Part 4

BALSAM OF LIFE.--Gum benzoin, 4 oz.; gum storax, 3 oz.; socatrine aloes and gum myrrh, each, 1½ oz.; angelica root and johnwort tops, each, 2 oz.; pound all together; put them into three pints of rectified spirits of wine, and let it stand four weeks; keep warm, shaking it every day, strain and it is fit for use; thirteen or fourteen drops to be taken in a spoonful of wine. This balsam is good for all in consumptive complaints, weakness, whooping cough, pain in the side; to be taken morning and evening.

SALT RHEUM.--One pint yellow dock root, boil till the strength is out, strain and add one pint spirits turpentine, one pound fresh butter, four ounces burgundy pitch, two ounces mutton tallow, two ounces beeswax, for summer use, (for winter, use only half the quantity of mutton tallow and beeswax.) Simmer together three hours, stirring it all the time; do not let it burn.

RHEUMATIC PLASTER.--White beech bark and hemlock bark, each, one bushel, tamarack bark half a bushel; cut these fine and boil till the strength is out, then strain; to this add one gill white pine turpentine, and boil down till thick enough for a plaster, and apply.

SPRAINS AND BRUISES.--Use beefs’ brine and roman wormwood; boil half an hour; when cool bathe the parts affected.

TOOTHACHE DROPS.--One ounce sweet spirits nitre, one ounce alum, together; wet with lint or cotton and put into the tooth.

SUPPRESSION OF MENSES.--Gum myrrh, sulphur, steel filings, loaf sugar, each, four ounces; pulverize and simmer in a quart of wine, and when dry make into pills, or take half a teaspoonful of the powder three times a day.

DROPSY.--Take Canada thistle root, stone root, dwarf alder, mountain lettuce, tops and roots queen of the meadow, trumpet weed, equal parts of each; boil in two quarts of water down to one; after it is strained add half a pint of juniper berries, and one pint of Holland gin.

DIABETES.--Take of beth root, black cohosh, cranesbill, equal parts, and pulverize; to a tablespoonful of the powder add a pint of the boiling water, and drink in the course of the day.

Take spikenard and Solomon’s seal, equal parts, bruised; to an ounce add one quart of wine; a wine glass full to be taken three times a day, and eight grains of diaphoretic powder at bed time.

INFLAMMATION OF THE BOWELS.—_Injection_: One pint of slippery elm, one pint of milk, one gill of olive oil, half a pint of molasses, one drachm of saleratus, half an ounce of laudanum; administer this injection blood warm, to foment the parts. Take drinks made from tanzy, hoarhound, wormwood or hops; they are cooling and demulcent, or slippery elm, flax seed, and barley water tea, or clear whey.

INCONTINENCE OF URINE.--Hemlock, wild cherry tree bark, bayberry bark, pulverize, add water sufficient to make a strong tea. Take twenty drops of balsam copaiva in a tumbler of beth root tea.

Peach leaves are good for bloody urine.

TO STOP VOMITING.--Bicarbonate of potash one drachm, mint water eight ounces; give a teaspoonful as occasion may require.

INFLAMMATION OF THE LIVER.—_Symptoms_: A dull pain in the right side and top of the shoulder. Tincture of lobelia may be given two or three times per week.

INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS.--To produce perspiration take the following: One ounce spirits nitre, half an ounce balsam copaiva, one ounce spirits turpentine, half a drachm each of oil of sweet almonds and gum camphor; give a teaspoonful three or four times a day.

VOMITING OF BLOOD.--Sugar, alum whey; drink a tea made from beth root, and black cohosh, and use anti-dyspeptic pills to keep the bowels in order. Also, the restoration cordial; apply strengthening plaster to the pit of the stomach.

DROPSY OF THE CHEST.--First, take two drachms of digitalis plant, divide into twelve powders of ten grains each; after this, add fourteen tablespoonsful of boiling water; take one tablespoonful every hour, or two every two hours.

2d. 3 grains mandrake, night and morning.

3d. Bathe the stomach and abdomen night and morning with precipitate ointment.

4th. Drink an infusion of parsley tea.

Let the diet be light and nutritious.

BLEEDING AT THE NOSE.--Dried beef, pulverized, and snuff up the nose.

CRAMP IN THE STOMACH.--Ten drops oil of hemlock; camphor, peppermint, laudanum, and apply hops to the stomach.

DROPSY.--Take common whortleberries, dried and bruised, four ounces, and add a small quantity of boiling water. Likewise, mandrake, cream tartar, peppermint plant, equal parts; of this powder give a large teaspoonful every few hours until it operates; drink freely of a decoction made from spearmint, parsley, elder flowers, dandelion roots and tops; give capsicum pills.

