The American Frugal Housewife eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 162 pages of information about The American Frugal Housewife.

The American Frugal Housewife eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 162 pages of information about The American Frugal Housewife.

[Footnote 3:  Among the numerous medicines for this disease, perhaps none, after all, is better, particularly where the bowels are inflamed, than the old-fashioned one of English-mallows steeped in milk, and drank freely.  Everybody knows, of course, that English-mallows and marsh-mallows are different herbs.]

Whortleberries, commonly called huckleberries, dried, are a useful medicine for children.  Made into tea, and sweetened with molasses, they are very beneficial, when the system is in a restricted state, and the digestive powers out of order.

Blackberries are extremely useful in cases of dysentery.  To eat the berries is very healthy; tea made of the roots and leaves is beneficial; and a syrup made of the berries is still better.  Blackberries have sometimes effected a cure when physicians despaired.

Loaf sugar and brandy relieves a sore throat; when very bad, it is good to inhale the steam of scalding hot vinegar through the tube of a tunnel.  This should be tried carefully at first, lest the throat be scalded.  For children, it should be allowed to cool a little.

A stocking bound on warm from the foot, at night, is good for the sore throat.

An ointment made from the common ground-worms, which boys dig to bait fishes, rubbed on with the hand, is said to be excellent, when the sinews are drawn up by any disease or accident.

A gentleman in Missouri advertises that he had an inveterate cancer upon his nose cured by a strong potash made of the lye of the ashes of red oak bark, boiled down to the consistence of molasses.  The cancer was covered with this, and, about an hour after, covered with a plaster of tar.  This must be removed in a few days, and, if any protuberances remain in the wound, apply more potash to them, and the plaster again, until they entirely disappear:  after which heal the wound with any common soothing salve.  I never knew this to be tried.

If a wound bleeds very fast, and there is no physician at hand, cover it with the scrapings of sole-leather, scraped like coarse lint.  This stops blood very soon.  Always have vinegar, camphor, hartshorn, or something of that kind, in readiness, as the sudden stoppage of blood almost always makes a person faint.

Balm-of-Gilead buds bottled up in N.E. rum, make the best cure in the world for fresh cuts and wounds.  Every family should have a bottle of it.  The buds should be gathered in a peculiar state; just when they are well swelled, ready to burst into leaves, and well covered with gum.  They last but two or three days in this state.

Plantain and house-leek, boiled in cream, and strained before it is put away to cool, makes a very cooling, soothing ointment.  Plantain leaves laid upon a wound are cooling and healing.

Half a spoonful of citric acid, (which may always be bought of the apothecaries,) stirred in half a tumbler of water, is excellent for the head-ache.

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The American Frugal Housewife from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.