Remarks upon a Deeply Seated Cough

It is very important to begin in time with a cold. Consumption is sometimes prevented by very simple remedies. To put Burgundy pitch plasters on the breast and back of the neck, often has a good
effect; they should be re-spread frequently, and when one part is irritated, change them to another place. Put one on your side if you have a pain there.

Flannel should be put on next the skin by all means, which, with the above simple remedies, will cure a cold, if begun with in time.

I have frequently known new flannel put on those that usually wore it, greatly to benefit a delicate person. The increased irritation of the new flannel acts on the pores of the skin and promotes circulation. Hair soles worn in the shoe, or socks made of flannel, or soft buckskin worn under the stockings, are very good to keep the feet warm and dry. Persons predisposed to consumption should have nourishing food, and not eat too much at a time; they should avoid strong tea or coffee, and drink milk. Eggs, oysters, fresh fish and fowls, are very good for them. Fruit of all kinds is useful.

They should take exercise in the air, particularly riding on horse-back, or take a short walk, but not so as to be fatigued; to work moderately in a garden, when the ground is not too damp, is good exercise for a delicate person; the smell of fresh earth, and of flowers, is beneficial to both body and mind. After taking exercise, a glass of lemonade is very refreshing, and promotes appetite.

If there should be perspiration at night, change the sheets and pillow-cases frequently, and the under garments; air the chamber and bed-clothes every day; if the weather is too damp to raise the windows, shake up the bed, and leave it unmade half of the day, and put it out in the sun occasionally.

By all means avoid strong medicine, or any thing that has a tendency to weaken the body.

Sometimes blisters are used with very good effect; also, rubbing the breast and back with camphor or spirits, or with a piece of dry flannel.

Taking anodyne drops, particularly laudanum, should be avoided, if possible; they may still the cough during the night, but it will come on with increased violence in the morning; they weaken the stomach, increase the fever, and sometimes cause delirium.

Everything that tends to excite or irritate the mind, should be kept from them. It is very important to talk cheerfully to sick persons, particularly if confined to their chamber, which can be done without lightness or trifling.

If they see gloomy faces around them, it has a very disheartening effect; and, if the mind sinks, such is its intimate connection with the body, that it is hard to raise it.

I have known persons by judicious management to live for many years, after it was thought they were in a deep decline, by avoiding weakening medicines, taking exercise on horse-back and on foot, and never indulging in a full meal.

Sometimes such persons have very good appetites, and it is a satisfaction to their friends to see them eat heartily; but they should eat something frequently, rather than over-load the stomach too much. When they come in hungry from a ride, to beat up an egg with a tea-spoonful of wine, and a little sugar and nutmeg put in a tumbler with some milk, and taken with a cracker or biscuit, or a piece of thin toast broken up in it, has a very strengthening effect.

Persons are seldom benefitted by a strict diet, but it is sometimes enforced till they lose their appetite and cannot eat.

If the weather is so that exercise cannot be taken out of doors, some method should be devised for taking it in the house. Rubbing furniture and playing battle-door, are good exercise for a female, but should not be taken too much at a time.

Men that are confined to the house are sometimes very much at a loss what to do; if such would purchase a few tools, and appropriate a spare room as a workshop, it would promote their health. I have known men that were but little acquainted with the use of tools, do many useful and ornamental pieces of work, that were greatly valued by their friends; and the exertion kept their spirits from sinking, when the weather was too inclement to take exercise in the open air.

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

Camomiles

The dried flowers of the common Camomile are sufficiently familiar to everyone. They are antispasmodic, carminative, and tonic, which render them very useful in dyspepsia and general debility. Camomile tea, as the infusion is generally called, is a most agreeable bitter, and is of almost universal use and acceptance. Taken warm it promotes the action of emetics. The flowers steeped in boilirg water are frequently used as fomentations for abscesses and inflamed parts, to promote suppuration and relieve pain; flannels dipped in the hot decoction answer the same purpose. Boiling water poured over the flowers is the proper way of preparing the tea. It is very wrong to boil them, as many are in the habit of doing, thinking to obtain a greater strength; but the contrary is the case — they lose the chief of their virtues, which consists of an essential oil, that passes off with the steam.

