MADAME YOUNG, M. D.
Transcriber’s note: table of contents added by the transcriber.
INDEX.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FŒTUS.
PERIOD OF GESTATION.
FAMILY HERBAL.
RECIPES.
PHYSIOLOGY.
ROOTS AND HERBS.
MISCELLANY.
PREJUDICE.
RHEUMATISM—ITS CAUSES.
THE INFLUENCE OF OPIUM.
THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS.
TO MOTHERS,
GENERAL REMARKS.
THE DIET OF CHILDREN.
REMARKS ON FOOD.
TABLE, SHOWING THE MEAN TIME OF DIGESTION
Inferences from Dr. Beaumont’s Experiments and Observations, given in his own words.
CATALOGUE OF HERBS, MEDICINAL PLANTS, &c.
SYNONYMS.
ORDINARY EXTRACTS.
DOUBLE DISTILLED AND FRAGRANT WATERS.
PROPERTIES EXPLAINED.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
HER EXPERIENCE AND PRACTICE
FOR NEARLY FORTY YEARS;
A TRUE
FAMILY HERBAL,
WHEREIN IS DISPLAYED THE TRUE PROPERTIES AND MEDICAL
VIRTUES OF ALL THE ROOTS, HERBS, &c., INDIGENOUS
TO THE UNITED STATES, AND THEIR COMBINATION
IN ALL THE DISEASES THE HUMAN
BODY IS HEIR TO; ALSO, AN
EXPLANATION OF THE HUMAN BODY,
ITS LIABILITY TO INJURIES THROUGH IGNORANCE
OF US STRUCTURE.
DEDICATED EXCLUSIVELY TO HER SEX.
ILLUSTRATED WITH DESCRIPTIVE ENGRAVINGS.
I’ll be as happy as my fortune will permit, and make others so, if I can.
ROCHESTER, N.Y.:
PRESS OF A. STRONG & CO., DEMOCRAT AND AMERICAN OFFICE.
1858.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858
BY AMELIA YOUNG,
In the Clerk’s Office of the Northern District of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
CHAS. H. M’DONELL,
ROCHESTER. N. Y.
ERRATA.—The two line paragraph near top of page 17, should follow the fourth paragraph on page 16,—“for children, in coughs and costiveness, &c.,” should be followed by “the above is also very good for children, &c.”
MY Beloved Sex:
I have taken upon myself a great task, at the age of sixty-two, through love for you and the rising generation. The Scripture teaches,—Where much is given, much will be required; that is the case with me. Nature’s gift was liberal, and this gift I had ample means to cultivate.
I left Boston, my native place, and kind parents, at the age of fifteen, for Montreal, there to acquire and master languages which my native home could not bestow. Here I devoted three years to French and Latin, as they were absolutely necessary for my advancement in Philosophy and Botany. I remained here some years, and frequently visited the Iroquois tribe, learning much of them in the healing art.
I began to keep a regular manuscript of all I could possibly learn from every tribe and nation, not allowing myself to be biased by prejudice.
My beloved friends, daily do I read books that are styled Herbal, on the Virtues of Roots, Herbs, &c., and have not only discovered in them an almost innumerable quantity of errors and defects, but also a multiplicity of directions for their uses which my own knowledge and practice proves ineffectual in the cure of the complaints to which these treatisers have directed their applications.
I likewise give you a description of the human body, or, in a word, the Living Animal, easy and comprehensive, that it may be understood by every one who reads it. I have written it in a plain, easy and familiar style, adapted to all capacities. It is the sincere wish of my heart, that it may prove a blessing to all.
MADAME YOUNG, M. D.
5
WHEN conception first takes place, an ovum is detached, which is carried through the fallopian tubes or oviduct, to the uterus, and has been observed in that organ by Sir E. Home, eight days after impregnation.
About the fourth week, it resembles a tadpole, the appendage or tail being probably the spinal marrow; a small point is perceived below the head which pulsates and indicates the region of the heart; below this the abdomen appears. Thus, the brain, spinal marrow and heart are first called into action, the other parts being brought forward as required by nature.
About the sixth week, two small, black spots proclaim the development of the eyes; the mouth appearing about the same time; the upper and lower limbs soon become discernable. The intestinal tube is perpendicular, running along the spine.
At two months, all parts of the child are present; the eyes and eyebrows are visible; the limbs are developed; the fingers are closed on each other, though flimsy; the head now forms comparatively the third part of the body, in size. Its weight is about half an ounce, and length about three inches.
6
Between the ninth and tenth weeks, the mouth is plainly defined, the lips drawn closely together; the eyelids close the eyes; the opening of the ears begin to appear; the spinal tail shortens, and the fingers and toes assume their proper shape and position.
Towards the third month, the face is distinct; the front part of the chest is covered in by the iternum; the intestines, hitherto contained in the umbilical cord, enter the abdomen; the skin begins to be organized; the embryo is now from four to six inches in length, and weighs from one and a half to two ounces.
At the fourth month, the upper and lower extremities are equal; the skin is downy; the bones and muscles are so far formed as to be under the control of, and are now moved by the fœtus. It measures about seven or eight inches in length, and weighs between seven to eight ounces.
