Blackberry Syrup, for Cholera and Summer Complaint

Two quarts of blackberry juice.

One pound of loaf sugar.

Half an ounce of nutmegs.

A quarter of an ounce of cloves.

Half an ounce of cinnamon.

Half an ounce of allspice.

Pulverize the spice, and boil all for fifteen or twenty minutes. When cold, add a pint of brandy.

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

Herb Teas

Herb teas are made by infusing the dried or green leaves and stalks in boiling water, and letting them stand until cold. Sweeten to taste.

Sage tea, sweetened with honey, is good for a sore throat, used as a gargle, with a small bit of alum dissolved in it.

Catnip tea is the best panacea for infant ills, in the way of cold and colic, known to nurses.

Pennyroyal tea will often avert the unpleasant consequences of a sudden check of perspiration, or the evils induced by ladies’ thin shoes.

Chamomile and gentian teas are excellent tonics taken either cold or hot.

The tea made from blackberry-root is said to be good for summer disorders. That from green strawberry leaves is an admirable and soothing wash for a cankered mouth.

Tea of parsley-root scraped and steeped in boiling water, taken warm, will often cure strangury and kindred affections, as will that made from dried pumpkin-seed.

Tansy and rue teas are useful in cases of colic, as are fennel seeds steeped in brandy.

A tea of damask-rose leaves, dry or fresh, will usually subdue any simple case of summer complaint in infants.

Mint tea, made from the green leaves, crushed in cold or hot water and sweetened, is palatable and healing to the stomach and bowels.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

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

Summer Complaint or Diarrhoea

In early stages unless alarming symptoms appear, give the child or patient a generous dose of castor oil and keep patient on a light diet for a day or two or refrain from eating at all for twelve hours. If passages are green and full of mucous membrane call a physician immediately as delay may be fatal. Whites of two eggs mixed with a little water sipped frequently is often healing also to stomach and bowels.

Source: Civic League Cook Book

For Children Teething

Tie a quarter of a pound of wheat flour in a thick cloth and boil it in one quart of water for three hours; then remove the cloth and expose the flour to the air or heat until it is hard and dry; grate from it, when wanted, one tablespoonful, which put into half a pint of new milk, and stir over the fire until it comes to a boil, when add a pinch of salt and a tablespoonful of cold water and serve. This gruel is excellent for children afflicted with summer complaint.

Or brown a tablespoonful of flour in the oven or on top of the stove on a baking tin; feed a few pinches at a time to a child and it will often check a diarrhoea. The tincture of “kino” — of which from ten to thirty drops, mixed with a little sugar and water in a spoon, and given every two or three hours, is very efficacious and harmless — can be procured at almost any druggist’s. Tablespoon doses of pure cider vinegar and a pinch of salt, has cured when all else failed.

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