Nail Care
To give a fine color to the nails, the hands and fingers must be well lathered and washed with fine soap; then the nails must be rubbed with equal parts of cinnebar and emery, followed by oil of bitter almonds. To take white spots from the nails, melt equal parts of pitch and turpentine in a small cup; add to it vinegar and powdered sulphur. Rub this on the nails and the spots will soon disappear.
Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette
Bruises or Contusions
“Black and blue” spots from blow or fall or pinching, causing blood vessels to rupture under skin.
Apply at first:
- Ice, or ice water; or
- Alcohol and water, half and half; or
- Witch hazel, or arnica; or
- Vinegar diluted with water.
Afterward use hot applications. Gentle rubbing or massaging helps dispel the discoloration.
Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer
Filed under Remedy | Tags: alcohol, arnica, black, black and blue, blood, blue, bruise, contusion, fryer, ice, massage, rubbing, skin, vinegar, witch-hazel | Comment (0)Colds
At the first sign of “taking a cold” — use some simple remedy, such as inhaling camphor from time to time for several hours. Dampen the center of a handkerchief in water, and drop on it some spirit of camphor. Eat a sliced onion.
Take two drops of spirit of camphor on a tsp. sugar.
Or, drop five drops camphor in ½ tumbler of water. Take a tsp. every half hour.
Ginger tea is a much valued old-fashioned remedy. Pour boiling water over a tbsp. bruised ginger root. Let stand two hours. The dose is 1 tbsp. every hour or two.
If the “cold” continues, take a laxative, such as castor oil or rhubarb, and follow the dose with a hot foot bath at night and hot lemonade after getting into bed, to induce perspiration. Keep well covered.
If a cough comes with the cold, lemon juice and sugar syrup make a pleasant cough remedy; or molasses-and-vinegar syrup is liked by children. Mix in the proportion of 1 tbsp. vinegar to 2 tbsp. molasses.
Flaxseed tea will sometimes relieve a “tickling” cough. Pour 2 cups of boiling water over 1 tbsp. whole flaxseeds. Stir; let simmer gently one-half hour. Add juice of half a lemon, and sugar if desired. Take a tbsp. as often as wished.
If the chest is sore, rub it with camphorated oil, or ammonia liniment, which is made by shaking together in a bottle 4 tbsp. olive (sweet) oil and 1 tbsp. household ammonia. This hardens upon standing a few days — so it is best made as needed.
All these are simple home remedies, but if a cold is severe, see a doctor. A neglected cold is dangerous.
Source: The Mary Frances First Aid Book, Jane Eayre Fryer
Filed under Remedy | Tags: ammonia, ammonia liniment, camphor, camphorated oil, castor oil, chest, cold, colds, cough, coughs, feet, flaxseed, flaxseed tea, foot, foot bath, fryer, ginger, ginger tea, hot lemonade, laxative, lemon, lemon juice, lemonade, molasses, oil, olive oil, onion, rhubarb, spirit of camphor, sugar, sweet oil, vinegar | Comment (0)Cure for Hiccoughs
Lump of sugar saturated with vinegar will usually cure hiccoughs in a child. Drink of water often brings immediate relief. In prolonged cases of hiccoughing, weak, hot coffee with cream and sugar given at frequent intervals has cured the patient.
Source: Civic League Cook Book
Musquito Bites
Salt wetted into a sort of paste, with a little vinegar, and plastered on the bite, will immediately allay the pain; and if not rubbed, no mark will be seen next day. It is well to keep salt and vinegar always in a chamber that is infested with musquitoes[sic]. It is also good for the sting of a wasp or bee; and for the bite of any venomous animal, if applied immediately. It should be left on till it becomes dry, and then renewed.
Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie
Thieves’ Vinegar
Take a large handful of lavender blossoms, and the same quantity of sage, mint, rue, wormwood and rosemary. Chop and mix them well. Put them into a jar, with half an ounce of camphor that has been dissolved in a little alcohol, and pour in three quarts of strong clear vinegar. Keep the jar for two or three weeks in the hot sun, and at night plunge it into a box of heated sand. Afterwards strain and bottle the liquid, putting into each bottle a clove of garlic sliced. To have it very clear, after it has been bottled for a week, you should pour it off carefully from the sediment, and filter it through blotting paper. Then wash the bottles, and return the vinegar to them. It should be kept very tightly corked. It is used for sprinkling about in sick-rooms; and also in close damp oppressive weather. Inhaling the odour from a small bottle will frequently prevent faintness in a crowd.
It is best to make it in June.
This vinegar is so called from an old tradition, that during the prevalence of the plague in London the composition was invented by four thieves, who found it a preservative from contagion; and were by that means enabled to remain in the city and exercise their profession to great advantage, after most of the inhabitants had fled.
Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie
Filed under Remedy | Tags: alcohol, camphor, contagion, crow, faintness, garlic, lavender, leslie, mint, rosemary, rue, sage, sand, sick room, suckroom, thieves, thieves vinegar, vinegar, wormwood | Comment (0)Molasses Possets
Put into a sauce-pan a pint of the best West India molasses; a tea-spoonful of powdered white ginger; and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Set it on hot coals, 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 table-spoonfuls 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 a stewed quaker.
Half a pint of strained honey mixed cold with the juice of a lemon, and a table-spoonful of sweet oil, is another remedy for a cold; a tea-spoonful or two to be taken whenever the cough is troublesome.
Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie
Filed under Remedy | Tags: butter, cold, colds, cough, coughs, ginger, honey, lemon, lemons, leslie, molasses, posset, quaker, stewed quaker, sweet oil, vinegar | Comment (0)How to make a Stringent Gargle
Put the following ingredients into a very clean earthen pipkin:— Twenty sage leaves, a handful of red rose leaves, and a pint of water; boil these for twenty minutes, then add a gill of vinegar, and two table-spoonfuls of honey; boil again for ten minutes, and strain the gargle through a muslin rag, to be used when cold.
Source: A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, C.E. Francatelli
To Clean a Vinegar Cruet on the Inside
Put into it shot, pebblestones, or beans. Fill it with a strong soap suds, and one teaspoonful of bread soda or ammonia. Let stand an hour, shake well and often. Rinse with clean water.
Source: Things Mother Used To Make, L.M. Gurney