Medicinal Imperial

Useful in the Spring, or in slight Fevers, or Colds.

Pour 3 quarts of boiling water over 1 1/2 oz. of cream of tartar, 1 oz. Epsom salts, 3/4 lb. lump sugar, the peel of 3 lemons, and the juice of 1; cover close half an hour, then boil up, skim and strain it through thin muslin, into decanters.

A wine-glassful before breakfast.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Excellent Cough Mixture

Take a handful of hoarhound, boil in a quart of water; add one pint of Orleans molasses, and one pound of brown sugar. Boil to a thin sirup. Put all in a bottle, and add one tablespoonful of tar. Shake while warm, until the tar is cut into small beads. Dose: Take one tablespoonful whenever the cough is troublesome.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

Lip Salve, Very Good

Two oz. white wax, 2 oz. of unsalted lard, 1/2 oz. spermaceti, 1 oz. oil sweet almonds, 2 drachms balsam of Peru, a lump of sugar, and 2 drachms of alkali root; simmer together, then strain through muslin.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

For the Hooping Cough

Dissolve 1 scruple of salt of tartar in 1 1/4 pint of cold water: add 10 grains of pounded cochineal, and sweeten with lump sugar. The dose increased in proportion to the age of the patient; for a child five years old, a table-spoonful is sufficient; for adults 2 table-spoonsful 3 times a day. Abstain from all acids.

Source: The English Housekeeper, Anne Cobbett

Lozenges for Offensive Breath

Gum kino, half an ounce; catechu, one ounce; white sugar, three ounces; orris powder, three-quarters of an ounce. Make into a paste with mucilage, and add a drop of neroli.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Croup

Give equal parts of butter and honey melted together, or lard and sugar, or onion juice and sugar, or equal parts of alum and sugar. If choking is bad give the white of an egg or something to cause vomiting, that the phlegm may be thrown up. Always grease the breast well with lard, and keep covered with flannel. Melt the lard and put it on as hot as can be borne. If nothing else helps, wrap the child in blankets and give hot drinks until sweating is induced, but after this treatment great care must be taken as the patient will take cold very easily.

Source: The Inglenook Cook Book

Onion Juice for Croup

Slice raw onions very thin and sprinkle with sugar. Allow to dissolve and give the juice in teaspoonful doses frequently. This often relieves instantly.

Source: The Inglenook Cook Book

Bran Tea

Put a handful of bran in a pint and a half of cold water, boil it for an hour and three-quarters, then strain, and flavour with sugar and lemon juice. This is a very cheap and useful drink in colds, fevers, and restlessness from pain.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Arrowroot Custard for Invalids

One tablespoonful of arrowroot.

One pint of milk. One egg.

One tablespoonful of sugar.

Mix the arrowroot with a little of the cold milk, put the milk into a sauce-pan over the fire, and when it boils, stir in the arrowroot and the egg and sugar, well beaten together. Let it scald, and pour into cups to cool. A little cinnamon boiled in the milk flavors it pleasantly.

Source: Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, Catherine Beecher

Simple Barley Water

Take two ounces and a half of pearl barley, cleanse it, and boil it ten minutes in half a pint of water. Strain out this water and add two quarts of boiling water, and boil it down to one quart. Then strain it, and flavor it with slices of lemon and sugar, or sugar and nutmeg.

This is very acceptable to the sick in fevers.

Source: Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, Catherine Beecher