TO RELIEVE SPASM.--Steep angelica seed; for an injection take of this infusion one pint, to which add one teaspoonful of salt, one gill of olive oil, one gill of molasses, and one pint of milk.

ANTI-BILIOUS PILLS.--Equal parts of butternut and white ash extract; to one pound of this extract add three ounces of aloes, two ounces of gamboge, two ounces canker violet, three ounces of American ipecac, two ounces nerve powder, two or three ounces of poplar bark and cloves; make into pills of ordinary size; dose, from two to five, to be increased or diminished as the condition of the patient may require.

COMPOUND MANDRAKE POWDERS.--Mandrake, spearmint, and cream tartar, equal parts; mix them well; dose, a teaspoonful, in tea or syrup. Useful in diseases of the liver, dyspepsia, obstructed menses, dropsy, and every taint of the system. Take the above every other morning; gum pills to be taken at night.

SOUR STOMACH.--Three parts of pulverized beth root and one of pearlash, mixed and ground well together; take half a teaspoonful in liquor or cider--cider is the best. Or, steep bitter root and add princes pine, pulverized.

ACID COUGH DROPS.--One pound sumach berries, four ounces elecampane, one ounce skunk cabbage, half an ounce blood root, one ounce cayenne, boil in one gallon of vinegar, and when the strength is out add three pounds of honey. Use this syrup as the judgment of the patient, or the occasion, may require. To be taken in asthma, quinsy, whooping cough, common colds, sore throat, canker in the throat and stomach, catarrh, and any other difficulty in the head or throat caused by colds.

_Directions._--Take from one teaspoonful to a tablespoonful several times a day; children, or grown persons, troubled with any kind of a cough should take it whenever the cough is severe, by day or night. Children may take half the quantity given to adults. This has cured when all other remedies have failed.

MEASURES.--Tea-cupful, four fluid ounces, or a gill. Wine glass, two fluid ounces. Tablespoonful, half a fluid ounce. Teaspoonful, one fluid drachm.

VEGETABLE OINTMENT.--To one gallon neatsfoot oil add one pound of bitter sweet root, (dried and pounded fine,) half a pound of camomile flowers, pounded fine, half a pound of wormwood, pounded, one ounce of cayenne pepper, one quart brandy; add two ounces spirits turpentine to each pound. To be used outwardly for callouses, swellings, bruises, tightness of the sinews, stiffness of joints, &c.

VEGETABLE COUGH POWDERS.--Hoarhound, pulverized, four ounces; lobelia, one ounce; fire herb, one ounce; cayenne, two ounces; elecampane, two ounces; skunk cabbage and ladies’ slipper, one ounce; thoroughwort, pulverized, one ounce; mix in molasses. Take a teaspoonful morning, noon and at bed time, or at any time the cough is troublesome.

INFLAMMATIONS, FELLONS AND FEVER SORES.--Take of catnip, hearts of mullens, wormwood, mayweed and double tanzy, each two double-handsful; boil them in six quarts of water with one pint of soft soap, till the strength is out, then steam the parts affected, and cover close with a blanket for fifteen or twenty minutes. Immediately afterwards bathe the parts with the following: half a gill of spirits, half an ounce of gum camphor, a tablespoonful of laudanum, the marrow of three hogs’ jaws, simmer together; rub the swelling downward, and apply a poultice, for which take of dandelion roots, hearts of mullens, catnip, each one handful, boil in milk and thicken with flour; after the swelling breaks, apply a salve made of one handful English clover, a lump of rosin as big as a walnut, half a pound sheeps’ tallow, one handful bitter sweet berries, stewed over a slow fire; apply the salve two days. To cleanse the sore of proud flesh, use a salve made of equal parts of charcoal, loaf sugar, and red precipitate, pulverized.

EXTREME CASES OF RELAX.--Beeswax, mutton tallow and molasses, equal parts of each; melt these together, and while warm give a child a teaspoonful three times a day, a grown person a tablespoonful.

GOUT.--One quart beefs’ gall, one gallon gin, one gallon molasses; take a wine glass full in the morning, half an hour before eating, and the same at bed time.

ANTI-EMETIC DROPS.--Take a cup of cider vinegar and add a teaspoonful each of fine salt and cayenne pepper, put them into a bottle and shake well. Take from a half to a whole teaspoonful of the mixture and put it into a cup full of cold water; take a tablespoonful until the vomiting ceases. This has cured in all cases. I have known this to stop vomiting when four of the most skilful physicians had failed. This should be kept in every body’s house; it is a good wash for poison, the bite of bees, and is good to bathe all pains.

