For Coughs and Colds

January 15th, 2017

Equal parts of syrup of squills, Bateman’s drops, and sweet spirits of nitre; make a tea of flaxseed; flavor it by boiling sufficient lemon in it; sweeten with loaf sugar if liked. Into a wineglass of this, put a tablespoonful of the mixture; take it upon going to bed. Paregoric may be used in the place of Bateman’s drops. Give it at intervals of two or three hours until the cough is relieved.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Croup

January 13th, 2017

A layer of onions sliced and brown sugar – a teaspoonful of the syrup is a dose. Put upon the chest a plaster of Scotch snuff. Grease a cloth three or four inches long, two or three wide ; sprinkle over it the snuff. Remove the plaster as soon as the stomach becomes nauseated.

The premonitory symptoms of croup are a shrill, sonorous cough, cold hands, and flushed face. The patient is not always sick, and is often gayer than usual. Use without delay a plaster of mustard upon the throat, or apply to the throat a strip of flannel dipped in turpentine or spirits of hartshorn. Give nauseating doses of hive syrup or syrup of squills. When these remedies are used promptly, they usually give relief.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Blackberry Diarrhoea Syrup

January 11th, 2017

To two quarts of blackberries, add one pound of loaf sugar, half an ounce of nutmegs, half an ounce of ground cinnamon, half an ounce of ground cloves, quarter an ounce ground alspice. Boil the whole together, and when cold add a pint of fourth proof brandy. From a tea-spoonful to a wine-glassful, according to the age of the patient, till relieved. In 1832 this was very successful in cases of the cholera.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

Colic Mixture for Infants

January 7th, 2017

Eighty drops of laudanum, fourteen of oil of anise, two tablespoonfuls of alcohol, and a piece of asafoetida as large as a pea; put these in an eight-ounce phial, and fill with warm water. Sweeten with loaf sugar. Dose from four to six drops to a child a few days old. Increase the dose as the child grows older.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Castor Oil Made Palatable

December 24th, 2016

Boil castor oil with twice its quantity of milk, and sweeten it with sugar. Let it cool. Children will not refuse it.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

Cough Syrup

December 6th, 2016

One cup of hops, one cup of wild cherry bark, one cup of hoarhound, one and a half gills of tar, one gill of brandy and a half pound of loaf sugar. Soak the cherry bark in one pint of water twenty-eight hours; put the hops and hoarhound in two quarts of water and keep at a temperature below (but near) boiling for two hours; boil tar with one pint of water one hour; strain the hops and hoarhound; pour off the tar into the same vessel; add sugar and one pint of water; boil until you have> a rich syrup; then add the cherry and brandy, and make up for the water that has been lost. Caution.—Do not boil the cherry.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Rose-Water

November 22nd, 2016

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

Tonic

November 20th, 2016

One drachm of pulverized colombo, one drachm of rasp. d. quartia, two drachms of peruvian bark, one drachm of orange peel, one drachm of ginger, two ounces of loaf sugar and a half pint of liquor. Let it stand twenty-four hours and then add a half pint of water.

Source: 76: A Cook Book

Children’s Sore Mouth

November 18th, 2016

Get the pulverized borax, and to about one-third of a teaspoonful of borax, mix about one and a half teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar. Mothers should wash their babies’ mouths out every other morning with a solution of borax and water, they should keep a bottle of it dissolved all the time, pour a little into a cup, and with a cloth wrapt around the finger and dipped into the solution, wipe the child’s mouth out well with it; this will prevent children ever having sore mouths.

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Cure for a Cough or Cold

November 2nd, 2016

An intelligent farmer has observed, that the best remedy he ever tried in his family for a cough or cold, was a decoction of the leaves of the pine-tree, sweetened with loaf sugar, to be freely drank warm when going to bed at night, and cold throughout the day.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

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    NOTE: these remedies are listed only for information and/or amusement. They are not to be construed as medical advice of any type, nor are they recommended for use. Consult your doctor or other medical professional for any medical advice you require.