Home Remedies
Vintage books owned
by readers off a glimpse of early medicine
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By VERONICA HILL/Staff Writer
Medicine has come a long way since the 1800s.
Several High Desert residents — Maurine Pederson, Kiki
Hanson-Nisly, Allison Stockdale, Joan Heckethorn, Shawn Rickles,
Shirley Cambridge, Yvonne Meserve, Robin Cackler,
Jenny Brenner and Robin Garthwaite — recently shared
their old cure-all books with us, dating from 1879 to 1941. We've excerpted
some of the more unusual remedies here (for entertainment purposes only). It
doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that you shouldn't try this at home!
• Ague
"Put your boots in hot whiskey and put the boots instantly on."
• Bleeding of the lungs
"Take a tablespoon of salt at intervals. If the spitting of blood lasts,
take five grains of the sugar of lead and five of opium, every two hours as
required."
• Colds
"Physician Sir Astley Cooper says that to avoid
catching a cold, sponge the body every morning with cold water on getting out
of bed."
• Chapped Skin
"Rub with vinegar before going into the cold."
• Cuts
"Varnish fresh cuts with common furniture varnish. This has been known to
prove very efficacious."
• Cramps
"Wet a cloth in spirits of turpentine and lay it over the place where the
pain is felt. If the pain moves, move the cloth. Take five drops spirits
turpentine at a time on white sugar until relieved."
• Croup
"Take sweet hog's lard and tincture of camphor and simmer together a short
time; gum the size of a pea to a tablespoon of lard; keep it in the house
prepared, and rub on the throat at first symptom."
• Diarrhea
"To cure diarrhea, place an ounce or two of good brown sugar in a pan or
skillet; drop upon it just sufficient water to dampen the sugar; place the
vessel over a quick fire; stir until the mass emits a thick black smoke, but do
not burn it crisp. Pour on half a pint of boiling water and stir until all is
dissolved. Dose: a wineglassful every hour until relieved; after which eat an
ounce or two of very tender beefsteak slightly broiled, dusted sparingly with
pure black pepper."
• Diphtheria
"Take a common tobacco pipe, place a live coal within the bowl, drop a
little tar upon the coal, and let the patient draw smoke into the mouth and
discharge it through the nostrils. The remedy is safe and simple, and should be
tried whenever occasion may require."
• Dysentery
"An American physician says raw minced beef, administered as almost the
sole article of food, as the usual intervals of eating and in quantities as
great as the patient can comfortably swallow, seems to have an admirable effect
in mastering this disease."
• Dyspepsia (or indigestion)
"Slap the stomach or bowels with the palms of the hands for five or ten
minutes on rising in the morning, a quarter or an hour or more about
• Headache
"Take a glass of warm water, into which has been rapidly stirred a heaping
teaspoonful of salt and kitchen mustard; and this, by causing instantaneous
vomiting, will empty the stomach of the bile or undigested sour food, and a
grateful relief is often experienced on the spot."
• Hysterical fits
"Women of all ages are liable to this complaint, as it generally arises
from some irregularity in the function of parts peculiar to women; and it is
very frequent with girls during the first few months of puberty and with women
when they have reached the 'change of life.' A sensible writer recommends cold
bathing, open-air exercise, strengthening diet, cheerful surroundings, with the
removal of all care and perplexities, attention to a proper regularity of
bowels; frequent changes of air and scene are positively required."
• Lightening strikes
"To restore those struck by lightening, the earth bath is recommended. The
body may be either laid with the mouth open, against a spot of earth newly dug
up, or fresh earth may be scraped around it up to the neck."
• Liquor Appetite
"The prescription is simply an orange every morning half an hour before
breakfast. Take that, said the doctor, and you will want neither liquor nor
medicine. I have done so regularly and find that liquor has become
repulsive."
• Measles
"Children should not have their usual food, but plenty of warm milk and
water, and as many roasted apples as they want."
• Nosebleed
"Lint, dipped in nettle juice and put up the nostril, has been known to
stay the bleeding of the nose when all other remedies have failed."
• Pleurisy
"Turpentine may be applied over the seat of the pain and mustard upon the
feet; and rubbing the arms and legs with dry flannel tends to moderate the
severity of the attack."
• Scarlet Fever
"Take an onion, cut it in halves; cut out a portion of the center, and
into the cavity put a spoonful of saffron; put the pieces together, then wrap
in cloth and bake in an oven until the onion is cooked so that the juice will
run freely, then squeeze out all the juice and give the patient a teaspoonful,
at the same time rubbing the chest and throat with goose grease or rancid
bacon. In a short time the fever will break out in an eruption all over the
body. All that is then necessary is to keep the patient warm and protected from
draught and recovery is certain."
• Sleeplessness
"If troubled with wakefulness on retiring to bed, eat three or four small
onions; they will act as a gentle and soothing narcotic. Onions are also
excellent to eat when one is exposed to cold."
• Sore Eyelids
"A few drops of breast milk, applied to the eye and worked under the lid,
is very healing to sore lids."
• Tan
"Bleach the skin with cucumber, tomato or lemon juice. Buttermilk makes a good bleach. It should be put on the skin several times a
day and left until it dries."
• Teething
"Teething children, says Dr. Hall, have often been cured of looseness of
bowels by being allowed to chew the rind of bacon freely with some of the fat
attached, and they chew it greedily; it seems to have a beneficial effect on
the gums."