Burns and Scalds

A piece of cotton wadding, spread with butter or sweet oil, and bound on the burn instantly, will draw out the pain without leaving a scar; also a handful of flour, bound on instantly, will prevent blistering. The object is to entirely exclude the air from the part affected. Some use common baking-soda, dry or wet, often giving instant relief, withdrawing the heat and pain. Another valuable remedy is to beat the yellow of an egg into linseed oil, and apply it with a feather on the injured part frequently. It will afford ready relief and heals with great rapidity. Some recommend the white part of the egg, which is very cooling and soothing, and soon allays the smarting pain. It is the exposure of the part coming in contact with the air that gives the extreme discomfort experienced from ordinary afflictions of this kind, and anything which excludes air and prevents inflammation is the thing to be at once applied.

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

Molasses Posset

This old-fashioned remedy for a cold is as effectual now as it was in old times. Put into a saucepan a pint of the best West India molasses, a teaspoonful of powdered white ginger and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Set it over the fire and simmer it slowly for half an hour, stirring it frequently. Do not let it come to a boil. Then stir in the juice of two lemons, or two tablespoonfuls of vinegar; cover the pan and let it stand by the fire five minutes longer. This is good for a cold. Some of it may be taken warm at once, and the remainder kept at hand for occasional use.

It is the preparation absurdly called by the common people stewed quaker.

Half a pint of strained honey mixed cold with the juice of a lemon and a tablespoonful of sweet oil, is another remedy for a cold; a teaspoonful or two to be taken whenever the cough is troublesome.

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

Quick Relief for a Cough

If any member of the family coughs persistently in the night and one happens to be out of the usual remedy, wring out a soft, thick flannel from water as hot as can be borne, brush lightly and quickly with a feather which has been plunged in turpentine, and apply to the chest. If the flesh is very sensitive, it might be well to rub well with vaseline or sweet oil before making the hot application.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

For the Prevention of Wrinkles

The white of an egg, beaten with five grammes of alum in five grammes of sweet oil, applied as paste to the face on retiring, prevents wrinkles, keeps the flesh from becoming flabby, and is strengthening and softening to the skin.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts

Lip Salve

Dissolve a small lump of white sugar in a table-spoonful of rosewater, (common water will do, but is not as good.) Mix it with a couple of large spoonsful of sweet oil, a piece of spermaceti, of the size of half a butternut. Simmer the whole well together eight or ten minutes, then turn it into a small box.

Source: The American Housewife

To Cause the Hair to Grow very Thick

One of the most powerful stimulants for the growth of the hair is the following: Take a quarter of an ounce of the chippings of alkanet root, tie in a scrap of coarse muslin, and suspend it in a jar containing eight ounces of sweet oil for a week, covering it from the dust. Add to this sixty drops tincture of cantharides, ten drops oil of rose, sixty drops of neroli, and sixty drops oil of lemon. Let this stand twenty days, closely corked, and you will have one of the greatest hair-invigorators and hair-growers that this world has ever produced.

Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information

Remedy for Chapped Hands

The simplest remedy is the camphor ball, to be obtained of all chemists. Powdered hemlock bark put into a piece of muslin and sprinkled on the chaps is highly recommended. Or, wash with oatmeal, and afterwards rub the hands over with dry oatmeal, so as to remove all dampness. It is a good thing to rub the hands and lips with glycerine before going to bed at night. A good oil is made by simmering: Sweet oil, one pint; Venice turpentine, three ounces; lard, half a pound; beeswax, three ounces. Simmer till the wax is melted. Rub on, or apply with a rag.

Source: The Ladies’ Book Of Useful Information

A deep Burn or Scald

Apply black Varnish with a feather, ’till it is well.

Or inner rind of Elder well mixt with fresh butter. When this is bound on with a rag, plunge the part into cold water. This will suspend the pain, till the medicine heals.

Or mix Lime-Water and Sweet Oil, to the thickness of cream, apply it with a feather several times a day. — This is the most effectual application I ever met with.

Or put twenty-five drops of Goullard’s Extract of Lead, to half a pint of Rain Water; dip linen rags in it, and apply them to the part affected. This is particularly serviceable, if the burn is near the eyes.

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

Scalds, Sweet Oil Soothing for

“I know of nothing better than equal parts of sweet oil and lime water.” This is very good and should be applied freely.

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

Judkins’ Ointment

Linseed-oil 1 pt; sweet oil 1 oz; and boil them in a kettle on coals for nearly 4 hours, as warm as you can; then have pulverized and mixed, borax 1/2 oz; red lead 4 ozs, and sugar of lead 1 1/2 ozs; remove the kettle from the fire and thicken in the powder; continue the stirrying until cooled to blood heat, then stir in 1 oz of spirits of turpentine; and now take out a little, letting it get cold, and if not then sufficiently thick to spread upon thin, soft linen as a salve, you will boil again until this point is reached.

[…] it is good for all kinds of wounds, bruises, sores, burns, white swellings, rheumatisms, ulcers, sore breasts, and even where there are wounds on the inside, it has been used with advantage, by applying a plaster over the part.

Source: Dr Chase’s Recipes, or Information for Everybody, A.W. Chase