Part 3

This is anti-scrofulous; is excellent for all diseases of the lungs, internal ulcers and asthma; it will remove the mucus from the bronchial tubes, and heal them; for ulcers or sore legs, drink it freely, and wash the sores with the same; add a little white maple bark with it; always use the inner bark, next to the wood.

MARSH MALLOW.

These grow in our gardens; the low mallow possesses the same medical virtues; are both good in canker, mild and loosening; for canker in children add a little catnip and coriander seed. Children have more or less canker in the bowels.

WHITE OAK.

This bark is very strengthening; and so, also, is the black and yellow oak. They are good to make washes. I use them internally, as I think them as good as peruvian bark, and safer.

OATS.

How few there are acquainted with the virtues hid in oats. Very many lives have been saved by using oat meal gruel, but of late years it is entirely laid aside. Oats are healing and cooling, and, therefore, healthy. Make puddings of the meal for your children every night, and they will be healthy and robust. Boil two quarts of oats in two gallons of water four hours, add a handfull of succory, let it steep ten hours, then strain off and add one pint of good molasses; boil half an hour, and drink, say a tumbler half full, night and morning, before dog days, and through that season. I will warrant no sickness will trouble you. It will cleanse the kidneys. Oats are good in pleurisies, and removes all obstructions from the viscera. Take two vegetable pills at bed time.

GOLDEN ROD.

This plant is perennial, rises two feet in hight, has small brown stalks divided at the top into branches with numerous long green leaves; flowers small and yellow. It grows in woods and meadows, and along the fences; its leaves are gently astringent; the flowers are beneficial in removing obstructions in the urinary organs, and in gravelly complaints of the bladder; also, good in cachexies, and in the first stage of dropsy.

PARSLEY.

Every person is acquainted with this plant, as it is found in all gardens; it will produce a free discharge of urine; its medical properties are cooling.

GOLDEN SEAL.

Is tonic, cathartic and nervine; excellent to wash sore eyes.

ICE PLANT.

This root is an excellent remedy for fits in children, and in old times was called “fits root.”

STONE ROOT.

Grows on the side of hills; the root is knotty and nearly as hard as a stone; this root is warming, diuretic, aromatic, and good in all dropsical diseases.

BUCKTHORN.

Is a prickly bush, or low tree, grows in hedges throughout the States. The bark and berries are cathartic, and if you are in want of a brisk cathartic take the bark or berries. It would be a good plan to put the berries into whiskey, and take occasionally one or two tablespoonsful.

WORMWOOD.

This perennial herb grows by the road side, in gardens, and around old ruins and walls. Its active constituents are a bitter extract and essential oil; is used in stomach complaints, and is of great service in hypochondria and melancholy, lowness of spirits, and loss of appetite; in intermittent fevers, cachectic, and dropsical complaints, and in jaundice; destroys worms. The essence, taken for a considerable time, prevents the formation of stone in the kidneys and bladder,--the patient omitting the use of wine and acids. The gout has been conquered by the continual use of the decoction of this herb. A teacupfull of the infusion taken twice a day, by nurses, will make their milk good.

WATER TREFOIL.

This plant is perennial, and grows in marshes, swamps, and wet meadows, in New Jersey. It flowers in July; the leaves are excessively bitter, which is extracted by infusion; one ounce of the leaves, dried, are equal to half a pound of hops, in brewing. A drachm of the powdered leaves is a purge and a vomit. It has been found beneficial in curing scorbutic complaints, as well as tertian and quartan fevers, and is excellent in curing rheumatic affections.

POND LILY.

The white and yellow both have the same properties, and are healing and cooling. I have found them to relieve all fluxes, inflammations, outwardly and inwardly. I use the seeds and roots in cases of consumption. The blows make a good poultice for burns, bruises, or any kind of sores, as it is very healing.

MADDER.

This is opening and strengthening, and is a sure cure for yellow jaundice: Take as much madder as you can hold in a tablespoon, twice as much hoarhound, and snakehead, and half an ounce of mandrake; put this into three pints of boiling water, keep it warm ten hours, then strain, and add three tablespoonsful of white ash bark; put all into a bottle and shake it well; drink half a wine glass full in half a tumbler full of water.

PRICKLY ASH TEA.

Make this tea by steeping prickly ash bark in hot water; take it three times a day before eating.

