Lime-flower Tea

To half an ounce of lime-flowers, placed in a tea-pot or jug, pour a pint of boiling water, and when the infusion has stood for ten minutes, sweeten with honey or sugar, and drink the tea hot, to assuage the pains in the stomach and chest, arising from indigestion. This beverage may also be successfully administered in attacks of hysteria.

Source: A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, C.E. Francatelli

Whooping Cough

Two level tablespoonfuls of powdered alum, two-thirds of a cupful of brown sugar, dissolved in two quarts of water; bottle and put in a dark closet where it is cool.

For a child one year old, a teaspoonful three times a day on an empty stomach. For a child two years old, two teaspoonfuls for a dose. For a child five years old, a tablespoonful. The state of the bowels must be attended to, and the doses repeated accordingly. No other medicine to be taken, except an emetic, at first, if desirable. Except in the case of an infant, a milk diet is to be avoided.

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

Eggs for Dysentery

Eggs are considered one of the best remedies for dysentery. Beaten up slightly with or without sugar, they tend to lessen the inflammation of the stomach and intestines and by forming a temporary coating on these organs enable nature to resume her healthful sway over the body. Two or at most three eggs a day would be sufficient in ordinary cases; and since the egg is not merely a medicine but food as well, the lighter the diet other than this, and the quieter the patient keeps, the more certain and rapid is the recovery.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

An excellent Water for the Stomach, or against Infection

Take Carduus, Mint and Wormwood, of each a like quantity, shred them small and put them into new Milk, distil them in an ordinary Still with a temperate fire; when you take any of it, sweeten it with Sugar, or with any Syrrup, what pleases you best; it is a very good water, though the Ingredients are but mean.

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

Draught to Promote the Appetite

Compound tincture of gentian, half an ounce; sal volatile, half a tcaspoonful; cinnamon water, one ounce; compound tincture of cardamoms, one tcaspoonful. Mix. The draught to be taken an hour before a meal.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

For the Griping in the Guts

Take a peniworth of Brandy, and a peniworth of Mithridate mixed together, and drink it three nights together when you go to rest, or take a little Oil of Aniseeds in a Glass of Sack three times.

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

A Splendid Remedy for Dysentery

A dessert spoonful of olive oil every four hours, and an opium pill between, this is the quantity for an adult, of course it must be much less for a child.

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

A very good Surfet water

Take what quantity of Brandy you please, steep a good quantity of the Flowers of Red Poppies therein, which grow amongst the Wheat, having the black bottoms cut off, when they have been steeped long enough, strain them out, and put in new, and so do till the Brandy be very red with them, and let it stand in the Sun all the while they infuse, then put in Nutmegs, Cloves, Ginger and Cinamon, with some fine Sugar, so much as you think fit, and keep it close stopped; this is very good for Surfets, Wind in the Stomach, or any Illness whatever.

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

Thoroughwort Bitters

Make a strong tea of the thoroughwort–strain it, and when cool, put to a couple of quarts of it half a pint of French brandy, the peel of two or three fresh oranges, cut into small bits, and half a dozen bunches of fennel, or smallage seed. The seed and orange peel should be crowded into a bottle, then the tea and brandy turned in. The bottle should be corked tight. The bitters will keep good almost any length of time, and is an excellent remedy for bilious complaints, and can often be taken when the thoroughwort tea will not sit on the stomach. A wine glass of these bitters to a tumbler of water is about the right proportion. It should have a little sugar added to it before drinking it.

Source: The American Housewife

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