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

Several Ways of Preparing Chickens for the Sick

Chicken tea is made by boiling any part of the chicken, and using the broth weak with only a little salt.

Chicken broth is made by boiling a chicken a good deal, and skimming very thoroughly and seasoning with salt. A little rice, or pearl barley improves it, or a little parsley may be used to flavor it.

Chicken panada is made by pounding some of the meat of boiled chicken in a mortar, with a little broth, and also a little salt and nutmeg. Then pour in a little broth and boil it five minutes. It should be a thick broth.

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

Camomile Tea

Put an ounce of camomile flowers into a quart of boiling water; let it simmer for fifteen minutes, then strain. From a wineglassful to a breakfast-cupful to be taken as a dose. When taken warm it acts as an emetic; when cold, as a tonic.

Source: Recipes for the Million

Slippery-Elm Bark Tea

Break the bark into bits, pour boiling water over it, cover, and let it infuse until cold. Sweeten, ice, and take for summer disorders, or add lemon juice and drink for a bad cold.

Source: The Canadian Family Cookbook, Grace E. Denison

Slippery-Elm Tea

Pour one cup of boiling water upon one teaspoonful of slippery-elm powder or a piece of the bark. When cool, strain, and flavor with lemon-juice and sugar. This is soothing in any inflammation of the mucous membrane.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

Pennyroyal Tea

The virtues of this old-fashioned remedy are vouched for in cholera years, by a correspondent, who says that the pennyroyal herb, made into a tea and drank hot, is the most comforting and active preventive that can be imagined when depressing symptoms set in.

Source: The Universal Cookery Book, Gertrude Strohm

A Hair Tonic

Scald two ounces of black tea in one gallon of boiling water; add three ounces of glycerine, one quart of bay rum and half an ounce of the tincture of cantharides; scald for five minutes longer; strain and bottle. This will prevent the hair from falling out, and at the same time will stimulate a new and healthy growth.

Source: The Kentucky Housewife, Mrs Peter A. White

For A Cough

Make a strong tea of hoarhound; then strain it, and add half a pound of the best loaf sugar, to a pint of the tea: let it simmer till thick; then bottle it, and take a little two or three times a day.

Source: The Philadelphia Housewife, Mary Hodgson

To Stop The Flow Of Blood

Bind the cut with cobwebs and brown sugar, pressed on like lint. Or, if you cannot procure these, with the fine dust of tea. When the blood ceases to flow, apply laudanum.

Source: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

For A Sore Throat or Mouth

Make a sage tea by boiling some sage leaves; when strong, add honey and some alum or borax. Gargle the throat with this often through the day.

Source: The Philadelphia Housewife, Mary Hodgson