GOOSEBERRY.

The leaves and berry are good in all cases of inflammation, being of a cooling nature; they were much used in the olden time, for coughs, and in salves.

TAMARACK.

I use the bark in all my syrups, as it is cleansing and quickens the circulative action.

HEMLOCK.

This bark is excellent in all colds, to be used as a steam bath. It will break up a fever, and by taking a teaspoonful of powdered mandrake root, internally, it will remove the fever, and probably save fifty dollars doctor’s bill. It is good, internally and externally. The tincture is very warming, and good to bathe the back and loins, when weak or painful. Always take few drops on sugar, internally, before bathing. Remember, never bathe with any tincture without taking something internally, it may injure you for life.

CHICKWEED.

This will be found good in all poultices for sores.

SPIKENARD.

Every one is well acquainted with this root; it is balsamic and healing; I generally use it for coughs and general debility.

MALE FERN.

This root is a great vermifuge; I have used it with success for exterminating the tape worm; and is in no wise dangerous, which cannot be said of some vermifuges. Always administer a brisk cathartic after drinking a decoction of this root, once a day for three days; then give the vermifuge for three days, then a cathartic, and so on for nine days, and all worms will be expelled, both from the stomach and bowels. To be taken before eating.

SWEET FERN.

How little is known of this shrub, yet all know it by its beautiful smell. For any derangement of the womb, there is nothing better: Take five roots of this shrub and boil in two quarts of water, down to one, and when cool strain; then add one gill of Holland gin. Take half a wine glass full in the morning, and a wine glass full at bed time. This is a good remedy in all weaknesses, especially for children having weak bones, or are troubled with scrofula, or any tumors; also, for those who cannot hold their water, or have weak bowels.

BITTER SWEET.

This plant rises eight or ten feet in hight, and entwines around trees the same as a vine; flowers in loose clusters, always turning against the sun; the carolla is composed of one petal, wheel shaped, and divided at the bottom or border into five pointed segments, which are bent back; purple prominences, like dots, surround the rim of the carolla, from the nectary; the yellow anther making a beautiful contrast; the flowers become bright red; berries something similar to currants, and are of a bitter, sweet taste. This climbing shrub grows common in low grounds and marshes. The dulcamara is a powerful and useful medicine; it increases all the secretions and excretions, excites the heart and arteries, and is also beneficial in all cutaneous effections, rheumatism, scirrhus swellings, ill-conditioned ulcers, scrofula, whites, jaundice, and obstructed menses. Cancers of the breast have been cured by the application of the juice to the cancer, and the green leaves applied to the breast.

PREPARATION.--Boil half a pound of the bark of the bitter sweet in eight quarts of spring water to the consumption of one gallon; a gill to be taken three times a day; it is also good in fevers. The patient ought to take a dose of sal glauber once a week, while using the medicine.

COMFREY.

This well known, useful plant, rises about two feet in hight; leaves very large, similar to water dock; roots long, thick as a man’s thumb, very mucilaginous, and are black externally and white within; flowers of a pale blue color. It grows in moist meadows, near springs, and is planted in gardens for family use. The roots are inspissant and demulcent, having the same virtues as marsh mallow; they correct salt sharp serum, heal erasions of the intestines in diarrhœa and dysentery, and prevent the spitting of blood; bruised and applied to ruptures, externally, they have proved beneficial.

PREPARATION.--Take four ounces of the fresh roots, or three of dry, four ounces of burdock root, two of red rose willow bark, one of parsley, and two of yarrow tops; boil these ingredients in four quarts of water and one of new milk, to the consumption of two quarts; strain and sweeten it with loaf sugar. A gill of this decoction, taken three times a day, will cure the recent clap in a few days, using the tormentil injection, elsewhere directed. It is also beneficial in curing the fluor albus, or whites, in weakly females. The roots, boiled in milk, are good for fluxes, dysentery, and ardor of urine. Take two ounces of dry comfrey root, bruised, and one ounce of tormentil root, boil them in three quarts of water down to two; strain it and add a pint of brandy, with four ounces of powdered loaf sugar dissolved in it. A gill may be taken by adults, and a tablespoonful by children, four times a day, in cases of dysentery, diarrhœa, or flux.

FOX GLOVE.

