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
Filed under Remedy | Tags: beck, blisters, breast, buckskin, burgundy pitch plaster, camphor, cold, consumption, cough, eggs, fish, flannel, fowl, fruit, gardening, hair soles, horseback riding, lea, lemonade, milk, oysters, perspiration, plaster, spirits | Comment (0)Erysipelas
The decoction of sarsaparilla has proved useful in cases of erysipelas. Take two ounces of sarsaparilla, one of sassafras, one of burdock root, and one of liquorice; boil them slowly in three pints of water, keeping it covered close, until reduced to one-half. Take two table-spoonsful four times a day.
While taking medicine for the erysipelas, meat and all strong food should be avoided, and every thing that has a tendency to inflame the blood. Dusting the parts affected, with rye or buckwheat flour, sometimes has a cooling effect, and bathing with camphor or spirits will allay the irritation.
Nettle rash is very much like erysipelas, and the same treatment is good for both. Slippery-elm bark, chipped, and let to stand in cold water till it becomes thick, is a very cooling drink. It may be filled up the second time. Barley water is also a suitable drink.
Erysipelas is frequently brought on by violent exercise, and the perspiration being checked too suddenly. Persons that have once had it, should avoid extremes of heat and cold, and pay strict attention to diet–not eating any thing that disagrees with them. All acids, particularly pickles, are improper.
The stomach should be cleansed by emetics. Small and frequent doses of senna and salts, if taken just at going to bed, will not occasion much sickness, and tend greatly to relieve the system of this unpleasant disease. Where the case is slight, the rhubarb pills sometimes give relief. The pores of those that are subject to it are generally open, and flannel should be worn all the year, to prevent too sudden a check of perspiration.
Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea
Filed under Remedy | Tags: barley water, buckwheat flour, burdock, burdock root, camphor, emetics, erysipelas, flannel, irritation, lea, licorice, liquorice, nettle, nettle rash, rhubarb, rhubarb pills, rye flour, salts, sarsaparilla, sassafras, senna, slippery elm bark, spirits | Comment (0)Tincture for Wounds
Digest flowers of St. Johnswart, one handful, in half a pint of rectified spirits, then express the liquor and dissolve it in myrrh, aloes, and dragon’s blood, of each one drachm, with Canada balsam, half an ounce.
Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie
For Sore Throat
Make a gargle of cayenne pepper, honey and spirits, or sage tea, with alum and honey, or figs boiled, mashed and strained, and use it once in two hours. If it is very bad, steam the mouth with a funnel held over hot vinegar, and put on a hot poultice of hops, boiled in weak ley and thickened with corn-meal; there should be a little lard spread over; renew it every time it gets cold. Another very good poultice, is hot mush strewed with powdered camphor; put it on as hot as can be borne, and change it when cold. A purgative should be given, either of senna and salts, castor oil; or rhubarb and soap pills. An emetic is of great importance, and has caused the throat to break when persons have been very ill.
Sore throats have been cured when quinsy was apprehended, by using powdered camphor and lard on flannel. It is a good way, when persons are subject to it, to keep an ounce of camphor mixed with lard, in a wide-mouthed bottle, or jar; and corked tight. The cayenne pepper and honey gargle should also be kept ready mixed, and used when the first symptoms appear; or in a violent attack, a plaster of snuff and lard may be applied with benefit, keeping it on only a few minutes at a time. Sometimes a bag of hot ashes sprinkled with vinegar, and applied hot as can be borne, has cured a sore throat in one night. Persons that have been afflicted for years with repeated attacks of sore throat and quinsy, have been cured by bathing the throat, neck and ears with cold water every morning. The constant use of the shower bath is very important. Keep the feet warm.
Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea
Filed under Remedy | Tags: alum, ashes, camphor, castor oil, cayenne, cayenne pepper, cornmeal, emetic, figs, flannel, honey, hops, lard, lea, ley, mush, poultice, purgative, quinsy, rhubarb, sage, sage tea, senna, shower bath, snuff, soap, sore throat, spirits, throat, vinegar | Comment (0)Elderberry Wine, &c.
To each gallon of berries, put one of water; mash them in a tub, and leave them two days, stirring them frequently; then strain them, and to each gallon of juice put three pounds of brown sugar, and to every five gallons, two ounces of bruised ginger, and one of cloves, which tie up in a bag, and boil in the wine for an hour, and put it in a cask; when it is nearly cold, put in two spoonsful of lively yeast; let it ferment two days, and put in a pint of spirits with the bag of spice, and close it up. This is excellent as a medicine for delicate or elderly persons.
Fill a bottle with elderberries, with a dozen cloves, and fill it up with spirits. It is good to give children that have the summer disease; mix a tea-spoonful of it with sugar and water for a child, or a table-spoonful for a grown person.
Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea
Filed under Remedy | Tags: brown sugar, cloves, elderberries, elderberry, ginger, lea, spirits, sugar, summer disease, wine, yeast | Comment (0)Blackberry Cordial
Mash and strain the blackberries; put the juice on to boil in a brass or bell-metal kettle; skim it well, and to each gallon of juice put three pounds of sugar and a quart of spirits; bruise some cloves and put in. This is valuable as a medicine for children in summer.
