To get rid of Red Ants

A small quantity of green sage, placed in the closet, will cause red ants to disappear. The flour of sulphur, also, sprinkled round the places they frequent, will cause them to disappear.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

Diphtheria

A gargle of sulphur and water has been used with much success in cases of diphtheria. Let the patient swallow a little of the mixture. Or, when you discover that your throat is a little sore, bind a strip of flannel around the throat, wet in camphor, and gargle salt and vinegar occasionally.

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

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

Remedy for Asthma

The following is said to be a cure for the distressing disease, asthma: The ingredients are: Sulphur, one half ounce; cream of tartar, one ounce; senna, one ounce; aniseed, one-half ounce. Pulverize and thoroughly mix the ingredients, and take one teaspoonful in about two tablespoonfuls of molasses on going to bed, or at such time through the day as may suit the patient. The dose, once a day, may be diminished or increased a little, as may best suit the state of the bowels of the individual.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

Corns – To Cure

Two drachms potash and 1 drachm salt of sorrel. Mix into a fine powder. Put on enough to cover the corn for four successive nights, binding it on with a cloth.

Corns can often be cured by paring them down and rubbing on a little strong vinegar or acetic acid every night. Each morning, rub them over with lard or olive oil.

The latest cure for soft corns is this: Wash and dry the foot thoroughly, and put on a sprinkling of dry sulphur night and morning for several weeks, and a cure is assured.

Source: Mrs Owens’ Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, Frances Owens

Pills for Asthma

Take powdered elecampane root, powdered liquorice root, powdered anise seed, and sulphur, of each one dram. Make into ordinary sized pills with a sufficient quantity of tar, and take three or four pills at night on going to bed. This is an admirable remedy for asthma and shortness of breath.

Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information

Intermitting Fever

Drink warm Lemonade in the beginning of every fit; it cures in a few days. Tried.

Or take a tea-spoonful of Oil of Sulphur in a cup of Balm-Tea, once or twice a day.

Source: Primitive Physic: or an easy and natural method of curing most diseases, John Wesley.

Gray Hair

“The only thing to do with gray hair is to admire it.” This is true. Nothing so sets off an aged face like the crown of silver. To color it is a great mistake. There is absolutely no cure for it; the one thing we can do is to make it a beauty. Gray hair is due to the exhaustion of the pigment or coloring cells of the hair, supposed to be occasioned by the lack of a regular supply of blood.

For the progressive whitening of the hair due to the advance of age, curative agents are rarely of any avail, especially if the trouble is hereditary. Not that gray hair and baldness are handed down from father to son, but that the peculiarities of constitution which produce them are inherent in both. Nervousness, neuralgia, a low physical condition, aid the falling and blanching of the hair, and the victim should build up the general system. Preparations of iron and sulphur, taken internally, are supposed to supply certain elements of growth and pigment-forming power to the hair.

A solution of iron for external application to the hair, calls for two drams each of citrate of iron and tincture of nux vomica, and one and one-half ounces each of cocoanut oil and bay rum. It may be mentioned here, that faithfulness in treatment means even more than the tonic applied. To gain any real benefit, one must be persistent in application.

Hair often turns gray “in streaks” to the chagrin of the victim. Or it whitens above the forehead and temples and remains dark at the back. Nothing can be done for this.

Gray hair should be kept scrupulously clean, and requires more frequent washing than hair that holds its color. A very little blueing in the rinsing water gives a purer, clearer white. For this use indigo, not the usual washing fluid which is made of Prussian blue. Five cents worth of indigo will last a lifetime.

Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Rheumatism, Sulphur Good for

“Cases of chronic rheumatism are often relieved by sulphur baths and sulphur tea. Dose:– Powder sulphur and mix with molasses. A teaspoonful three times a day,” Sulphur is a good blood purifier and laxative.

Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter

Rheumatism, Flowers of Sulphur Will Relieve Pain of

“Sciatica is sometimes very much improved by wrapping the limb for one night with
flowers of sulphur.”

Source: Mother’s Remedies: Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remidies from Mothers of the United States and Canada, T. J. Ritter