Important: Safety Warning
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Numb Palsy
Bleed the patient freely, if it be possible, and administer a table-spoonful of sulphur every hour, continually bathing the numb parts with spirits of hartshorn. Boil a pound of roll brimstone in four quarts of water, until it is reduced to one quart; then give a table-spoonful every hour. If you commence the course early, the complaint will soon yield.
Catarrh in the Head. - Split half a pound of yellow dock root, and dry it in an oven; take four ounces each of dried blood root and scoke root, one ounce of cinnamon, and half an ounce of cloves; powder them all fine, and mix well together; use it as a snuff, eight or ten times a day, and sweat the head with an infusion of hemlock boughs, brandy, and camphor. Pour a little camphorated spirits in the hot water, to cause perspiration.