FAMILY VEGETABLE PILLS.--One pound fine poplar bark, one pound sweet bugle, one pound thoroughwort, eight ounces wormwood, boil them as thick as molasses, and add two ounces cayenne pepper, two ounces golden seal, two ounces bitter root, two ounces extract butternut, one ounce lobelia, two ounces aloes; you may have all these made into a fine powder and mix with molasses. Take three to seven every night on going to bed. They are good to remove costiveness, headache, pains in the stomach and bowels, to help the digestion, and to remove wind from the stomach and bowels. Children may take half the quantity.

SCIATICA, OR HIP JOINT GOUT.--Take one pint linseed oil, half pound red lead, four ounces white lead, put these into an earthen vessel, and simmer over a slow fire, stirring it constantly. Apply this to the joints, and in case of toothache apply a little in the joints of the jaw and under the ear.

FAMILY PHYSIC.--Take mandrake root and butternut bark, each half a pound, boil them in half gallon water to one pint, to which add one pint old Jamaica rum, and one pint molasses; one tablespoonful to a grown person, and a teaspoonful for a child.

MOTHER’S RELIEF.--Take two pounds of partridge berry vine, half pound high cranberry or cramp bark, half an ounce unicorn root, quarter of a pound of blue cohosh or pappoose root, one pound each of flax seed and red raspberry leaves; let as many as possible of these articles be green, and all well pulverized; boil them in three gallons of water two hours, and then strain off and continue to simmer till reduced to a gallon and a half, then add four pounds of loaf sugar and half a gallon of good Holland gin.

_Directions._--Take half a wine glass of this three times a day, for several weeks before confinement. It will invigorate the constitution, the mother will pass the time with little danger, and will be less liable to take cold _after_ confinement. This medicine should be taken by every mother. Use, also, occasionally, a drink made from a handfull of slippery elm, boiled in a quart of water.

COUGH POWDER.--Take elecampane, licorice root and seneca, half ounce of each; powder them fine and mix them with a pound of honey; Dose, a teaspoonful three times a day. Life root tea, or crosswort, princes pine, or life-everlasting, to be continued, is best. Life root, if given too freely, will debilitate so rapidly as to lay dormant all the functions of life; use it with caution where the patient is feeble. Nourish your patients with whatever they require or fancy; oat meal is healing and salutary.

MEDICAL COFFEE--Is good in cancerous or scrofulous habits, or where mercury has been improperly used. Take avens root, sweet cicely, and spikenard, four teaspoonsful twice a day, boiled in coffee water, or wine, with milk and sugar to suit the palate.

DROPSY ON THE BRAIN.--Take physic, first, of vegetable pills, and then apply deadly nightshade, pounded fine or soft, to the top of the head; this removes the pain and soreness. Take life root tea, express the juice of Irish daisy, (cultivated in flower pots in most gardens,) let the patient lay with his head very low, and pour a spoonful of this juice in the nostril every morning. Bayberry bark snuff, taken at night, operates ten or twelve hours after. I have known the juice of dwarf alder answer the same purpose.

INSANITY, OR MELANCHOLY.--Deadly nightshade, as above.

SALT RHEUM AND SCALD HEAD.--Take two tablespoonsful of powdered culver root, one tablespoonful of sulphur, and the same of ginger; mix them well together. To an infant, one year old, give a teaspoonful in molasses, or in any other suitable way, four days successively, then omit giving the medicine for two days; continue thus until all is taken. Make an ointment of rosin and hogs’ lard. After the physic has been administered four days, apply the ointment, washing the parts with castile soap suds daily. Make a syrup of hyssop and let the patient take freely while using the above.

_Remarks._--In all cases of putrefaction, or danger of the same, give strong spikenard tea sweetened with honey, add a little brandy and apply the same externally; sarsaparilla with it, is cooling. Wash the body with hot vinegar and water; make a decoction of black snake root and sage, and give a teaspoonful once in ten minutes until the effect is answered. To promote perspiration in fevers, epidemics, &c., bathe the feet in weak lye.

ANTI-BILIOUS PHYSIC.--Bitter sweet, tied around the neck.

DROPSY.--Take eight ounces dwarf alder bark, boil it in a gallon of water to two quarts, add half a pint of gin and sweeten with honey or molasses. Dose, a gill three times a day.