The stalk is erect, tapering, and is four feet in hight; leaves large, oval, shady, wrinkled and veined, growing on short winged foot-stalks, downy underneath; the lacteas attendant on the flower stalks are small, spear shaped and sessile; the flowers, always on one side, are purple, bell shaped, marked internally with little dark colored spots, placed in whitish rings, and long hairs defend the entrance of the tube, hence no insects ever approach this flower. The flower stalks vary in length; at first they depend like the flowers, afterwards becoming erect, when they elevate a two-celled capsule, containing many blackish seeds.

This most elegant plant is raised in gardens, and is an exotic plant; flowers in July, and seeds in September. It would take a small volume to describe all the virtues which different authors have ascribed to its various qualities; however, as it is a dangerous medicine in the hands of the unskilful, I will give a few descriptions of its qualities, with directions how it may be used with safety in families.

PREPARATION.--Take of the dried bruised leaves of fox glove four ounces, powder of masterwort root one ounce, leaves of rue and wormwood, each, two ounces, elecampane and comfrey root bruised, each, two ounces, lungwort and wild cherry tree bark, each, one ounce; put all the ingredients into a new gallon earthen pot, and pour one gallon of boiling rain water on them; cover the pot and set it near the fire, on hot ashes, for twelve hours; after which strain the liquor through a linen cloth and add four quarts of honey, and let it stand near the fire twelve hours longer; then strain the liquor and put it in bottles for use. In all consumptive and asthmatic complaints, the patient may take a tablespoonful of this balsam three or four times a day, in a tea cupful of the following tea: put one ounce of skunk cabbage root and half an ounce of wild cherry tree bark in a tea pot, and pour boiling water on it, and use it daily; the dose may be increased from a tablespoonful to a wine glass full three times a day.

SENNA.

This plant rises from two to four feet in hight, resembling a shrub, and sending out hollow, woody stems; leaves in alternate order, compound, composed of several pairs, oval, pointed and nerved pinnæ, of a yellowish green color; flowers yellow, forming a spike consisting of five petals; the pod is curved and short. It grows in Canada, along the Ottawa river, in great quantities. It has been customary to reject the pedicles of the leaves of senna, but this is mere prejudice, for both leaves and pedicles act in the same way. The American senna operates milder than the senna that is imported, but it must be given in a larger dose.

Pour a pint of boiling water on eight drachms of American senna, and put a teaspoonful of ginger, or the powder of masterwort root, to it; let it stand in the pot for fifteen minutes for use; sweetened, with milk in it, it will prove a mild purge without griping. Children may take one or two teacupsful twice a day. Adults may take a desert-spoonful of the powder, with a teaspoonful of ginger, night and morning. As a safe and gentle purge, the following electuary is an excellent laxative for loosening the bowels of persons of costive habits: Take of senna leaves, powdered, six ounces, masterwort or ginger, one ounce, pulp of French prunes one pound, pulp of tamarinds two ounces, molasses one pint and a half, essential oil of caraway two drachms; boil the pulps in the molasses to the consistence of honey, then add the powders, and when the mixture cools put in the oil, and mix the whole intimately. Dose, a teaspoonful twice a day.

AVENS.

This plant rises a foot in hight; root fibrous, very pleasant and aromatic; leaves large and lyre shape; stalks upright and hirsute; flowers yellow and terminal. It is a perennial plant, and grows wild in the uncultivated fields of New Jersey and the New England states. Flowers from June to July; the roots are fibrous, of a dark red color externally, and white internally; has the flavor of cloves, with a bitterish, astringent taste. The large roots are preferable to the fibrous ones, which must be dug up in April, cut into thin slices and dried in the air as quick as possible. After being pulverized, sift the powder through a hair sieve and put it in bottles, well corked, for use. It is a good febrifuge, and is really an excellent substitute for the Jesuit bark in the cure of intermittent fevers, dysentery, chronic diarrhœa, wind colic, effections of the stomach, asthmatic symptoms, and cases of debility.

PREPARATION.--After the patient has taken a puke of the American ipecacuanha, and the fever is off, a teaspoonful of the powder may be administered every hour until the fever is broke, then use my stomach bitters, mentioned in this work, in order to prevent a relapse. Take of aven root two ounces, arum root half an ounce, (in powder,) skunk cabbage balls, in powder, half an ounce, gentian and masterwort, each half an ounce, sugar candy one ounce; mix one tablespoonful of these powders and boil them in one quart of rain water and one pint of new milk, for an hour. In all debilitating complaints, or beginning consumptions, the patient may take two teacupsful of this chocolate morning and evening, sweetened with loaf sugar, and ride out every day two hours before dinner.

