A drop or two of creosote on a cut will stop its bleeding.
TREATMENT FOR POISON OAK--POISON IVY--POISON SUMACH.--Mr. Charles
Morris, of Philadelphia, who has studied the subject closely, uses, as
a sovereign remedy, frequent bathing of the affected parts in water
as hot as can be borne. If used immediately after exposure, it may
prevent the eruption appearing. If later, it allays the itching, and
gradually dries up the swellings, though they are very stubborn after
they have once appeared. But an application every few hours keeps down
the intolerable itching, which is the most annoying feature of sumach
poisoning. In addition to this, the ordinary astringent ointments are
useful, as is also that sovereign lotion, "lead-water and laudanum."
Mr. Morris adds to these a preventive prescription of "wide-open
eyes."
BITES AND STINGS OF INSECTS.--Wash with a solution of ammonia water.
BITES OF MAD DOGS.--Apply caustic potash at once to the wound, and
give enough whiskey to cause sleep.
BURNS.--Make a paste of common baking soda and water, and apply it
promptly to the burn. It will quickly check the pain and inflammation.
COLD ON CHEST.--A flannel rag wrung out in boiling water and sprinkled
with turpentine, laid on the chest, gives the greatest relief.
COUGH.--Boil one ounce of flaxseed in a pint of water, strain, and
add a little honey, one ounce of rock candy, and the juice of three
lemons. Mix and boil well. Drink as hot as possible.
SPRAINED ANKLE OR WRIST.--Wash the ankle very frequently with cold
salt and water, which is far better than warm vinegar or decoction of
herbs. Keep the foot as cool as possible to prevent inflammation, and
sit with it elevated on a high cushion. Live on low diet, and take
every morning some cooling medicine, such as Epsom salts. It cures in
a few days.
CHILBLAINS, SPRAINS, ETC.--One raw egg well beaten, half a pint of
vinegar, one ounce spirits of turpentine, a quarter of an ounce of
spirits of wine, a quarter of an ounce of camphor. These ingredients
to be beaten together, then put in a bottle and shaken for ten
minutes, after which, to be corked down tightly to exclude the air. In
half an hour it is fit for use. To be well rubbed in, two, three, or
four times a day. For rheumatism in the head, to be rubbed at the back
of the neck and behind the ears. In chilblains this remedy is to be
used before they are broken.
HOW TO REMOVE SUPERFLUOUS HAIR.--Sulphuret of Arsenic, one ounce;
Quicklime, one ounce; Prepared Lard, one ounce; White Wax, one ounce.
Melt the Wax, add the Lard. When nearly cold, stir in the other
ingredients. Apply to the superfluous hair, allowing it to remain on
from five to ten minutes; use a table-knife to shave off the hair;
then wash with soap and warm water.
DYSPEPSIA CURE.--Powdered Rhubarb, two drachms: Bicarbonate of Sodium,
six drachms; Fluid Extract of Gentian, three drachms; Peppermint
Water, seven and a half ounces. Mix them. Dose, a teaspoonful half an
hour before meals.
FOR NEURALGIA.--Tincture of Belladonna, one ounce; Tincture of
Camphor, one ounce; Tincture of Arnica, one ounce; Tincture of Opium,
one ounce. Mix them. Apply over the seat of the pain, and give ten to
twenty drops in sweetened water every two hours.
FOR COUGHS, COLDS, ETC.--Syrup of Morphia, three ounces; Syrup of Tar,
three and a half ounces; Chloroform, one troy ounce; Glycerine, one
troy ounce. Mix them. Dose, a teaspoonful three or four times a day.
TO CURE HIVES.--Compound syrup of Squill, U.S., three ounces; Syrup of
Ipecac, U.S., one ounce. Mix them. Dose, a teaspoonful.
TO CURE SICK HEADACHE.--Gather sumach leaves in the summer, and spread
them in the sun a few days to dry. Then powder them fine, and smoke,
morning and evening for two weeks, also whenever there are symptoms
of approaching headache. Use a new clay pipe. If these directions are
adhered to, this medicine will surely effect a permanent cure.
WHOOPING COUGH.--Dissolve a scruple of salt of tartar in a gill of
water; add to it ten grains of cochineal; sweeten it with sugar. Give
to an infant a quarter teaspoonful four times a day; two years old,
one-half teaspoonful; from four years, a tablespoonful. Great care is
required in the administration of medicines to infants. We can assure
paternal inquirers that the foregoing may be depended upon.
CUT OR BRUISE.--Apply the moist surface of the inside coating or skin
of the shell of a raw egg. It will adhere of itself, leave no scar,
and heal without pain.
DISINFECTANT.--Chloride of lime should be scattered at least once a
week under sinks and wherever sewer gas is likely to penetrate.
[Illustration: THE YOUNG DOCTOR.]
COSTIVENESS.--Common charcoal is highly recommended for costiveness.
It may be taken in tea- or tablespoonful, or even larger doses,
according to the exigencies of the case, mixed with molasses,
repeating it as often as necessary. Bathe the bowels with pepper and
vinegar. Or take two ounces of rhubarb, add one ounce of rust of iron,
infuse in one quart of wine. Half a wineglassful every morning.
Or take pulverized blood root, one drachm, pulverized rhubarb, one
drachm, castile soap, two scruples. Mix and roll into thirty-two
pills. Take one, morning and night. By following these directions it
may perhaps save you from a severe attack of the piles, or some other
kindred disease.
TO CURE DEAFNESS.--Obtain pure pickerel oil, and apply four drops
morning and evening to the ear. Great care should be taken to obtain
oil that is perfectly pure.
DEAFNESS.--Take three drops of sheep's gall, warm and drop it into the
ear on going to bed. The ear must be syringed with warm soap and water
in the morning. The gall must be applied for three successive nights.