Another, take three handsfull of water cresses, four of white onions, boil them in three pints of water; then strain and add honey and gin. Dose, a wine glass full three times a day.

DIGESTIVE MEDICINE.--Take tartar emetic, blood root and lobelia, six grains each, salt petre, fifty grains. It is highly diuretic, and adapted to all cases of gravel, &c. In back and liver complaints, give a mild cathartic, or salts, twice a week.

ANTI-SCORBUTIC BITTERS--To purify the blood, which strengthens the nervous system, creates an appetite, and guards the stomach against infectious diseases.

_Preparation_: Take one ounce of the bark of the roots of white wood, one ounce of butterfly root (white root), two ounces of black Indian hemp, two ounces of angelica root or seeds, four ounces black snake root, four ounces tamarack bark; add prickley ash bark in cold cases. Powder them and mix well.

_Directions._--Infuse one tablespoonful in pint of spirits three days, then strain it, and take from one to three teaspoonsful in a glass of wine half an hour before dinner.

FOR THE ASTHMA.--Use the lobelia as above directed three days; then boil goose grease and honey equal parts, one pint; add a tablespoonful of the lobelia and white root powder, and a tablespoonful of wild turnip powder; strain after being sufficiently boiled. Dose, a teaspoonful three times a day, or offener, for three days. Dip a piece of flannel in hot goose grease and apply it to the lungs or throat, where the greatest stricture is, for two nights, or more if necessary; after using the honey and grease two days, take a teaspoonful of the digestive medicine in two tablespoonsful of water, half at a time, to loosen the mucous. Next morning take a portion of anti-bilious physic; continue the other medicines, and take a portion of primhedge once a week till cured. Tobacco is accounted hurtful for asthmatic people; the smoking of juniper berries, or stramonium seeds, is recommended, and taking bay berry root, or catarrh snuff.

Digestive medicine is prepared thus: Take as much tartar emetic as will lay on the handle of a teaspoon, twice that of blood root, the same of lobelia, and one teaspoonful of saltpeter, to one pint of water; this corrects the stomach in every case of oppression, and promotes expectoration and respiration; promotes rest and breaks up fevers. Dose--a teaspoonful in a wine glass of water; take a tablespoonful every three hours until relieved.

_Remarks._--For putrid or common sore throat, and quinsy. Make a gargle thus: take sumach berries when sour, black snake root, and sage, equal parts; boil strong to a pint; add two teaspoonsful of saltpeter, and sweeten with honey or molasses; gargle often, and swallow a spoonful at a time. If the throat or tongue swells, boil nanny bark in a little water, and bind it hot around the throat once an hour, chewing the same. Bittersweet ointment will allay all heat and swelling. Anti-bilious physic--first in all fevers; primhedge, to restore strength to the patient and regulate the bowels.

OINTMENT FOR SORES, BOILS, &c.--Use the parsley ointment.

WEAK EYES.--One stalk and three buds lobelia, in spring water; use twice a day.

SWELLED RED EYES.--Sweet cicely and red rose leaves; simmer slowly, and laid on the eyes, will restore the sight, and remove all swelling and inflammation, if by poisonous bite of spiders, &c.

FOR WITLOWS, FELONS, BOILS, SWELLED HANDS, &c.--Make a thin Indian meal poultice, bind in it equal parts of catnip and mullen leaves; boil soft, and apply it warm.

ANTI-BILIOUS PHYSIC.--A sovereign remedy for all bilious, autumnal, putrid, spotted, and yellow fevers, agues, and diseases in children, sore throat, and consumptive cases. It acts in bilious cases as a vomit, then as a cathartic; promotes prespiration and rest. One dose is sufficient in any case. For gravel and dysentery it is invaluable.

_Preparation._--Take eight ounces of powdered jalap, two ounces coriander seed, two ounces of blood root, one ounce of cassia, three ounces mandrake root, three ounces culver root, and one grated nutmeg; infuse the whole in one gallon of old brandy for twelve days, shaking it every day, and filter for use.

_Directions._--Dose--for an adult, one ounce, or a common wine glass full, upon an empty stomach; if it does not operate as a vomit in ten minutes, take half a glass full more of the physic; if a vomit is necessary, drink plenty of warm tea and thin water gruel every hour, to aid the operation. For an infant two months old, two teaspoonsful; give it the breast, or warm tea. In any inflammable complaint, a glass of lemon or lime punch, will check the operation, if too long continued. Guard against taking cold. If pains in the head accompany the disease, bathe the feet in warm water, and wash the body in warm vinegar and water, in all cases of putrid and yellow fevers.