GARDEN PÆONIE.

This plant rises two feet in hight; leaves cut into lobes which are oblong, or if pinnated, terminate by an odd pinnæ; capsules, two; oblong hirsute, and crowned with a stigma. It grows plentifully in the gardens throughout the United States. The seed is imported from Switzerland; it is noted for its virtues in the cure of epilepsy, and fits in children. The root must be dug in March, dried and pulverized, and kept in bottles, close corked, for use. Adults, subject to epilepsy, may take a desert-spoonful of the powder four times a day, in a teacupful of bitter sweet tea, made as follows: Pour a quart of boiling water on an ounce of the bruised dry bark of bitter sweet, taken from off the roots, and sweeten the tea with sugar; give to children, two years old, ten grains of the powder four times a day, in molasses, and wash it down with the bitter sweet tea. Apply the bruised roots to the soles of the feet when going to bed.

RECIPES.

FOR SORE THROAT, STOMACH, OR BOWELS.--Take of the inside bark of slippery elm, dried and powdered fine, one teaspoonful, and same quantity of brown sugar; pour in a little cold water and stir till mixed; then add a little warm water. Take a teaspoonful once an hour. For a poultice, it may be mixed with powdered crackers, or ginger, equal quantities of each, which is excellent for burns, scalds, &c. It will also remove inflammation, or pain in the eyes.

BUTTERNUT FOR BLISTERS.--Take the green shell of the nut, or the bark of the root, powdered; keep it moist while applying it. It is much better than Spanish flies.

FOR PHTHISIC.--Steep the leaves of white cedar; drink a gill three times a day.

FOR LOCKJAW.--Soak the part affected in ley.

FOR WORMS.--Steep sweet flag and wild turnip together. Take wild aloe leaves, (Indian hemp,) powder them and sweeten with molasses; tea good for children.

Make a syrup of equal quantities of the twigs and buds of balm of gilead, the same of white ash, and molasses; boil them together, and add a little spirits; it may also be made into pills.

A GOOD SALVE.--Steep princes pine till the strength is out; add fresh butter or mutton tallow; simmer till the water evaporates.

COMPOSITION.--Take 1 lb. bayberry root, ½ lb. inner bark of hemlock, ½ lb. ginger, 2 oz. cayenne pepper, 2 oz. cloves; mix, pound fine and sift.

AN EMETIC.--Take butternut bark, from the body and roots: boil till the strength is out; then strain and boil down sufficient to make into pills. They operate as an emetic, or cathartic.

Nervine is also good for a puke; with, or without boneset, it is an excellent remedy for a fever, in the first stages.

NERVE OINTMENT.--Take of bitter sweet bark two parts, of wormwood and camomile equal parts; moisten with warm water, and add some animal oil; simmer over a slow fire ten hours; then strain and add 1 oz. spirits turpentine to each pound of ointment; to be used for bruises, sprains, callouses, corns or swellings.

GOOD SALVE.--Take 1 lb. beeswax, 1 lb. salt butter, 12 oz. balsam fir; simmer together and strain; this is excellent for burns and scalds, after the inflammation is out.

INJECTION.--Burdock seeds soaked in water.

DYSENTERY.--Take rhubarb and nutmeg, on going to bed.

Strawberry leaves and roots are good in cases of dysentery, inward inflammation, or for derangement in monthly courses. A syrup made of the berries, is good for jaundice; a decoction from the leaves and roots, will cure sores, inflamed eyes, and humors in the skin.

EYE WASH.--Take one pint of ripe strawberries and put them into a quart bottle with half a pint of good rum, fill it up with rain water; then place it in a bed of horse-dung for one week. This will make a good wash for inflamed eyes.

MALLOWS.--An excellent remedy for phthisic, and for effections of the chest. Also good as a syrup, when ladies expect to be confined; if costive, they will be much benefited by a frequent use of the tea. The juice, mixed with boiled oil, is good for all tumors, scurf, dandruff, sores on the head, scalds, burns, St. Anthony’s fire, and all feverish and painful swellings. The blows, boiled in water, adding a little alum and honey, will cleanse and heal sore mouth or throat. A tea, made of this, is good for hoarseness, coughs, shortness of breath, gravel and dysentery.

