Chilblains

Chilblains are the result of too rapid warming of cold parts, generally feet or fingers. Sometimes for years after being frost-bitten, exposure to severe cold will produce itching and burning, and perhaps swelling and ulcers.

Treatment:

Rub with turpentine or alcohol. The rubbing in itself is excellent. See doctor.

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

Scouring Soap for Cotton and Silk Goods

Mix one pound of common soap, half a pound of beef-gall and one ounce and a half of Venetian turpentine.

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

Croup

Lard or goose grease and turpentine applied freely to the throat and chest. Hot steam inhaled from a sponge dipped in boiling water makes breathing easier. In serious cases an antiseptic should be given to produce vomiting immediately until the physician arrives. Give castor oil to a child showing symptoms of a croupy cough.

Source: Civic League Cook Book

Polish for Hard or Stained Wood Floors

Eight ounces of yellow beeswax, two quarts of spirits of turpentine, one quart of Venetian turpentine. Cut the wax in small pieces and pour the spirits over it–it will soon dissolve; then bottle. Apply with a flannel or soft cloth. It keeps the floors in excellent order.

Source: The Golden Age Cook Book, H. L. Dwight

Remedy for Corns

When corns are troublesome make a shield of buckskin leather an inch or two across, with a hole cut in the center the size of the corn; touch the exposed spot with pyroligneous acid which will eat it away in a few applications. Besides this a strong mixture of carbolic acid, and glycerine is good, say one-half as much acid as glycerine. Turpentine may also be used for corns and bunions. A weaker solution of carbolic acid will heal soft corns between the toes. A French medical journal reports the cure of the most refactory corns by the morning and evening application with a brush of a drop of a solution of the perchloride of iron. It states, that after a fortnight’s continued application, without pain, a patient who had suffered martyrdom for nearly forty years was entirely relieved.”

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Recipes for Felons

Take common rock salt, as used for salting down pork or beef, dry in an oven, then pound it fine and mix with spirits of turpentine in equal parts; put it in a rag and wrap it around the parts affected; as it gets dry put on more, and in twenty-four hours you are cured. The felon will be dead.

Or purchase the herb of stramonium at the druggist’s; steep it and bind it on the felon; as soon as cold, put on new, warm herbs. It will soon kill it, in a few hours at least.

Or saturate a bit or grated wild turnip, the size of a bean, with spirits of turpentine, and apply it to the affected part. It relieves the pain at once; in twelve hours there will be a hole to the bone, and the felon destroyed; then apply healing salve, and the finger is well.

Another Way to Cure a Felon: Fill a tumbler with equal parts of fine salt and ice; mix well. Sink the finger in the centre, allow it to remain until it is nearly frozen and numb; then withdraw it, and when sensation is restored, renew the operation four or five times, when it will be found the disease is destroyed. This must be done before pus is formed.

A simple remedy for felons, relieving pain at once, no poulticing, no cutting, no “holes to the bone,” no necessity for healing salve, but simple oil of cedar applied a few times at the commencement of the felon, and the work is done.

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

Furniture Polish

Mix two tablespoonfuls of sweet or linseed oil with a tablespoonful of turpentine, and rub on with a piece of flannel, polishing with a dry piece.

Source: The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking, H. Campbell

Inflamed Sore Throat

Gargle with borax and alum, dissolved in water. Take equal parts of saltpetre and loaf sugar pulverized together; place upon the tongue, and let it trickle down slowly to the inflamed part. Use this two or three times a day. Rub the glands with a mixture of camphor, cantharides, myrrh, and turpentine. If this fails to reduce the inflammation, put a small blister within an inch of the ears. A gargle with red pepper tea is good. Give cooling medicines. Bathe the feet at night. Avoid taking cold.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Croup

A layer of onions sliced and brown sugar – a teaspoonful of the syrup is a dose. Put upon the chest a plaster of Scotch snuff. Grease a cloth three or four inches long, two or three wide ; sprinkle over it the snuff. Remove the plaster as soon as the stomach becomes nauseated.

The premonitory symptoms of croup are a shrill, sonorous cough, cold hands, and flushed face. The patient is not always sick, and is often gayer than usual. Use without delay a plaster of mustard upon the throat, or apply to the throat a strip of flannel dipped in turpentine or spirits of hartshorn. Give nauseating doses of hive syrup or syrup of squills. When these remedies are used promptly, they usually give relief.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book

Dysentery

Make a strong tea of sweet gum bark ; to a pint, add a gill of good brandy, half an ounce of laudanum, a little loaf sugar to make it palatable. Take a teaspoonful every hour until the effect of the laudanum is apparent, then at longer intervals, until the disease abates.

A very good and simple remedy, if used when the first symptoms appear, is : Give an adult five drops of spirits of turpentine
in a teaspoonful of sweet milk. Repeat, if necessary. Give a child according to age.

Another remedy : A teacup half full of apple vinegar. Dissolve as much salt in it as it will hold, leaving a little at the bottom. Pour boiling water upon the solution until the cup is three-fourths full. Scald it, and remove the scum. Take a tablespoonful three times a day.

Source: Mrs Hill’s New Cook-Book