shell a little of the white of the egg, put into each shell ten grains
of white vitrol and fill them with rose or rain water; set each shell
in warm ashes to simmer for half an hour; strain the water through a
piece of fine linen, and pour a gill of rose water in it; keep it in a
bottle well corked. This will cure by applying it three or four times a
day, and taking care not to catch cold.
CONSUMPTIVE COMPLAINTS AND INFLAMMATION CAUSED BY COLDS IN
WOUNDS.--Take yellow pond lily root and boil till the strength is out,
then strain and thicken with coarse wheat flour; if yellow lily cannot
be had, use slippery elm or basswood bark. Cattail flag is good to make
a poultice.
STOMACH TINCTURE.--Take one ounce of gentian root, half an ounce of
dried orange peel, one ounce of the inside bark of white pine; put
these into one pint of cogniac brandy, and in four days it will be fit
for use.
FOR PILES.--Canada thistle, simmered in clear lard.
LIME WATER.--Take half a pound of unslacked lime, put it into two
quarts of water, and let it stand twenty-four hours, stirring it two or
three times. Take off the clear water, blow the scum aside, and take
half glass full two or three times a day; if too strong, add water, or
if it heats the stomach take vinegar.
TO REGULATE THE BOWELS.--Take one teaspoonful of castile soap before
breakfast, and one teaspoonful after breakfast, for three days, then
take gentian bitters.
HOARSENESS.--Nettle roots, powdered fine, and mixed with an equal
quantity of molasses; take one tablespoonful night and morning.
INFLAMMATION IN THE EYES.--Put half an ounce of quicksilver in three
pints of water, and boil to one pint; then bottle it; make a poultice
of this with Indian meal, and apply under the chin; renew it when too
dry.
FOR A COUGH.--Take equal parts of moss taken from white oak, white
maple and white ash; make a strong tea, and sweeten with honey; this
will generally cure. Take half a wine glass full three times a day, and
in the night if required.
Another: Smartweed, pulverized fine, mixed with an equal quantity of
molasses; take a teaspoonful three times a day.
FOR A FELLON.--Take rock salt, rolled in a cabbage leaf and pulverized,
two ounces spirits turpentine; mix and apply.
VOLATILE SALTS.--Take one ounce sal amoniac, two ounces pearlash;
powder them separately, then mix together, and moisten with the essence
of cinnamon, or spirits of any kind; put it into a bottle and keep well
corked. This is good to apply to the nose in case of faintness.
TOOTHACHE DROPS.--Take wild celendine root in powder, or wet a piece of
lint with the juice, and apply it to the tooth.
FOR WORMS.--Take dry cobbs and burn them and make a powder; boil them
in soft water till the strength is out; strain off the ley, and boil
down very strong; give the patient a teaspoonful once an hour for three
or four hours. This is very good for worms. Or make a strong tea of
sumach berries of which drink a wine glass full. This will do when the
patient is first attacked.
BATHING FOR ALL PAINS.--Take three ounces of the oil of lavender, three
ounces sulphuric ether, one ounce of alcohol, two drachms of laudanum;
mix well together, and rub the afflicted part with a piece of flannel
wet with the mixture; sit by a fire and keep it warm, before going to
bed.
OX GALL--Is good for the gout. Bathe the parts affected with the gall
and warm it in with a hot shovel or brick. It will give prompt relief.
TO RENDER TEETH INSENSIBLE TO PAIN.--Diseased teeth have been rendered
insensible to pain by a cement composed of Canada balsam and slacked
lime, which is to be inserted in the hollow, or cavity, of the tooth;
it will relieve instantly.
A CANCER UNDER THE EYE--Was cured by drinking one quart of tar water
daily, and applying a plaster of tar and mutton tallow melted together;
this cured a cancer in two months, and of twenty years standing. Or
mix black pepper, burned alum and honey, equal parts, and use it as an
ointment.
A NEWLY DISCOVERED CURE FOR A POLYPUS.--An elderly lady applied to
me for advice, who had been afflicted for a long time with a fleshy
excresence, which filled up the passage of her nose. By using the
following simple prescription a cure was performed in a few days: Take
half an ounce of blood root, finely pulverized and sifted, and one
drachm of camomile; mix them together for a sternutatory. A small pinch
of this powder is to be snuffed up the nostrils for the polypus of
the nose, three times a day. The following wash, or lotion, is to be
thrown up the nostrils with a syringe twice a day, until the polypus is
removed: Dissolve half an ounce of powdered alum in a gill of brandy,
and shake the vial until the alum is dissolved. This is a tried, safe
and sure cure for polypus of the nose without the use of instruments,
which subjects the patient to extreme pain and is often very dangerous.
