For Colds on the Chest

Rub with embrocation, or camphorated oil, on the throat and chest, afterwards covering them with flannel or Thermogen. Give a cough mixture to relieve the cough. A linseed poultice will become necessary for a case of bronchitis, croup, pneumonia or pleurisy.

Source: Household Management, E. Stoddard Eckford & M.S. Fitzgerald

Magic Oil

One gallon Sweet Oil, two ozs. Oil Hemlock, two ozs. Oil Organum, two ozs. Chloroform, four ozs. Spirits Ammonia. Mix. Let it stand 24 hours and it is ready for use. Dose, internally, one teaspoonful for adults. Bathe the affected parts well. This is a great remedy for aches and pains, Rheumatism, Neuralgia, and all nervous and inflammatory diseases.

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

Specific Inflammatory Rheumatism

One oz. Salt Petre, pulverized; one pint Sweet Oil. Bathe the parts affected three times a day with this mixture and a speedy cure will be the result.

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

Macassar Oil for the Hair

Renowned for the past fifty years, is as follows: Take a quarter of an ounce of the chippings of alkanet root, tie this in a bit of coarse muslin and put it in a bottle containing eight ounces of sweet oil; cover it to keep out the dust; let it stand several days; add to this sixty drops of tincture of cantharides, ten drops of oil of rose, neroli and lemon each sixty drops; let it stand one week and you will have one of the most powerful stimulants for the growth of the hair ever known.

Another:–To a pint of strong sage tea, a pint of bay rum and a quarter of an ounce of the tincture of cantharides, add an ounce of castor oil and a teaspoonful of rose, or other perfume. Shake well before applying to the hair, as the oil will not mix.

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

A very excellent Receipt against Convulsions which cur’d one had 9 Fitts a Day

Take Race oynions and black pepper of each a little quantity stamp’d pretty small and lay it to y^e soals of y^e feet keep it on 7 houres, whilst y^e party is in y^e fitt force them not to take any thing inwardly but anoynt y^e wrists on y^e inside, y^e palmes of y^e hands, y^e Temples and y^e nostrills (if it be a childe) with Methridate (if not) with oyle or spirit of Amber, between y^e fitts let it drinke black cherrey water sweetned with syrrop of Cloves & syrrop of Pyonies for a weeks time after y^e fitts first and last let them ware a necklace of single pyonie roots alwayes about theire neck, avoid giving syrrop of Violets if you fear fitts, but syrrop of Roses and Succory is good to be given together when costive this may be given to children of any age.

Source: A Book of Simples, H.W. Lewer

Good Furniture Polish

Beat up the white of one egg, adding to it one gill of pure sweet oil, half a gill of methylated spirits and half a gill of vinegar. This mixture will be found especially good for reviving leather.

Source: 1001 Household Hints, Ottilie V. Ames

Lip-Salve

Melt one ounce white wax, one ounce sweet oil, one drachm spermaceti, and throw in a piece of alkanet root to color it, and when cooling, perfume it with oil rose, and then pour it into small white jars or boxes.

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

Another Remedy for Scarlet Fever

Undress the child and put it to bed at the very first sign of sickness. Give it, if it has already fever, sourish warm lemonade, with some gum arabic in it. Then cover the abdomen with some dry flannel. Take a well-folded bed-sheet and put it in boiling hot water ; wring it out by means of dry towels, and put this over the whole and wait. The hot cloth will perhaps require repeated heating, according to the severity of the case and its stage of progress. Perspiration will commence in the child in from ten minutes to two hours. The child then is saved ; it soon falls to sleep. Soon after the child awakes it shows slight symptoms of returning inclination for food ; if necessary give injections of oil, or soap and water, and its recovery will be as steady as the growth of a green-house plant if well treated. If the above treatment is applied in due time under the eyes and direction of a competent physician, it is said that not one in a hundred children will ever die of scarlet fever.

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Razor-Strop Paste

Wet the strop with a little sweet oil, and apply a little flour of emery evenly over the surface.

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

Earache

Caused sometimes by bad teeth, but generally by cold or hardened ear wax.

Hold ear over cloth wrung out of hot water, on which are several drops of alcohol. Syringe ear with warm bicarbonate of soda water — 1 tsp. to a cup; or peroxide of hydrogen water — 1 tbsp. to a cup of water.

One drop laudanum, or one drop arnica to three drops very warm olive oil, dropped into ear with a medicine dropper, often relieves pain; or cotton may be saturated with the warm olive oil and placed in the ear and covered with dry cotton. To prevent hardening of wax: keep ear anointed with ordinary red vaseline (unbleached vaseline). For watery discharge of ear, dust with dry boric acid.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer