Important: Safety Warning
This page contains a formula or preparation using substances now known to be dangerously toxic, such as arsenic, mercury, lead, or cyanide compounds. Exposure to these substances can cause severe poisoning, permanent injury, or death.
This page recommends preparations containing opium, laudanum, morphine, or similar narcotics — in some cases for children. These substances are dangerously addictive, easily fatal in overdose, and strictly controlled by law today.
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.
Rheumatism
Equal quantities horse-radish roots, elecampane roots, prince's pine leaves, prickly-ash bark, bitter-sweet root bark, wild cherry bark, mustard seed, and a pint of tar water; boiled in two quarts of brandy. Drink a wine glass before each meal, and bathe the part affected with salt and rum, before a large fire. A Film in the Eye.-Powder sugar of lead very fine. Cut an oat straw short so as to be hollow through, and dipping one end of the straw into the powder, blow through it a small quantity, night and morning, into the film. : 58 THE HOUSE-KEEPER'S GUIDE.
Worms in Children. - Steep or boil in a pewter vessel, over a moderate fire, very strong, the bark of spotted alder or witch-hazel. For a year old, a table spoonful; increase the dose according to age. Give four or five times a day, for several days. It is sure and safe. Or fine powdered sage, mixed with honey; a teaspoonful for a dose. Sweetened milk, with the addition of a little alum, will turn the worms. Flour of sulphur, mixed with honey, is very good. Heat very hot, in a smith's furnace, a piece of steel; lay on it a roll of brimstone, melt the steel, let it fall into water, and it will be in round lumps. Pound them very fine, mix the dust with molasses. Give half a teaspoonful night and morning, fasting. Or, give as much as will lie on a six-pence, of dried mandrake roots, powdered and mixed with honey, in the morning, three or four times successively. If a child have fits proceeding from worms, give as much paragoric as it can bear; it will turn the worms and ease the child. To prevent worms, let children eat onions, raw or cooked. Raw are the best. Salt and water will turn worms, and a dose or two of flour of sulphur after, will bring them away, without any other medicine.
Polypus in the Nose. - Snuff up the nose the following compound: two ounces of dried blood-root, a quarter of an ounce of calix cinnamon, and two ounces of scoke root. Mix well; it will kill the polypus.
Pull it out with forceps, and use the snuff until it gets well. If the nose is so closed that the snuff cannot be drawn up, boil the ingredients and gurgle the throat with the liquor, and sweat the head with the same, hot, until it withers so as to use the snuff.
A Breach or Burst on the Body. - Collect a parcel of snails, such as may generally be found on old rotten wood, or under loose barks or old logs, or under stones in moist places. Lay enough of them to cover the breach on a linen cloth, and bind them on, repeating the process as often as the snails become dry. Steep in wine, or in water, as a tea, cinnamon, cloves, mace, THE INDIAN DOCTOR. and Turkey root, and drink three times a day. Be attentive to these directions, and you may depend on effecting a cure.