ELIXIR PRO.--Take one quart of good spirits, to which add two ounces
myrrh; let it stand in the sun four days, then add half an ounce of
aloes, one ounce of saffron, and let it stand two days.
ALTERATIVE SYRUP.--Take two pounds sarsaparilla, one pound guaiacum,
eleven ounces sassafras, eleven ounces alder flowers; boil together in
three quarts of water, pour off, add one pint and a half of spirits and
five pounds of sugar. Drink a wine glass full three times a day.
FOR A COUGH.--Take two heads of garlic, a lemon sliced, four ounces
licorice, half a pint of liquor, four ounces flax seed, three pints of
water, boil down to one quart, and strain; take a tea cup full on going
to bed.
RECIPE FOR A COLD.--Take a large teaspoonful of linseed with two penny
worth of stick licorice, and a quarter of a pound of sun raisins. Put
them in two quarts of soft water; add to it a quarter of a pound of
brown sugar candy, powdered and a tablespoonful of white wine vinegar,
or lemon juice.
_Note._--The vinegar is to be added only to the quantity you are going
immediately to take; for if it be put into the whole, it is liable, in
a little time, to grow flat. Drink half a pint on going to bed, and
take a little when the cough is troublesome.
This recipe generally cures the worst of colds, in one or two days;
and, if taken in time, may be said to be almost an infallible remedy.
It is a sovereign balsamic cordial for the lungs, without the opening
qualities which endanger fresh colds in going out. It has been known to
cure colds which have almost been settled into consumptions, in less
than three weeks.
BITE OF A RATTLESNAKE, OR ANY OTHER POISONOUS SNAKE.--It is good,
when you expect to be in danger of being bitten by poisonous snakes,
to keep a small bag of fine salt in your pocket, so that you may bind
it on. As soon as you are bit, cut and scarify in and near the place
where the bite is, with a lancet, or sharp pointed knife; this will
keep the orifice open, so that the poison may the better be drawn out;
then take, if it can be had, one or two of the nubs or balls of the
thimble-weed, steep in water, pound it well, put it on the bite and
keep it on a quarter or half hour; then see if it has made a blister,
and if not, repeat the application until you get one; then take it
off, but, in the mean time, take care to have the person chewing the
leaves or bark of white ash, and swallow plenty of the juice, but not
one drop of water, until the poison is working out; take the leaves of
white ash, mountain flax, robin’s plantain roots, tops, and bloodwort,
(called by some St. Andrew’s crosswort, and by some quinsy) roots and
tops, and snake violet (sometimes called buck-horn plantain) roots and
tops, and conicle roots, altogether, or such parts as can be collected
in great haste, about a handful of each, and pound all together; then
put them into a pot of water, and boil them until very strong, (save
some out to drink often and plentifully,) and wash and bathe the part
affected with this preparation often, rubbing, stroking and working
above, below, and all around, pressing toward the wound; the liquor
should be about blood warm; apply on the bite a cabbage leaf, or a
smooth plantain leaf, wilted by the fire; apply your herbs and liquor
like a poultice, all over the limb or the part affected, and repeat as
often as the poultice gets too dry--not forgetting to drink often of
the liquor. If the poison doth rage much, give the juice of horehound
and brown sugar, to drink. But I tell you again, give no water to
drink, and take care to keep the wound open and moving, with the leaves
wilted by the fire.
When you want to heal the wound, make an ointment of hog’s lard and
ox-weed, green bark of sweet elder, the smooth leaf plantain roots and
tops, and anoint the part two or three times a day, or as you find
need. After the cure is effected, you ought to physic well, in order
to cleanse the blood; and to prevent a return of the sickness and
preserve the eye-sight; the patient may have new milk to drink, with
other drinks. And when the poison is out of the system, be careful not
to drink great draughts of water, but make tea of good things, to warm
and sweeten the blood. In this way, I have kept patients from one drop
of water, for full nine days. One John Lee, being hit on his feet, had
three doctors to attend him, who soon fixed him for his winding-sheet.
He had been laid out near two hours, when a man came in and gave him
the snake violet and bloodwort juice, in white or sweet wine, half of
each, mixed together, and the man recovered and lived.
STOMACH FAINTNESS, SICKNESS AND SWELLING.--Take the ripe berries of
spice bush, dry them, and pound them in a mortar as fine as you can;
then put them in a good, strong linen bag, press it well, and it will
produce a very good oil; then bottle it up for use. You may take it
with safety.
A SALVE FOR BRUISES, SCALDS AND WOUNDS.--Take two pounds of fresh hog’s
lard, one-half pound each of beeswax and rosin, one pound of good
well-cured tobacco, one-quarter pound nightshade and one drachm of
deaplemer; stew over a moderate fire about two hours, then strain it
clear for use. It is also good for burns.
A SALVE FOR GREEN WOUNDS AND BOILS.--Take the yolk of an egg, and one
spoonful each of honey, wheat flour and white pine turpentine; simmer
all together; when cold, it is fit for use.
TO MAKE EYE WATER, AND A WASH FOR BRUISES, STABS, OLD SORES, ULCERS,
SWELLINGS, EAR ACHES, AND TO REMOVE CANCERS.--Take one quart of rain or
river water, made boiling hot, put it into a pewter or earthen basin,
and put into it one spoonful of white vitriol and half a spoonful of
raw alum, pounded fine, one spoonful of the spirits of wine, half a
large thimble full of gum elerne, made fine as can be; let it stand
till it is cold, and bottle it up for use.
The way to use it, is to make it as hot as you can bear it, in an
earthen vessel, and bathe the place often and well.
TO STOP BLEEDING, AND TO HEAL A FLESH WOUND.--Take a clean linen rag,
dry it well by the fire so that it begins to be brown; then put it to
the blaze, and let it burn to a good cinder, put it on the wound as hot
as you can, bind it on the wound and keep it on till it works loose,
and it will stop the blood; if it wants more healing, apply clean lint
instead of a plaster, and make a wash of liquor of soap and urine,
spikenard, or the like.
FOR THE RHEUMATISM.--Take a small glass bottle full of angle-worms,
washed clean, with a rag or paper stopple, and put the bottle into a
loaf of bread, and mould it to bake as usual; set it into the oven
and bake it well, and after your bread is drawn out of the oven, let
it stand till it gets cold; then cut it open, and the worms will make
a fine oil; you may strain the oil from the muddy bottom, and anoint
the place affected with it. For a drink, put the root and tops of
princes pine into brandy, and drink night and morning as you can bear,
repeating your anointing as often as required, and keep warm.
ANOTHER--FOR RHEUMATISM, OR PAINFUL SWELLING OF THE JOINTS.--Take a
black water turtle, and bruise or pound it to pieces; put it into a
pot of water and boil it smartly near two hours; then take it off and
let it get cold, and skim off the oil and keep it for use; anoint
the place affected hot by the fire, bind it up with flannel cloths,
and dress as often as you find need. For drink to cleanse the blood,
take a handful of the roots and tops of princes pine, half a handful
of horse-radish roots, a pound each of the bark of sweet alder roots,
sarsaparilla root, prickly ash bark, black birch bark, garden nettle
roots and burdock roots, and half a bushel of good malt or one gallon
of molasses, and brew about six gallons of good beer, let it work well,
and drink as you find you can bear; keep yourself from wet and cold.
AN EXCELLENT SALVE FOR BURNS AND OTHER SORES.--Take one gallon of
good old cider, and steep one pound of good tobacco in it cold for
twenty-four hours, then strain and press out all the liquor; you may
dry the tobacco, and it will be good to smoke; take your liquor, strain
it clean and put into it half a pound of rosin, half a pound of beeswax
and half a pound of deer or mutton tallow; stew it over a moderate fire
to the consumption of all the cider, and if you find it hard, temper it
by adding fresh hog’s lard: fit for use. It is the best kind of salve.
TO MAKE GOOD FAMILY PHYSIC.--Take a large iron pot full of the bark
of butternut roots, got in the month of June; fill it up with water,
and boil it twelve hours; take out the bark and put in a handful of
the roots of smellage, dill, annis-seed, or the like, and boil it
again till it begins to be a little thick; then strain it again very
clean, and stew it away very moderately, until it is hard enough to
form into pills, as you may ascertain by cooling some of it as the
rest is boiling; when you find it is sufficiently hard, take it off
the fire and put it into a small dish; burn two or three egg shells on
the hot coals till they will pound fine enough to go through a coarse
sieve, and near three spoonsful of fine flour of brimstone, together,
and put it into the physic; mix it all the time while cooling, to
prevent the powders from settling. A grown person may take as much as
a tablespoonful at night, before going to bed, either made into pills
or dissolved in water, or in the morning, fasting; if it does not work
down in two hours, take half as much more, and keep repeating until it
does work; drink a great plenty of water gruel, made of Indian meal.
