Cologne Water (Superior)

Oil of lavender two drachms, oil of rosemary one drachm and a half, orange, lemon and bergamot, one drachm each of the oil; also two drachms of the essence of musk, attar of rose ten drops, and a pint of proof spirit. Shake all together thoroughly three times a day for a week.

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

Swaim’s Vermifuge

Worm seed, two ounces; valerian, rhubarb, pink root, white agaric, senna, of each one ounce and a half. Boil in sufficient water to yield three quarts of decoction. Now add to it ten drops of the oil of tansy and forty-five drops of the oil of cloves, dissolved in a quart of rectified spirit. Dose: one tablespoonful at night.

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

Rose-Water

Preferable to the distilled for a perfume, or for culinary purposes. Attar of rose, twelve drops; rub it up with half an ounce of white sugar and two drachms carbonate magnesia; then add gradually one quart of water and two ounces of proof spirit, and filter through paper.

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

Balsam for Coughs and Colds

Tincture of tolu and compound tincture of benzoin, of each one ounce, rectified spirit, two ounces; mix. The dose is a teaspoonful.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

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

To Make Spirit of Mints

Take three Pints of the best white Wine, three handfuls of right Spear mint picked clean from the stalks, let it steep in the wine one night covered, in the morning, put it into a Copper Alembeck, and draw it with a pretty quick fire; and when you have drawn it all, take all your Water and add as much Wine as before, and put to the Water, and the same quantity of Mint as before; let it steep two or three hours, then put all into your Still, and draw it with a soft fire, put into your Receiver a quantity of Loaf Sugar, and you will find it very excellent; you may distil it in an ordinary Still if you please; but then it will not be so strong nor effectual.

Thus you may do with any other Herbs whatsoever.

Source: The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet, Hannah Wolley

Freckles

Freckles, or the round or oval-shaped yellowish or brownish-yellow spots, resembling stains, common on the face and the backs of the hands of persons with a fair and delicate skin who are much exposed to the direct rays of the sun in hot weather, are of little importance in themselves, and have nothing to do with the general health. Ladies who desire to remove them may have recourse to the frequent application of dilute spirit, or lemon juice, or a lotion formed by adding acetic, hydrochloric, nitric, or sulphuric acid, or liquor of potassa, to water, until it is just strong enough to slightly prick the tongue. One part of good Jamaica rum to two parts of lemon juice or weak vinegar is a good form of lotion for the purpose. The effect of all these lotions is increased by the addition of a little glycerine.

The preceding are also occasionally called “common freckles,” “summer freckles,” and “sun freckles.” In some cases they are very persistent, and resist all attempts to remove them while the exposure that produces them is continued. Their appearance may be prevented by the greater use of the veil, parasol or sunshade, or avoidance of exposure to the sun during the heat of the day.

Another variety, popularly known as cold freckles, occur at all seasons of the year, and usually depend on disordered health or some disturbance of the natural functions of the skin. Here the only external application that proves useful is the solution of bichloride of mercury and glycerine, or Gowland’s lotion.

Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information

Receding Gums

In order to try and check the gums from receding, they should be rubbed three or four times a day with a lotion of one drachm of tannic acid in an ounce of rectified spirit. They should also be rubbed vigorously with the fingers so as to stimulate the circulation of the blood, but not hard enough to make them bleed.

Source: Home Notes, 1895

Ingredients: Acorn

This is the well-known fruit of our British Oak, to which tree it gives the name– Aik, or Eik, Oak.

The Acorn was esteemed by Dioscorides, and other old authors, for its supposed medicinal virtues. As an article of food it is not known to have been habitually used at any time by the inhabitants of Britain, though acorns furnished the chief support of the large herds of swine on which our forefathers subsisted. The right of maintaining these swine in the woods was called “panage,” and formed a valuable property.

The earliest inhabitants of Greece and Southern Europe who lived in the primeval forests were supported almost wholly on the fruit of the Oak. They were described by classic authors as fat of person, and were called “balanophagi”–acorn eaters.

During the great dearth of 1709 the French were driven to eat bread of acorns steeped in water to destroy the bitterness, and they suffered therefrom injurious effects, such as obstinate constipation, or destructive cholera.

It is worth serious notice medically that in years remarkable for a large yield of Acorns disastrous losses have occurred among young cattle from outbreaks of acorn poisoning, or the acorn disease. Those up to two years old suffered most severely, but sheep, pigs and deer were not affected by this acorn malady. Its symptoms are progressive wasting, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, sore places inside the mouth, discharge from the eyes and nostrils, excretion of much pale urine, and no fever, but a fall of temperature below the normal standard. Having regard to which train of symptoms it is fair to suppose the acorn will afford in the human subject a useful specific medicine for the marasmus, or wasting atrophy of young children who are scrofulous. The fruit should be given in the form of a tincture, or vegetable extract, or even admixed (when ground) sparingly with wheaten flour in bread. The dose should fall short of producing any of the above symptoms, and the remedy should be steadily pursued for many weeks.

The tincture should be made of saturated strength with spirit of wine on the bruised acorns, to stand for a fortnight before being decanted. Then the dose will be from twenty to thirty drops with water three or four times a day.

The Acorn contains chemically starch, a fixed oil, citric acid, uncrystallizable sugar, and another special sugar called “quercit.”

Acorns, when roasted and powdered, have been sometimes employed as a fair substitute for coffee. By distillation they will yield an ardent spirit.

Dr. Burnett strongly commends a “distilled spirit of acorns” as an antidote to the effects of alcohol, where the spleen and kidneys have already suffered, with induced dropsy. It acts on the principle of similars, ten drops being given three times a day in water.

In certain parts of Europe it is customary to place acorns in the hands of the newly dead; whilst in other districts an apple is put into the palm of a child when lying in its little coffin.

Source: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, William Thomas Fernie