It is only efficacious when the deafness is produced by cold. The most
convenient way of warming the gall is by holding it in a silver spoon
over the flame of a light. The above remedy has been frequently tried
with perfect success.
GOUT.--This is Col. Birch's recipe for rheumatic gout or acute
rheumatism, commonly called in England the "Chelsea Pensioner." Half
an ounce of nitre (saltpetre), half an ounce of sulphur, half an ounce
of flour of mustard, half an ounce of Turkey rhubarb, quarter of an
ounce of powdered guaicum. Mix, and take a teaspoonful every other
night for three nights, and omit three nights, in a wineglassful of
cold water which has been previously well boiled.
RINGWORM.--The head is to be washed twice a day with soft soap and
warm soft water; when dried the places to be rubbed with a piece of
linen rag dipped in ammonia from gas tar; the patient should take a
little sulphur and molasses, or some other genuine aperient, every
morning; brushes and combs should be washed every day, and the ammonia
kept tightly corked.
PILES.--Hamamelis, both internally or as an injection in rectum. Bathe
the parts with cold water or with astringent lotions, as alum water,
especially in bleeding piles. Ointment of gallic acid and calomel is
of repute. The best treatment of all is, suppositories of iodoform,
ergotine, of tannic acid, which can be made at any drug store.
CHICKEN POX.--No medicine is usually needed, except a tea made
from pleurisy root, to make the child sweat. Milk diet is the best;
avoidance of animal food; careful attention to the bowels; keep cool
and avoid exposure to cold.
SCARLET FEVER.--Cold water compress on the throat. Fats and oils
rubbed on hands and feet. The temperature of the room should be
about 68 degrees Fahr., and all draughts avoided. Mustard baths for
retrocession of the rash and to bring it out. Diet: ripe fruit,
toast, gruel, beef, tea and milk. Stimulants are useful to counteract
depression of the vital forces.
FALSE MEASLES OR ROSE RASH.--It requires no treatment except hygienic.
Keep the bowels open. Nourishing diet, and if there is itching,
moisten the skin with five per cent. solution of aconite or solution
of starch and water.
BILIOUS ATTACKS.--Drop doses of muriatic acid in a wine glass of water
every four hours, or the following prescription: Bicarbonate of soda,
one drachm; Aromatic spirits of ammonia, two drachms; Peppermint
water, four ounces. Dose: Take a teaspoonful every four hours.
DIARRHOEA.--The following prescription is generally all that will be
necessary: acetate of lead, eight grains; gum arabic, two drachms;
acetate of morphia, one grain; and cinnamon water, eight ounces. Take
a teaspoonful every three hours.
Be careful not to eat too much food. Some consider, the best treatment
is to fast, and it is a good suggestion. Patients should keep quiet
and have the room of a warm and even temperature.
VOMITING.--Ice dissolved in the mouth, often cures vomiting when all
remedies fail. Much depends on the diet of persons liable to such
attacts; this should be easily digestible food, taken often and in
small quantities. Vomiting can often be arrested by applying a mustard
paste over the region of the stomach. It is not necessary to allow it
to remain until the parts are blistered, but it may be removed when
the part becomes thoroughly red, and reapplied if required after the
redness has disappeared. One of the secrets to relieve vomiting is to
give the stomach perfect rest, not allowing the patient even a glass
of water, as long as the tendency remains to throw it up again.
NERVOUS HEADACHE.--Extract hyoscymus five grains, pulverized camphor
five grains. Mix. Make four pills, one to be taken when the pain is
most severe in nervous headache. Or three drops tincture nux vomica in
a spoonful of water, two or three times a day.
BLEEDING FROM THE NOSE.--from whatever cause--may generally be stopped
by putting a plug of lint into the nostril; if this does not do, apply
a cold lotion to the forehead; raise the head and place both arms
over the head, so that it will rest on both hands; dip the lint plug,
slightly moistened, in some powdered gum arabic, and plug the nostrils
again; or dip the plug into equal parts of gum arabic and alum. An
easier and simpler method is to place a piece of writing paper on the
gums of the upper jaw, under the upper lip, and let it remain there
for a few minutes.
BOILS.--These should be brought to a head by warm poultices of
camomile flowers, or boiled white lily root, or onion root, by
fermentation with hot water, or by stimulating plasters. When ripe
they should be destroyed by a needle or lancet. But this should not be
attempted until they are thoroughly proved.
BUNIONS may be checked in their early development by binding the joint
with adhesive plaster, and keeping it on as long as any uneasiness is
felt. The bandaging should be perfect, and it might be well to extend
it round the foot An inflamed bunion should be poulticed, and larger
shoes be worn. Iodine 12 grains, lard or spermaceti ointment half an
ounce, makes a capital ointment for bunions. It should be rubbed on
gently twice or three times a day.
FELONS.--One table-spoonful of red lead, and one tablespoonful of
castile soap, and mix them with as much weak lye as will make it soft
enough to spread like a salve, and apply it on the first appearance of
the felon, and it will cure in ten or twelve days.
CARE FOR WARTS.--The easiest way to get rid of warts, is to pare off
the thickened skin which covers the prominent wart; cut it off by
successive layers and shave it until you come to the surface of the
skin, and till you draw blood in two or three places. Then rub the
part thoroughly over with lunar caustic, and one effective operation
of this kind will generally destroy the wart; if not, you cut off
the black spot which has been occasioned by the caustic, and apply it
again; or you may apply acetic acid, and thus you will get rid of it.
Care must be taken in applying these acids, not to rub them on the
skin around the wart.
WENS.--Take the yoke of some eggs, beat up, and add as much fine salt
as will dissolve, and apply a plaster to the wen every ten hours. It
cures without pain or any other inconvenience.
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