AN OINTMENT FOR THE KING’S EVIL.--Take one pound of butter made in
May, and take as much of the roots of fresh fox glove (what some call
lady-shoe), pound it very fine, and put as much in the butter as will
mix; set it in the hot sun thirty days, taking it in evenings, and days
when it rains or is very cloudy; after it has had thirty days’ sun,
press out the ointment, and annoint the king’s evil. For this purpose,
it is said it has no equal; you must physic the blood well to carry it
off.
FOR A COUGH OF LONG CONTINUANCE.--Take three or four quarts of wheat
bran, boil it in a pailful of water to a strong wort; then take it off
the fire, take out near a quart of the wort and set it away to drink;
then put your feet into the bran and liquor, and rub, scrape and work
the soles of your feet with an old knife as long as the water is warm;
then go right into a warm bed and drink the rest of the wort you have
saved out; sweat plentifully and so repeat it three or four nights, and
you will likely find help in almost any cough; be careful not to get
any cold.
SYRUP FOR A COUGH.--Take one or two turnips, slice them very thin, take
a pewter or earthen basin and sprinkle it over with brown sugar, then
lay on a layer of elecampane roots, sliced or pounded, then a laying of
sugar, next of turnips, and so on until the basin is nearly full; set
it in an oven, or a warm cellar, a day or a night, and you will have
a fine syrup. Take half a gill on going to bed; you may eat the roots
also--but, as they open the pores of the body, you ought to be careful
not to get cold.
ANOTHER.--Take hoarhound, garden colt’s-foot roots, spikenard roots,
and, for weakness, add hartshorn, Solomon’s seal, comfrey and brook
liverwort; stew in water till it is strong, then strain off the liquor,
and to a quart of the syrup add half a pound of honey or good brown
sugar, and a gill of rum; simmer again over the fire half an hour and
bottle it up; take as you can bear, night and morning, fasting.
WIND CHOLIC--INDIAN MEDICINE.--Take the bark or buds of boxwood, such
as has a large blossom in the spring, much like a peach blossom--the
tree is short and scrubby, and bears paleish berries; boil the bark or
buds, or both together, in water, and give the person plenty to drink,
to break away the wind, and it will quickly give the patient ease.
HARD SWELLING--FOR MAN OR BEAST.--Make an ointment of one pound of the
bark of bittersweet, half pound of young and tender mullen leaves, a
large handful of the white of hen dung and a handful of wormwood; boil
all together in water till the strength is all boiled out; squeeze
out the liquor and strain it clean; now add one pound of hog’s lard,
stew it till the water is all out, then turn it into a small vessel
and keep it for use, to annoint the place swelled; if you find it is
not powerful enough, add to a gill of the ointment, one spoonful of
the spirits of vitriol, or half a spoonful of the oil of vitriol, well
mixed by a hot fire or with a hot iron. If it is a beast you have in
hand, the spirits and oil of vitriol may be used with neat’s foot oil
for the same purpose, or be put into other ointments for swellings,
with safety; it is good for old crusty, hard, scabby sores, to work out
hard, dead matter or crusts in sores, for both man or beast, and set
the sore to work.
DROPSY.--For persons inclined to dropsy, or stoppage of urine, and
swelling in the body, take the roots of one-berry, so called because
it bears but one berry in a place, which is large, red, resembling a
strawberry; by some it is called Scotch bonnet, because the bud on the
top, before the blossom comes, resembles that bonnet; it grows some
like a weed, about logs, stone-heaps or old fences; it has a large
leaf, which falls off in the fall of the year, and grows again the
next spring; some call this dropsy root. Take this root and boil it
in water, and drink plenty of it. It is also very good for horses and
cattle, if they swell in their bodies, for stoppage of water and great
pain, add some rosin to it.
ULCERS, SORES AND HARD SWELLINGS ON THE JOINTS.--If they have been so
for many years, take half a pailful of the bark of the red roots of
red willow, (found on low, wet land,) scrape it off very fine with a
knife; the bark must be red, as you will find some will be red and
some not, as both will grow from one tree or bunch of willow bushes;
that which is not red will not do at all, and if such large red willow
is not to be had, get a small willow which is called rose willow, and
grows on dry, hilly land, and sometimes on flat plains, two, three
and four feet high, and has a bunch of leaves on the top, much in the
form of a rose, from which it takes its name, and it will answer for
the same purpose; take the red bark of these roots, as of the other,
and boil it very strong in a large pot of water; then take it off the
fire, and place the joint over the steam, covered over with a blanket
and fermented as long as the liquor is hot; then wash and bathe as long
as the liquor is warm, and bind on as much of the bark as you can keep
on, and so repeat twice a day; it may be some months before a cure is
completed.