CONSUMPTIVE COUGH MIXTURE.--Take one tablespoonful of good tar, three ditto of honey, three yolks of eggs, half a pint of good wine; beat the tar, eggs, and honey well together, then add the wine; dose, a teaspoonful three times a day. Make a tea of barley, and drink frequently.

GRAVEL.--Heart’s Ease is good.

WORMS.--A decoction made from witch hazel, or spotted alder bark, scraped off downward, is a good remedy.

Take sage, pounded fine, put in milk, sweetened with molasses, to which add a little alum, is good to turn worms.

RHEUMATISM.--Princes pine, horse-radish, elecampane, wild cherry, mustard seed, a small handful of each; one gill of tar, one pint of brandy; let it stand three days, shaking it often. Dose, two tablespoonsful three times a day.

HECTIC COUGH.--Take one pint of barley, one pound of turnips, four ounces of elecampane, three quarts of water; boil to one pint, and then add one pound of honey or loaf sugar, and half a pint of brandy; dose, one tablespoonful three times a day.

CANADA THISTLE--Blows or roots, are good for dysentery and piles.

SICK OR NERVOUS HEADACHE.--Take half a pint of white pine bark, half a pint of hemlock bark, one gill of sassafras bark, taken from the root, one gill black cherry bark; dry these and pulverize them to a powder; put them into two quarts of good brandy, and take a tablespoonful three times a day, thirty minutes before eating.

MOTHERWORT--Is good in all female complaints, trembling at the heart; a few of the leaves, powdered, and a small tablespoonful taken in wine, helps women in travail, and prevents suffocation; it is also good for cramps when females have taken cold.

THOROUGHWORT.--The leaves of this plant, steeped in rum, is a good remedy for all kinds of bruises; the expressed juice of the leaves, with butternut oil, makes a useful pill; the blows, steeped with leaves of the nervine, make a good vomit.

NETTLES--Made into syrup, is good when sweetened with honey, to free the passages of the lungs, which is the cause of phthisic, and is also good for swelling of the almond of the throat; cleanses and helps the palate, heals inflammation, soreness of the mouth and throat; steeped in wine, it will assist those about to be confined, and help prevent all diseases arising therefrom. In severe colds, grind the tops and roots together, and mix with gum mastic, to be applied outwardly. The seed is good for worms; a strong tea made of it, and taken frequently, is good for the gravel; as a wash it is excellent for wounds, bruises, burns, and will relieve the skin from leprosy. The seeds and leaves, pulverized, and rubbed into the nose, will cure the polypus. An ointment made of the juice, neatsfoot oil, or hen’s oil, and beeswax, is good to rub cold and benumbed limbs. Take a handful of the leaves, and the same of walnut leaves, pound to a pulp, and apply as a poultice in rheumatic effections. The mashed leaves are good to stop flooding.

GROUND MOSS--Is a first rate cure for gravel, as it dissolves and carries it away with the urine. It grows in shady places, at the bottom of hollows. Boiled in water, it is good in inflammations, and cures the gout and rheumatism.

Tree mosses are cooling and binding, partaking of a mollifying quality. Each moss partakes of the nature of the tree on which it grows: that which grows on the oak is the most binding, and is good for fluxes, puking, and bleeding; powder them, and, taken in wine, good in profuse flowing. As a tea, good for dropsy; steeped in vinegar, good for headache caused by heat; used in ointment, good for shrunk sinews.

Moss, taken from the maple tree, is good, sweetened with honey, for a bad cough, and for consumptive persons.

FOR A RELAX.--Take equal parts of beeswax and mutton tallow, mix and simmer in molasses; give a tablespoonful warm to a grown person, reducing the dose for children.

RHEUMATIC OINTMENT.--Stramonium leaves, or juice, and poke root; add hogs’ fat and tallow.

A POULTICE FOR RHEUMATISM.--Elecampane roots and burdock roots and leaves, put on hot, will cure rheumatic affections in a few days. Inwardly, use a tea made of smartweed, adding a very little black cohosh. Great care must be taken in using black cohosh, as an overdose is very dangerous. Those unacquainted with its properties should use the smartweed alone.

Poke root and spikenard make a good poultice; must be put on hot and often.