Camomiles, though simple, have great virtues; they are good for debility and loss of appetite, and drank warm at bedtime, are good for colds and to promote perspiration. Many chew these flowers to wean themselves of the beastly and destructive habit of chewing tobacco, for which it serves as a good substitute. We obtain them fresh every season from the growers, so that the quality may be depended on. In addition to the many excellent properties of these flowers, they have proved an efficient remedy for the stone and gravel; also for irritation of the bladder and urinary passages, pains and stitches in the side, etc. Outwardly applied, with poppy heads, they form one of the best fomentations for pains, inflammation, etc., and for almost every other purpose where a fomentation is necessary; it will also be found a valuable remedy to wash eyes that are weak, or where the sight is decaying. A scruple of the powder of camomile taken once every four hours, and continued for four days, cures the ague.

Source: Baldwin’s Herbal Guide To Health, G. Baldwin

Remedy for Sick Head-ache

A table-spoonful of table salt; dissolved in a pint of water, as warm as you can drink it; take at two doses, and drink freely of luke-warm water, until it causes vomiting; put a hot brick to the feet, and avoid the air, which will check the perspiration.

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

Brown Mixture for a Cough

Take of paregoric, liquorice and gum arabic, each an ounce, from fifty to one hundred drops of antimonial wine and two gills of hot water; mix them well together, and when cold, bottle, and cork it tight; take two tea-spoonsful at a time; if it should nauseate, give a smaller quantity. If this produce profuse perspiration avoid going in the air unless well wrapped up. This has been useful in the latter stages of the whooping cough.

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

Perspiring Feet

If the feet perspire, add a few drops of ammonia to the water when bathing them, and bathe them often. The unpleasant odour from perspiring feet may be prevented by sprinkling oatmeal in the socks, as used in the army; or, sprinkle bran in the socks frequently. Try either with good effect.

Source: Fray’s Golden Recipes for the use of all ages, E. Fray

For Perspiration Odor

The unpleasant odor of perspiration often causes much annoyance. Instead of using perfumery, wash the body with warm water to which has been added two tablespoonfuls of compound spirits of ammonia. This will leave the skin sweet, clean, and fresh.

Source: Fowler’s Household Helps, A.L. Fowler

Perspiration, To Remedy Profuse

Take nutritious and a rather generous diet, with a tonic of citrate of iron and quinine. Locally the skin should be washed with juniper tar soap and sponged from time to time with a lotion containing one part liquid ammonia and three parts water.

A foreign physician has found the following a cure in many cases : — Take of powdered sage leaves a large teaspoonful, boil them gently for five minutes in six ounces of water, strain, sweeten to taste, and take a third part three times daily.

The following is also recommended : — To a wineglassful of water add two drams of compound spirits of camphor and forty drops of diluted sulphuric acid. Dose: One tablespoonful twice a day.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Remedial Qualities of Common Fruits

A table giving the remedial qualities of the common fruits and vegetables is herewith appended: —

Celery for any form of rheumatism and nervous dyspepsia.

Lettuce for insomnia.

Water-cress for scurvy.

Onions are almost the best nervine known. Use for insomnia, for coughs and colds, and as a complexion curer. Eaten every other day, they soon have a clearing and whitening effect on the complexion.

Spinach for gravel.

Asparagus to induce perspiration.

Carrots for suffering from asthma.

Turnips for nervous disorders and for scurvy.

Raw beef proves of great benefit to persons of frail constitution, and to those suffering from consumption. It is chopped fine, seasoned with salt, and heated by placing it in a dish in hot water. It assimilates rapidly and affords the best nourishment.

