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: Common Sense in the Household, Marion Harland

Sulphur Tea for the Hair

There is nothing better than sulphur tea for the hair. It cures dandruff, promotes the growth, makes the hair soft and glossy and is very good to keep the hair from turning gray.

Source: The Just-Wed Cook Book

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

Eye Lotions

1. Dissolve 100 grs of boric acid in 6 oz water.
2. Add one teaspoonful Condy’s fluid to 10 oz water.
3. Dissolve 30 grs alum and 10 grs sulphate of zinc in 10 oz water.
4. Goulard water.
5. Cold tea. Useful in cases of slight inflammation.

Source: The Complete Household Adviser

Complexion Wash

Put in a vial one drachm of benzoin gum in powder, one drachm nutmeg oil, six drops of orange-blossom tea, or apple blossoms put in half pint of rain-water and boiled down to one teaspoonful and strained, one pint of sherry wine. Bathe the face morning and night; will remove all flesh-worms and freckles, and give a beautiful complexion. Or, put one ounce of powdered gum of benzoin in a pint of whisky; to use, put in water in wash-bowl till it is milky, allowing it to dry without wiping. This is perfectly harmless.

Cream cures sun-burn on some complexions, lemon juice is best on others, and cold water suits still others best.

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

Tea and Coffee Stains

Only a few people know that butter will remove tea, coffee or fruit stains. It should be rubbed on the linen or cotton and then the material should be soaked in hot water and a mild soap. In fact, any stains, except ink or wine stains, sprinkle salt over the spots and pour boiling water through it until the spot has gone.

Source: 1001 Household Hints, Ottilie V. Ames

Cure for Pimples

One teaspoonful of carbolic acid and one pint of rose-water mixed is an excellent remedy for pimples. Bathe the skin thoroughly and often, but do not let the wash get into the eyes.

This wash is soothing to mosquito bites, and irritations of the skin of every nature.

It is advisable, in order to clear the complexion permanently, to cleanse the blood; then the wash would be of advantage.

To obtain a good complexion, a person’s diet should receive the first attention. Greasy food, highly spiced soups, hot bread and butter, meats or game, rich gravies, alcoholic liquors, coffee — all are injurious to the complexion. Strong tea used daily will after a time give the skin the color and appearance of leather. Coffee affects the nerves more, but the skin less, and a healthy nervous system is necessary to beauty. Eating between meals, late suppers, over-eating at meals, eating sweetmeats, candies, etc., all these tend to disorder the blood, producing pimples and blotches.

Washing of the face or skin is another consideration for a good complexion; it should be thoroughly washed in plenty of luke-warm water with some mild soap — then rinsed in clear water well; dry with a thick soft towel. If suds are left or wiped off the skin, the action of the air and sun will tan the surface, and permanently deface the complexion; therefore one should be sure to thoroughly rinse off all soap from the skin to avoid the tanning, which will leave a brown or yellow tinge impossible to efface.

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

Sore Throat

At night wrap a cloth wet in alcohol around outside of throat. Gargle with salt and water (1 tsp. to a glass), or borax and water in same proportion, or hot tea, or with the following—

Gargle:

2 tbsp. vinegar,
1 tbsp. salt,
Water to fill a tumbler.

If persistent, see doctor.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer

Poison Ivy Rash

The poison ivy plant has three leaves in clusters.

Do not scratch. Mop on rash a saturated solution of Epsom salt (as much as can be dissolved in a cup of water); or, wash with saturated solution boric acid. Allow it to dry in the air.

Lime water may be used in place of boric acid.

Wash the affected surface every day, dry and repeat treatment.

Sweet fern tea is very good. Steep the sweet fern in boiling water an hour, and apply to rash.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer

Nosebleed

Head in upright position. Raise arm on bleeding side. Loosen collar. Apply ice in a cloth to bridge of nose and back of neck. A roll of paper under upper lip. Snuff cold tea up nose, or salt water, 1 tsp. to cup water, or the same of powdered alum.

If bleeding continues, tie a small wad of cotton with thread; dip it into peroxide of hydrogen, and plug nostril by pushing the cotton gently with a pencil. The thread is used to withdraw cotton.

If these means fail, send for doctor.

Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer