Wen

Wash with strong salt and vinegar twice a day for a month.

Source: The Kansas Home Cook-Book

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

Sprains, Quick Application for

“A poultice of stiff clay and vinegar.” Add enough vinegar to the clay to make a nice moist poultice. The clay is exceptionally good for swellings and sprains.

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

Ingredients: Marjoram

The common Marjoram (Origanum) grows frequently as a wild labiate plant on dry, bushy places, especially in chalky districts throughout Britain, the whole herb being fragrantly aromatic, and bearing flowers of a deep red colour. When cultivated in our kitchen gardens it becomes a favourite pot herb, as “Sweet Marjoram,” with thin compact spikes, and more elliptical leaves than the wild Marjoram. Its generic title, Origanum, means in Greek, the joy of the mountains (oros-ganos) on which it grows.

This plant and the Pennyroyal are often called “Organ.” Its dried leaves are put as a pleasant condiment into soups and stuffings, being also sometimes substituted for tea. Together with the flowering tops they contain an essential volatile fragrant oil, which is carminative, warming, and tonic. An infusion made from the fresh plant will excellently relieve nervous headaches by virtue of the camphoraceous principle contained in the oil; and externally the herb may be applied with benefit in bags as a hot fomentation to painful swellings and rheumatism, as likewise for colic. “Organy,” says Gerard, “is very good against the wambling of the stomacke, and stayeth the desire to vomit, especially at sea. It may be used to good purpose for such as cannot brooke their meate.”

The sweet Marjoram has also been successfully employed externally for healing scirrhous tumours of the breast. Murray says: “Tumores mammarum dolentes scirrhosos herba recens, viridis, per tempus applicata feliciter dissipavit.” The essential oil, when long kept, assumes a solid form, and was at one time much esteemed for being rubbed into stiff joints. The Greeks and Romans crowned young couples with Marjoram, which is in some countries the symbol of honour. Probably the name was originally, “Majoram,” in Latin, Majorana. Our forefathers scoured their furniture with its odorous juice. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act v, Scene 5, we read:–

“The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower.”

Source: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, William Thomas Fernie

Dropsy, Wild Milkweed for

“Steep the root of the wild milkweed and drink the tea in doses of a wineglass three times a day. This is a sure cure if taken in early stages.”

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

Rheumatism in Children

Rheumatic fever in young children is generally the result of inherited tendency. The symptoms are redness and swelling of the larger joints, with pain, perspiration, and fever. The fever is not, as a rule, high, seldom rising above 102 degrees Fahr., and is not long continued; but when it rises even thus, it is generally due to the heart being affected, and affections of the heart are those which have to be dreaded whenever a child suffers from this complaint. Where there is a hurried breathing, a dry cough, or uneasiness or pain about the heart, the case should be looked upon as serious from this point of view. Pleurisy is also a common sequel to rheumatic fever, and one of the diseases most closely associated with it is St. Vitus’s dance, which seems in some way dependent upon the affection of the heart to which this disease gives rise.

Eruptions on the skin, such as nettle rash, or a rash resembling red gum, are very common, and seem to be caused by the intense acidity and poverty of the blood, which are common in rheumatic children, and last for a long time after an attack.

The disease, as a rule, lasts from two to three weeks, slight cases getting well in between ten and fourteen days. The child should be kept at rest, and well protected from every possibility of chill. It should lie in bed in a flannel nightgown between the blankets. Food should at first be farinaceous with bread and milk, and later on broths and fish may be added. The affected joints should be wrapped in cotton wool, and when they are painful a solution may be made of one drachm of nitrate of potash and twenty drops of laudanum in an ounce of water, and a flannel soaked in this applied. The rubbing in of iodine ointment is of service for the swelling which lingers during convalescence.

Any internal remedies will, of course, be prescribed by the doctor in attendance; but the most important part of the treatment is that by the nurse or mother, as so much care is necessary with reference to the warmth of the clothing, the digestibility of the food, the avoidance of exposure to cold and damp, and saving the child from much fatigue, over-exercise, and over-excitement.

Muscular Rheumatism is found in the form of stiff neck or lumbago, and in the muscles of the arms and those of the head. Treatment consists in rest, the application of warmth by hot fomentation and the use of liniments, such as the compound camphor liniment; while perspiration should be assisted by the use of sweet spirits of nitre, and keeping the child in bed between the blankets. If the case lasts, bromide of ammonium is a useful remedy. Chronic rheumatism is rare in childhood, and is best treated by warm baths with plenty of carbonate of soda in them, and massage, while iodine may be painted on the affected joints.

Source: Home Notes, 1895