and that but for a fair and full distribution of the fruits of the earth, disease would be far more destructive than at present; and by neglect of small points in the diet of the poor, maladies from depraved blood would be now as rife and terrible as in the darker ages. The method by which potatoes are dried, so as to be fit to form part of ship-store, is an important invention, and highly valuable to sailors, since they may thus obtain in any climate a dish of mash-potatoes with the help of a little warm water.

Observing the benefit resulting from the use of phosphate of soda in certain depraved conditions of the blood, I think it probable that this salt would be of great service in scurvy. The proper dose would be from ten to thirty grains a day. As scurvy arises from salted meat in the absence of fresh meat and vegetables, the theory of its cause and cure almost resolves itself into a chemical problem. All animals need salt, since it furnishes ingredients for the blood, and is essential to digestion and secretion. How, then, is salted meat injurious? Simply from the circumstance that, in salting meat, the common salt takes the place of the soluble phosphates of the flesh, while these phosphates, so requisite for the production of healthy blood and sound flesh, are almost entirely removed from the flesh into the brine. It becomes then important to discover some better plan of preserving meat. By the exclusion of air, as by filling tin cases with meat, and then soldering them, meat may be preserved for years. The best plan is to make a real concentration of the animal juices, as in portable soup. What is generally sold under this name, is but a gelatinous mass of very little value as nourishment. The following is the method of preparing this soup, or extract of meat, abridged from Liebig:— Chop very fine one pound of lean beef; mix it well with an equal weight of cold water; slowly heat the mixture to boiling; after boiling briskly a minute or two, strain through coarse linen. Salt and flavour according to taste, and tinge it with roasted onion or burnt sugar. This, when concentrated by slow evaporation, is a dark soft mass, half an ounce of which in a pint of water, makes a strong well-flavoured soup.

Source: Health, Disease and Remedy, George Moore