Eggs contain a large amount of nutriment in a compact quickly available form. Beaten up raw with sugar they are used to clear and strengthen the voice. With sugar and lemon juice the beaten white of egg is used to relieve hoarseness.

Cranberries for erysipelas are used externally as well as internally.

Cranberries eaten raw are one of the finest tonics and appetizers known.

In cases of yellow or typhoid fever, cranberries are almost indispensable as a tonic and to assist in clearing the system of the harmful bacteria.

For some forms of dyspepsia there is no more simple and effective remedy than raw cranberries. Carry a supply in the pocket and eat them frequently during the day. They will cure headache as well.

People who are subject to biliousness will find that with cranberries a part of each day’s food they will be free from such attacks.

Honey is wholesome, strengthening, cleansing, healing and nourishing.

Fresh ripe fruits are excellent for purifying the blood and toning up the system.

Sour oranges are highly recommended for rheumatism.

Watermelon for epilepsy and for yellow fever.

Lemons for feverish thirst in sickness, biliousness, low fevers, rheumatism, colds, coughs, liver complaints, etc.

Blackberries for diarrhoea.

Tomatoes are a powerful aperient for the liver, a sovereign remedy for dyspepsia and for indigestion.

Tomatoes are invaluable in all conditions in which the use of calomel is indicated.

Figs are aperient and wholesome. They are said to be valuable as a food for those suffering from cancer. They are used externally as well as internally.

Bananas are useful as a food for those suffering from chronic diarrhoea.

Pie-plant is wholesome and aperient; is excellent for rheumatic sufferers and useful for purifying the blood.

Peanuts for indigestion. They are especially recommended for corpulent diabetes. Peanuts are made into a wholesome and nutritious soup, are browned and used as a coffee, are eaten as a relish simply baked, or are prepared and served as salted almonds.

Apples are useful in nervous dyspepsia; they are nutritious, medicinal and vitalizing; they aid digestion, clear the voice, correct the acidity of the stomach, are valuable in rheumatism, insomnia, and liver trouble. An apple contains as much nutriment as a potato, in a pleasanter, more wholesome form.

Grapes dissolve and dislodge gravel and calculi, and bring the stomach and bowels to a healthy condition.

Ripe pineapples have been put upon the list of foods especially healthful for persons troubled with indigestion, the juice being especially valuable in such cases. Shred with a silver fork, and reject all the indigestible core. The juice of a ripe pineapple is an almost invaluable remedy for diphtheria, the acid seeming to dissolve the strangling growth in the throat.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Elder Tea

Make a strong tea of elder-flowers, either fresh or dried. Sweeten with honey. This tea is to be drunk as hot as possible ,after the person is warm in bed; it produces a strong perspiration, and a slight cold or cough yields to it immediately; but the more stubborn requires two or three repetitions. Used in Russia. This is an excellent remedy for colds attended with feverish symptoms and sore throat.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

Herb Teas

Herb teas are made by infusing the dried or green leaves and stalks in boiling water, and letting them stand until cold. Sweeten to taste.

Sage tea, sweetened with honey, is good for a sore throat, used as a gargle, with a small bit of alum dissolved in it.

Catnip tea is the best panacea for infant ills, in the way of cold and colic, known to nurses.

Pennyroyal tea will often avert the unpleasant consequences of a sudden check of perspiration, or the evils induced by ladies’ thin shoes.

Chamomile and gentian teas are excellent tonics taken either cold or hot.

The tea made from blackberry-root is said to be good for summer disorders. That from green strawberry leaves is an admirable and soothing wash for a cankered mouth.

Tea of parsley-root scraped and steeped in boiling water, taken warm, will often cure strangury and kindred affections, as will that made from dried pumpkin-seed.

Tansy and rue teas are useful in cases of colic, as are fennel seeds steeped in brandy.

A tea of damask-rose leaves, dry or fresh, will usually subdue any simple case of summer complaint in infants.

Mint tea, made from the green leaves, crushed in cold or hot water and sweetened, is palatable and healing to the stomach and bowels.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland