The following receipts written by DR. J. H. Gunn will be found of
great value, especially in emergencies:
ASTHMA.--Take hyssop water and poppy water, of each ten ounces; oxymel
of squills, six ounces; syrup of maiden hair, two ounces. Take one
spoonful when you find any difficulty in breathing.
AGUE IN THE BREAST.--Take one part of gum camphor, two parts yellow
bees-wax, three parts clean lard; let all melt slowly, in any vessel
[earthen best], on stove. Use either cold or warm; spread very thinly
on cotton or linen cloths, covering those with flannel. No matter if
the breast is broken, it will cure if persevered in. Do not, no matter
how painful, cease from drawing milk from the breast that is affected.
AGUE, MIXTURE.--Mix twenty grains quinine with one pint diluted gin or
port wine, and add ten grains subcarbonate of iron. Dose, a wine-glass
each hour until the ague is broken, and then two or three times a day
until the whole has been used.
2. Take Peruvian bark, two ounces; wild cherry tree bark, 1 ounce;
cinnamon, one drachm; powdered capsicum, one teaspoonful; sulphur,
one ounce; port wine, two quarts. Let it stand a day or two. Dose, a
wine-glassful every two or three hours until the disease is broken,
and then two or three times a day until all is taken.
SPRAINED ANKLE.--Wash the ankle frequently with cold salt and water,
which is far better than warm vinegar or decoctions of herbs. Keep
your foot as cold as possible to prevent inflammation, and sit with it
elevated on a cushion. Live on very low diet, and take every day some
cooling medicine. By obeying these directions only, a sprained ankle
has been cured in a few days.
APOPLEXY.--Occurs only in the corpulent or obese, and the gross or
high livers. To treat, raise the head to a nearly upright position;
unloose all tight clothes, strings, etc., and apply cold water to the
head and warm water and warm cloths to the feet. Have the apartment
cool and well ventilated. Give nothing by the mouth until the
breathing is relieved, and then only draughts of cold water.
PREPARATION FOR THE CURE OF BALDNESS.--Rum, one pint; alcohol, one
ounce; distilled water, one ounce, tincture of cantharides, a half
drachm; carbonate of potash, a half drachm; carbonate of ammonia, one
drachm. Mix the liquids after having dissolved the salts, and filter.
After the skin of the head has been wetted with this preparation for
several minutes, it should be washed with water.
BILIOUS COLIC.--Mix two tablespoonfuls of Indian meal in half a pint
of cold water; drink it at two draughts.
BILIOUS COMPLAINTS.--Take the root and branch of dandelion, and
steep it in soft water a sufficient length of time to extract all
the essence; then strain the liquor and simmer until it becomes quite
thick. Dose: From one to three glasses a day may be taken with good
effect.
BLACKBERRY CORDIAL.--To one quart blackberry juice add one pound white
sugar, one tablespoonful each cloves, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Boil together fifteen minutes, and add a wine-glass of whisky, brandy
or rum. Bottle while hot, cork tight and seal. Used in diarrhea and
dysentery. Dose, a wine-glassful for an adult, half that quantity
for a child. It can be taken three or four times a day if the case is
severe.
BLISTERS.--- On the feet, occasioned by walking, are cured by drawing
a needleful of worsted thread through them; clip it off at both ends
and leave it till the skin peals off.
RAISING BLOOD.--Make a tea of white oak bark, and drink freely during
the day; or take half a pound of yellow dock root, boil in new milk,
say one quart: drink one gill three times a day, and take one pill of
white pine pitch every day.
HOW TO STOP BLOOD.--Take the fine dust of tea, or the scrapings of the
inside of tanned leather. Bind it upon the wound closely, and blood
will soon cease to flow.
BOILS.--Make a poultice of ginger and flour, and lay it on the boil.
This will soon draw it to a head.
SWELLED BOWELS IN CHILDREN.--Bathe the stomach of the child with
catnip steeped, mixed with fresh butter and sugar.
CHILBLAINS.--Dr. Fergus recommends sulphurous acid in this affection.
It should be applied with a camel's hair brush, or by means of a spray
producer. One application of this effects a cure. The acid should be
used pure. A good wash for hands or feet affected with chilblains is
sulphurous acid, three parts; glycerine, one part, and water one
part. The acid will be found particularly useful in the irritating,
tormenting stage of chilblains.
CHILBLAINS AND CHAPPED HANDS.--When chilblains manifest themselves, the
best remedy not only for preventing their ulcerating, but overcoming the
tingling, itching pain, and stimulating the circulation of the part to
healthy action, is the liniment of belladona, two drachms; the liniment
of aconite, one drachm; carbolic acid, ten drops; collodion flexile, one
ounce; painted with a camel's hair pencil over their surface. When the
chilblains vesicate, ulcerate or slough, it is better to omit the
aconite and apply the other components of the liniment without it. The
collodion flexile forms a coating or protecting film, which excludes the
air, while the sedative liniments allay the irritation, generally of no
trivial nature. For chapped hands we advise the free use of glycerine
and good oil, in the proportion of two parts of the former to four of
the latter; after this has been well rubbed into the hands and allowed
to remain for a little time, and the hands subsequently washed with
Castile soap and water, we recommend the belladonna and collodion
flexile to be painted on, and the protective film allowed to remain
permanently. These complaints not unfrequently invade persons of languid
circulation and relaxed habit, who should be put on a generous regimen,
and treated with ferruginous tonics. Obstinate, cases are occasionally
met with which no local application will remedy, unless some disordered
state of the system is removed, or the general condition of the
patient's health improved. Chapped lips are also benefited by the
stimulating form of application we advocate, but the aconite must not be
allowed to get on the lips, or a disagreeable tingling results.
CHILBLAIN BALM.--Boil together ten fluid ounces olive oil, two fluid
ounces Venice turpentine, and one ounce yellow wax; strain, and while
still warm add, constantly stirring, two and a half drachms balsam of
Peru and ten grains camphor.
CURE FOR CHILBLAIN.--Make a strong lye by boiling wood ashes in water.
Put your feet in a small tub and cover them with the lye as hot as you
can bear it. Gradually add more lye, hotter and hotter. Keep them in
half an hour, bathing and rubbing them continually, and being very
careful to keep the lye hot.
CHILBLAIN LOTION.--Dissolve one ounce muriate of ammonia in one-half
pint cider vinegar, and apply frequently. One-half pint of alcohol may
be added to this lotion with good effects.
CHILBLAIN OINTMENT.--Take mutton tallow and lard, of each
three-fourths of a pound avoirdupois; melt, in an iron vessel, and add
hydrated oxide of iron, two ounces, stirring continually with an iron
spoon until the mass is of a uniform black color; when nearly cool
add Venice turpentine, two ounces; Armenian bole, one ounce; oil of
bergamot, one drachm; rub up the bole with a little olive oil before
putting it in. Apply several times daily by putting it upon lint or
linen. It heals the worst cases in a few days.
RUSSIAN REMEDY FOR CHILBLAINS.--Slices of the rind of fully ripe
cucumbers, dried with the soft parts attached. Previous to use they
are softened by soaking them in warm water, and are then bound on the
sore parts with the inner side next them, and left on all night.
This treatment is said to be adopted for both broken and unbroken
chilblains. HOW TO CURE ITCHING CHILBLAINS.--Take hydrochloric acid,
one part, and water, eight parts; mix. Apply on going to bed. This
must not be used if the skin is broken. Sal ammoniac, two ounces; rum,
one pint; camphor, two drachms. The affected part is wetted night and
morning, and when dry is touched with a little simple ointment of any
kind--cold cream or pomatum.
Oil of turpentine, four ounces; camphor, six drachms; oil of cajeput,
two drachms. Apply with friction.
HOW TO CURE BROKEN CHILBLAINS.--Mix together four fluid ounces
collodion, one and a half fluid ounces Venice turpentine, and one
fluid ounce castor oil.
HOW TO CURE CORNS.--Take equal parts of mercurial and galbanum
ointments; mix them well together, spread on a piece of soft leather,
and apply it to the corns morning and evening. In a few days benefit
will be derived. Take two ounces of gum ammoniac, two ounces of yellow
wax, and six ounces of verdigris; melt them together, and spread the
composition on soft leather; cut away as much of the corn as you can,
then apply the plaster, and renew it every fortnight till the corn
is away. Get four ounces of white diachylon plaster, four ounces of
shoemaker's wax, and sixty drops of muriatic acid or spirits of salt.
Boil them for a few minutes in an earthen pipkin, and when cold roll
the mass between the hands, and apply it on a piece of white leather.
Soak the feet well in warm water, then with a sharp instrument pare
off as much of the corn as can be done without pain, and bind up the
part with a piece of linen or muslin thoroughly saturated with sperm
oil, or, which is better, the oil which floats upon the surface of
the herring or mackerel. After three or four days the dressing may
be removed by scraping, when the new skin will be found of a soft and
healthy texture, and less liable to the formation of a new corn than
before. Corns may be prevented by wearing easy shoes. Bathe the feet
frequently in lukewarm water, with a little salt or potashes dissolved
in it. The corn itself will be completely destroyed by rubbing it
often with a little caustic solution of potash till the soft skin is
formed. Scrape to a pulp sufficient Spanish garlic, and bind on the
corn over night, after first soaking it well in warm water, and scrape
off as much as possible of the hardened portion in the morning. Repeat
the application as required.
HOW TO CURE SOFT CORNS.--Scrape a piece of common chalk, and put a
pinch to the soft corn, and bind a piece of linen rag upon it.
HOW TO CURE TENDER CORNS.--A strong solution of tannic acid is said to
be an excellent application to tender feet as well as a preventive of
the offensive odor attendant upon their profuse perspiration. To those
of our readers who live far away in the country, we would suggest a
strong decoction of oak bark as a substitute.
CAUSTIC FOR CORNS.--Tincture of iodine, four drachms: iodide of iron,
twelve grains; chloride of antimony, four drachms; mix, and apply with
a camel's hair brush, after paring the corn. It is said to cure in
three times.
HOW TO RELIEVE CORNS.--Bind them up at night with a cloth wet
with tincture of arnica, to relieve the pain, and during the day
occasionally moisten the stocking over the corn with arnica if the
shoe is not large enough to allow the corn being bound up with a piece
of linen rag.
REMEDY FOR CORNS.--1. The pain occasioned by corns may be greatly
alleviated by the following preparation: Into a one-ounce vial put
two drachms of muriatic acid and six drachms of rose-water. With this
mixture wet the corns night and morning for three days. Soak the feet
every evening in warm water without soap. Put one-third of the acid
into the water, and with a little picking the corn will be dissolved.
2. Take a lemon, cut off a small piece, then nick it so as to let in
the toe with the corn, tie this on at night so that it cannot move,
and in the morning you will find that, with a blunt knife, you
may remove a considerable portion of the corn. Make two or three
applications, and great relief will be the result.
HOW TO CURE SOLVENT CORNS.--Expose salt of tartar (pearlash) in a
wide-mouth vial in a damp place until it forms an oil-like liquid, and
apply to the corn.
HOW TO CURE CHOLERA.--Take laudanum, tincture cayenne, compound
tincture rhubarb, peppermint, and camphor, of each equal parts. Dose,
ten to thirty drops. In plain terms, take equal parts tincture of
opium, red pepper, rhubarb, peppermint and camphor, and mix them for
use. In case of diarroea, take a dose of ten to twenty drops in three
or four teaspoonfuls of water. No one who has this by him, and takes
it in time, will ever have the cholera.
SIGNS OF DISEASE IN CHILDREN.--In the case of a baby not yet able to
talk, it must cry when it is ill. The colic makes a baby cry loud, long,
and passionately, and shed tears--stopping for a moment and beginning
again.
If the chest is affected, it gives one sharp cry, breaking off
immediately, as if crying hurt it.
If the head is affected, it cries in sharp, piercing shrieks, with low
moans and wails between. Or there may be quiet dozing, and startings
between.
It is easy enough to perceive, where a child is attacked by disease,
that there has some change taken place; for either its skin will be
dry and hot, its appetite gone; it is stupidly sleepy, or fretful or
crying; it is thirsty, or pale and languid, or in some way betrays
that something is wrong. When a child vomits, or has a diarrhoea, or
is costive and feverish, it is owing to some derangement, and needs
attention. But these various symptoms may continue for a day or two
before the nature of the disease can be determined. A warm bath, warm
drinks, etc., can do no harm, and may help to determine the case. On
coming out of the bath, and being well rubbed with the hand, the
skin will show symptoms of rash, if it is a skin disease which has
commenced. By the appearance of the rash, the nature of the disease
can be learned. Measles are in patches, dark red, and come out first
about the face. If scarlet fever is impending, the skin will look a
deep pink all over the body, though most so about the neck and face.
Chicken-pox shows fever, but not so much running at the nose, and
appearances of cold, as in measles, nor is there as much of a cough.
Besides, the spots are smaller, and do not run much together, and are
more diffused over the whole surface of the skin; and enlarge into
blisters in a day or two.
HOW TO CURE CONSUMPTION.--Take one tablespoonful of tar, and the yolks
of three hen's eggs, beat them well together. Dose, one tablespoonful
morning, noon and night.
CROUP, REMEDY FOR IN ONE MINUTE.--This remedy is simply alum. Take
a knife or grater, and shave or grate off in small particles about a
teaspoonful of alum; mix it with about twice its quantity of sugar, to
make it palatable, and administer as quickly as possible. Its
effects will be truly magical, as almost instantaneous relief will be
afforded.
CHOLERA REMEDY, HARTSHORNE'S.--Take of chloroform, tincture of opium,
spirits of camphor, and spirits of aromatic ammonia, each one and
one-half fluid drachms; creosote, three drops; oil of cinnamon,
eight drops; brandy, two fluid drachms. Dilute a teaspoonful with a
wine-glass of water, and give two teaspoonfuls every five minutes,
followed by a lump of ice.