Source: Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, Elizabeth E. Lea
Mouth Wash for Receding Gums
Hydronaphthol 15 grains.
Spirits of Wine 1 ounce.
Water 1 ounce.
Put twenty drops in wineglassful of water, holding in mouth a little at a time for a few moments and spitting out. Do this daily.
Source: Tested Formulas and Useful House and Farm Recipes, T. Kenny
Filed under Remedy | Tags: gums, hydronapthol, kenny, mouth, mouth wash, mouthwash, spirits, spirits of wine, wine | Comment (0)To make the true Palsie-water, as it was given by that once very famous Physician Doctor Matthias
Take Lavender Flowers stripped from the stalks, and fill a Gallon-Glass with them, and pour on them good Spirit of Sack, or perfect Aqua vitæ distilled from all Flegm, let the quantity be five quarts, then circulate them for six weeks, very close with a Bladder, that nothing may breath out; let them stand in a warm place, then distil them in an Alembeck with his Cooler, then put into the said water, of Sage, Rosemary, and Wood-Betony Flowers; of each half a handful, of Lilly of the Valley, and Burrage, Bugloss, and Cowslip Flowers, one handful of each; steep these in Spirit of Wine, Malmsie, or Aqua vitæ, every one in their Season, till all may be had; then put also to them of Balm, Motherwort, Spike-flowers, Bay leaves, the leaves of Orange trees, with the Flowers, if they may be had, of each one ounce, put them into the aforesaid distilled Wine all together, and distil it as before, having first been steeped six weeks; when you have distilled it, put into it Citron Pill, dried Piony seeds hull’d, of each five Drams, of Cinamon half an Ounce, of Nutmegs, Cardamum seeds, Cubebs[1], and yellow Saunders[2], of each half an ounce, of lignum Aloes one dram; make all these into Powder, and put them into the distilled Wine abovesaid, and put to them of Cubebs anew, a good half pound of Dates, the stones taken out, and cut them in small pieces, put all these in, and close your Vessel well with a double Bladder; let them digest six weeks, then strain it hard with a Press, and filtrate the Liquor, then put into it of prepared Pearl, Smaragdus[3], Musk and Saffron, of each half a Scruple; and of Ambergreece one Scruple, red Roses dried well, Red and Yellow Saunders, of each one ounce, hang these in a Sarsenet[4] Bag in the water, being well sewed that nothing go out.
The virtues of this Water
This Water is of exceeding virtue in all Swoundings and Weaknesses of the heart, and decaying of Spirits in all Apoplexies and Palsies, also in all pains of the Joints coming of Cold, for all Bruises outwardly bathed and dipped Clothes laid to; it strengtheneth and comforteth all animal, natural and viral Spirits, and cheareth the external Senses, strengtheneth the Memory, restoreth lost Speech, and lost Appetite, all weakness of the Stomach, being both taken inwardly, and bathed outwardly; it taketh away the Giddiness of the Head, helpeth lost Hearing, it maketh a pleasant Breath, helpeth all cold disposition of the Liver, and a beginning Dropsie; it helpeth all cold Diseases of the Mother; indeed none can express sufficiently; it is to be taken morning and evening, about half a Spoonful with Crums of Bread and Sugar.
Source: The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet, Hannah Wolley
1. A type of pepper.
2. Sandalwood.
3. Emerald.
4. A type of fine silk.
Filed under Remedy | Tags: aloes, ambergreece, ambergris, apoplexy, appetite, aqua vitae, balm, bay, betony, borage, bread, breath, bruise, bugloss, burrage, cardamom, cardamum, cinamon, cinnamon, citron, cowslip, cubeb, dates, dropsy, emerald, giddiness, head, hearing, heart, joints, lavender, lemon, lily of the valley, liver, malmsey, malmsie, memory, motherwort, musk, nutmeg, orange, palsie, palsy, pearl, peony, piony, rose, rosemary, sack, saffron, sage, sandalwood, saunders, smaragdus, speech, spirits, stomach, wolley, wood-betony | Comment (0)To make the very best Surfet-water
Take one Gallon of the best French Spirits, and a Pint of Damask-Rose-water, half a Pint of Poppy water, one pound of white Sugar Candy bruised, then take one pound and half of Raisins in the Sun stoned, half a pound of Dates stoned and sliced, then take one Ounce of Mace, one Ounce of Cloves, one Ounce of Cinamon, one Ounce of Aniseeds rubbed clean from the dust, then take a quarter of an Ounce of Licoras clean scraped and sliced, and all the Spices grosly beaten, let all these steep in the Spirits four days; then take a quarter of a peck of Red Poppy Leaves fresh gathered, and the black part cut off, and put them in, and when it hath stood four or five days, strain it, and put it into your Glass, then put in your Sugar-Candy finely beaten, twelve peniworth of Ambergreece, six peniworth of Musk, keep it close, and shake it now and then, and when you use it, you may put some kind of Syrrup to it, what you please.
Source: The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet, Hannah Wolley
Sick Headache, Camphor Application for
“A very simple but effective remedy is a cloth wet with spirits of camphor and sprinkled with black pepper applied to the head gives almost instant relief.”
Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter