More deliciously incorrect health advice after the jump.
{Part One}
ne of the simplest and most effectual meanns of relieving pain is by the use of hot water, externally and internally, the temperature varying according to the feelings of the patient. For bruises, sprains, and similar accidental hurts, it should be applied immediately, as hot as can be borne by means of a cloth dipped in the water and laid on the wounded part, or by immersion, if convenient, and the treatment kept up until relief is obtained. If applied at once, the use of hot water will generally prevent, nearly, if not entirely, the bruised flesh from turning black. For pains resulting from indigestion, and known as wind colic, etc., a cupful of hot water, taken in sips will often relieve at once. When that is insufficient, a flannel folded in several thicknesses, large enough to fully cover the painful place should be wrung out of hot water and laid over the seat of the pain. It should be as hot as the skin can bear without injury, and be renewed ever ten minutes or oftener, if it feels cool, until the pain is gone. The remedy is simple, efficient, harmless and within the reach of every one; and should be more generally used than it is. If used along with common sense, it might save many a doctor's bill and many a course of drug treatment as well.
Following in our mother's footsteps, we have been routed night after night from our warm quarters, in the dead of winter, to kindle fires and fill frosty kettles from water-pails thickly crusted with ice, that we might get the writhing pedal extremities of our little heir into the tub of water as quickly as possible. But lately we have learned that all this work and exposure is needless. We simply wring a towel from salted water---a bowl of it standing in our sleeping room, read for such an emergency---wrap the limb in it from ankle to knee, without taking the child from his bed, and then swathe with dry flannels, thick and warm, tucking the blankets about im a little closer, and relief is sure.
Good Housekeeping
DON'T sleep in a draught.
Don't go to bed with cold feet.
Don't stand over hot-air registers.
Don't eat what you do not need, just to save it.
Don't try to get cool too quickly after exercising.
Don't sleep in a room without ventilation of some kind.
Don't stuff a cold lest you should be obliged to starve a fever.
Don't sit in a damp or chilly room without a fire.
Don't try to get along without flannel underclothing in winter.
A gargle of sulphur and water has been used with much success in cases of diptheria. Let the patient swallow a little of the mixture. Or, when you discover that your throat is a little sore, bind a strip of flannel around the throat, wet in camphor, and gargle salt and vinegar.
Borax has proved a most effective remedy in certain forms of colds. In sudden hoarseness or loss of voice in public speakers or singers from colds, relief for an hour or so may be obtained by slowly dissolving, and partially swallowing, a lump of borax the size of a garden pea, or about three or four grains held in the mouth for ten or fifteen minutes before speaking or singing. This produces a profuse secreteion of saliva, or "watering" of the mouth and throat, just as wetting brings back the missing notes to a flute when it is too dry.
A flannel dipped in boiling water and sprinkled with turpentine, laid on chest as quickly as possible, will relieve th emost sever cold or hoarseness.
Another simple, pleasant remedy is furnished by beating up the white of one egg, adding to it the juice of one lemon, and sweetening with white sugar to taste. Take a teaspoonful from time to time. It has been known to effectively cure the ailment.
Or bake a lemon or sour orange tweny minutes in a moderate oven. When done, open at one end and take out the inside. Sweeten with sugar or molasses. This is an excellent remedy for hoarseness.
An old time and good way to relieve a cold is to go to bed and stay there, drinking nothing, not even water, for twenty-four hours, and eating as little as possible. Or go to bed, put your feet in hot mustard and water, put a bran or oatmeal poultice on the chest, take ten grains of Dover's powder, and an hour afterwards a pint of hot gruel; in the morning, rub the body all over with a coarse towel, and take a dose of aperient medicine.
Violet, pennyroyal, or boneset tea, is excellent to promote perspiration in case of sudden chill. Care should be taken next day not to get chillded by exposure to fresh out-door air.
This old-fashioned remedy for a cold is as effectual now as it was in old times. Put into a saucepan a pint of the best West India molasses, a teaspoonful of powdered white ginger and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Set it over the fire and simmer it slowly for half an hour, stirring it frequently. Do not let it come to a boil. Then stir the juice of two leonds, or two tablespoonfuls of vinegar; cover the pan and let stand by the fire five minutes longer. This is good for a cold. Some of it may be taken warm at once, and the remainder kept at hand for occasional use.
It is the preparation absurdly called by the common people stewed quaker.
Half a pint of strained honey mixed cold with the juice of a lemon and a tablespoonful of sweet oil, is another remedy for a cold; a teaspoonful or two to be taken whenever the cough is troublesome.
Syrup of squills four ounces, syrup of tolu four ounces, tincture of blood-root one and one-half ounces, camphorated tincture of opium four ounces. Mix. Dose for one adult, one teaspoonful repeated every two to four hours, or as often as necessary.
{Ed. DAMN! Get me some of that!}
Is caused generally by lack of power in the digestive organs to digest and assimilate the fat-producing elements of food. First restore digestion, take plenty of sleep, drink all the water the stomach will bear in the morning on rising, take moderate exercise in the open air, eat oatmeal, cracked wheat, graham mush, baked sweet apples, roasted and broiled beef, cultivate jolly people, and bathe daily.
The worst toothache, or neuralgia, coming from the teeth may be speedily and delightfully ended by the application of a bit of clean cotton saturated in a solution of ammonia to the defective tooth. Sometimes the late sufferer is prompted to momentary laughter by the application, but the pain will disappear.
Alum reduced to a powder, a teaspoonful of the powder and an equal quantity of fine salt well mixed, applied to the gums by dipping your moistened finger in the mixed powder; put some also in the tooth, and keep rubbing the gums with it; it scarcely ever fails to cure.
Posted by Kathy at January 27, 2006 11:34 PM | TrackBack