TO PRESERVE FRUIT.--All kinds of fruit which you wish to keep fresh--such as grapes, peaches, pears, quinces, &c., should be gathered carefully, and the stems broke off at full length; then have a vessel of sealing wax, and dip the end of the stem which you broke off from the tree or vine into it, and lay them carefully in a cool, dry place, and they will keep for months, and not wither.

TO MAKE ESSENCES.--All kinds of essences in general use, can be made by putting one ounce of the essential oil in one pint of alcohol; half an ounce of the oil of cinnamon, cloves and tanzy, is sufficient, to three half pints of alcohol; you can reduce the others after the oil is cut or dissolved, by putting in whiskey, which is preferable to alcohol.

POLYPUS, OR FUNGUS OF THE GUM.--This disease is essentially hypertrophy of the gum, arising from mechanical irritation. If a tooth decay on one side, below the level of the gum, leaving a sharp margin in contact with the gum, a tumor frequently forms from it, spreads into, and partially fills up the hole of the tooth, or the vacancy between the two decaying teeth; the tumor is usually composed of dense fibrous tissue, covered with epithelium, and is almost insensible unless ulcerated, when it becomes very painful. If the tumor be removed, it will grow again and again, unless the tooth be extracted, when it will suddenly disappear. The tumors show, on dissection, an undulating surface of fibro-cellular tissue, covered by a thick layer of epithelium.

The best application for this troublesome state of the gum is sulphate of copper, applied every day or two.

SORE, OR RED EYES.--Soft maple bark.

ANTI-BILLIOUS FEMALE PILLS.--Take two ounces mandrake root, two ounces gamboge, two ounces blood root, two ounces lobelia, pulverized fine; mix and moisten with molasses, and make into pills of common size; take from two to three pills every night. They are good for a relax, dysentery, rheumatism, jaundice, or female obstruction.

RHEUMATIC POWDER.--One ounce Virginia snake root, two ounces white pine bark, two ounces prickly ash, pulverized together, put into two quarts of water, and boil to three pints. Dose, one gill three times a day.

FOR DYSENTERY.--A strong tea made of black cherry bark and rhubarb, sweeten with loaf sugar, and add a little brandy. A grown person should take a tablespoonful every fifteen minutes; younger persons in proportion to age.

HEALING SALVE.--Take one pound each of rosin and beeswax, two ounces mutton tallow, one ounce gum camphor, one ounce tincture myrrh; melt the rosin, beeswax and tallow together, then add the camphor, previously finely pulverized; strain, return it clear into the kettle, and when it is again well mixed add the tincture of myrrh, and stir them well together; then turn it into cold water, and work it like wax. This is likewise a good strengthening plaster, and one of the best healing salves in use.

RELAX IN CHILDREN.--Take wine vinegar and hens’ eggs, equal parts, and beat them well together; mix in wheat flour stiff as common dough; bake this moderately. Give one teaspoonful of the powder three times a day. Mix with the above powder a little powder of hens’ gizzards, the skin of the gizzard only.

TAR WATER.--One gallon of water, one quart of good tar; shake well for ten minutes, and let it stand four days, then bottle it up; for pleurisy, palsy, scrofula and salt rheum, drink warm every three hours. In fact, it is good for consumptive and debilitated females.

CLEANSING AND STRENGTHENING SYRUP.--Take equal parts of spikenard, spruce, sage, sarsaparilla, tamarac, garden rhubarb, elder roots, the bark of burdock roots, aven roots, wintergreen (such as bears the small red berry and grows low), water cresses, white Solomon’s seed, Johnwort, sweet egrimony, princes feather, swamp brake or plenty root, one pound of raisins, two ounces saffron; put all into an earthen pot, adding four quarts of water, and cover close; let them stand six hours to soak, then add three quarts of water; boil all together, and keep hot nine hours, then strain and add one pound of loaf sugar; boil six minutes, let it cool and then add half a pint of the best brandy. Take a wine glass full morning, noon and at bed time; take it one hour before eating. At the same time drink a tea made from white maple bark, (some call it whistle-wood); drink freely.

INDIAN BEER.--Take five quarts of spring water, one quart of wheat bran, half pint of good tar, half pint of honey; simmer these three hours over a slow fire, in an earthen pot, and when cool add half pint of emptyings; when worked, drink a wine glass full three times a day, or less, as the patient can bear.

EYE WATER.--Take three pints of rain water, to this add one tablespoonful of fine salt; boil lightly three minutes, and put it into bottles without straining; let it stand, and put into the eyes night and morning.