In cases where fever sores existed, or the like, and the bone has
rotted by the fever, and the scales come out, this treatment has made
the greatest number of cures, in such cases, of any I have ever met
with, or knew; it is also very good to put about half a brick, well
pounded, in the liquor; in using this great remedy, you ought first to
physic the blood thoroughly, to throw off the old humors, and make the
cure sound and firm; afterwards, use plenty of scabis root, made into
a tea, and drink every day, or make a good beer with it; or sometimes
take it in powders--about a spoonful.
WORMS IN CHILDREN.--Take the third bark (which is the inner one,) of
spotted alder, that bears a small, red berry, scrape off the bark with
a knife, and boil half a pound in about one gallon of water, to one
quart; then strain it clean, and take out, for a child, about half a
pint, and set it away in a bottle; add to the other about half a pint
of sweet milk and about half a pint of molasses; simmer these together
over the fire a little while, and bottle it up; one day before the full
or change of the moon, give the child a third part of that you saved
out, and the rest the two next mornings; after that let them drink the
syrup.
CANCERS.--Take the leaves and small, tender tops or branches of
poke-weed; pound together and squeeze out the juice, and put it into
an earthen pot; set it in the sun, till it has acquired the thickness
of an ointment; spread the plaster the size of the sore on the leaf of
the plant, when green, and on black silk in the winter; apply a new
plaster three or four times during the day, if the pain can be indured,
which is sometimes very great. This remedy, which kills and loosens the
cancer at the bottom and draws it to the outside, makes it apparently
worse for the time, on first using, but nevertheless effects a radical
cure in about five or six months. No physic or strong drink is to be
made use of, except in case of fainting, when a little good spirits may
be used. This has effected cures, in many instances, where the cancers
were of an inveterate kind and of long duration, and has never failed
of success.
SALT RHEUM OR SCURVY.--Take the poke-weed leaves, any time in the
summer, pound and squeeze out the juice; strain it into a pewter
basin, and set in the sun until it becomes a salve; then put it into
an earthen mug and add fresh butter and beeswax, sufficient to make an
ointment of common thickness; simmer the whole over the fire, and keep
constantly stirring it until it is thoroughly mixed; when cold, rub the
part affected twice a day, till the cure is completed, which will be in
the course of three or four months; the patient will soon experience
its good effects.
WHOOPING COUGH.--Take a good handful of dry colts-foot leaves, cut
them small and boil them in one quart of spring water to half a pint,
then take it off the fire, and when it is almost cold, strain it clean
through a cloth, squeezing the herbs as dry as you can; then dissolve
in it one ounce of brown sugar candy, finely powdered, and give a child
three or four years old one spoonful, cold or warm, according to the
season, and so in proportion to the age and strength, three or four
times a day (or oftener if the fits of coughing come frequently,) till
well, which will be in two or three days; it will soon abate the fits
of coughing.
RHEUMATISM.--A specific and infallible cure for the most inveterate
Rheumatism of many years standing, has been communicated by a man of
character from the coast of Guinea. He says the negroes of that country
easily remove it in a little time, by rubbing the part affected with
a mixture of cayenne pepper and strong spirits; the rubbing must be
continued for some time, and repeated till the cure is effected; the
pepper must be reduced to powder. Several Americans, most grievously
tormented with this intolerable disorder, have been so effectually
relieved by this happy communication, as not to have the least remains
of it, and with my own experience, I believe it, but would rather
depend on it with the addition of drinking a glass of princes pine,
steeped in good French brandy, morning and evening, for the blood; I do
not doubt of its being an almost certain cure--but remember to guard
against cold and wet.
SORE BREAST.--Take the sprouts of the first year’s growth of bitter
poplar, and scrape off the bark, and the bark of sumack roots, a
handful of each, half a handful of camomile and as much of mullen
leaves; stew in one pound of hog’s fat over a moderate fire, then
strain it clean and add half a gill of good rum; simmer again to the
consumption of the rum, and it is fit for use.
FOR A POULTICE--Take roots and some of the tender leaves of scabious,
pound in a mortar to a salve and spread it on a piece of thin leather;
heat it hot by the fire until it is brown, cover it over with the
before mentioned ointment, and apply to the breast; repeat as often as
you find need.
ULCER.--A tea of white pine bark, elixir salutes and the yolk of an
egg, is good for an inward ulcer that is broke.