About the fifth month, the auricles and vesicles of the heart are equal; the toe and finger nails are marked; the skin is still red; the features become plainly developed. The length of the fœtus is ten inches, and the weight about sixteen ounces.
At the sixth month, the hair appears; the brain becomes homogeneous; the nails may be plainly distinguished; the form of the child is now distinct. The length twelve inches, and the weight nearly two pounds.
At the seventh month, the skin is of a rosy color, cellular substance becomes developed; the eyelids are covered; the bile is bitter; every part of the fœtus is enlarged, and so far developed that if born at this time it will be able to breathe, cry and nurse, but very difficult to raise, or bring up, requiring, as it does, a great amount of care, and constant attention. Lacking animal heat, it must be imparted to it by being kept7 wrapt in a soft, flannel blanket, and in the lap of the nurse, or lay close to its mother, as its own power of generating heat is very feeble, therefore that heat necessary to its existence must be supplied to it. It is very seldom they are strong enough, bodily or constitutionally, to endure washing or dressing. Natural, or animal heat, is far preferable to fire heat. The length of the body fourteen inches, and weight about three pounds.
At the eighth month, all the parts are more developed; the infant measures sixteen inches, and weighs between four and five pounds.
At the ninth month, the infant has acquired the perfect form of the human species; the two substances of the brain are quite distinct; the muscular system well developed, the bones are strong, the motions of the child quick and lively, the heart pulsates rapidly, and the circulation has become very active. The length of the body is generally twenty inches, and the weight seven or eight pounds; the crown of woman’s bliss—the true effects of wedded love.
9
THE usual period of gestation, (carrying the child in the womb,) as derived from extended observation by medical statisticians, is found to be forty weeks, or 280 days. Ladies generally count nine solar months, which is a little short of 280 days. The difficulty of determining from which particular act of cohabitation conception took place, and still more, the impossibility of knowing on what day the semen of the male impregnated the ovum of the female, (as this may not occur for some days after copulation,) renders certainty upon the length of gestation, to a day, quite out of the question in any case. But by close observation, and taking a great number of cases, it may be ascertained, to within a brief period, when conception has occurred, and from thence the average deduction of gestation may be drawn. But upon this point, as upon all others connected with the subject of gestation, it will be found that there is no fixed period for parturition to take place. It may occur before the expiration of 280 days; it may not happen till after that period. There have been undoubted instances where gestation has been prolonged to10 300 days. The law of France fixes 300 days as the period, after death, or absence of the husband, wherein the child shall be considered legitimate. In Scotland, the term is ten months. In one case in this country, a child born 311 days after the decease of the husband, was decided by the Court to be legitimate; but physiologists would be dubious upon the legitimacy of the infant in a case so prolongated as this.
On the other hand, children are often born before the expiration of the 280 days. Seven and eight months’ children, that live, are by no means uncommon; and there have been recorded cases of children born at even so short a period as twenty-four weeks after conception, which lived; the child itself, from the formation and ossification it presented, giving evidence that it had not been a longer period than that in the womb. A Church Court, in England, decided a child legitimate born twenty-seven weeks after marriage. In cases of this kind, the child itself is the best evidence; the appearance it presents showing, to the medical man, generally, very near its fœtal age. There are so many instances recorded, and well attested cases, where children have been born at a much less time, after conception, than nine months, that no woman should be accused or suspected of wrong in giving birth to a child a little short of the usual period, after marriage. It is exceedingly unjust to do so. The mortification which many sensitive ladies, entirely innocent of evil, experience, and the mental anguish they endure from such thoughtless remarks as the ignorant, upon these points, are too prone to make, leads me to hope that men and women will hereafter better inform themselves upon this subject, and from a better knowledge be induced to abstain from unjust conversation and condemnation.
11
Has been introduced extensively into practice throughout the United States, and appears to be superior to camomile as a sudorific tonic, and far preferable to bark, in the treatment of the local autumnal fevers of the country, prevalent near the streams, lakes and marshes, often curing when other tonics failed. A warm decoction of boneset, till it vomits freely, is generally sufficient to break up almost any fever in its commencement; it cleanses the stomach, and excites the secretive organs; relaxes constriction, produces a free perspiration, and, of course, throws off the disease. For colds, it is a complete remedy, always observing to take a draught of the cold tea after the sweat is over, which will prevent an additional cold on exposure.
Boneset may be managed to act as a tonic, a sudorific, a laxative, or an emetic.
Are useful in a bad cough. Steeped down to a strong tea, with about half of the quantity of skunk-cabbage, add the same quantity of good molasses as there is of tea, and take half a wineglass three or four times a day. I have cured an obstinate cough with this medicine.
12
Peach pits, or meats, are very useful in bitters to assist the digestive organs, and prevent inflammation of the kidneys and bladder. The leaves and twigs have the same properties as the meats, and will answer when the meats cannot be obtained. A strong tea made of peach leaves, will stop excessive vomiting.
This herb is found in moist fields, frequently near small streams or rivulets, and has a very bitter taste. It is much used for bitters; for correcting the bile, it is a tonic and anti-bilious, much used in jaundice, dyspepsia, loss of appetite, general languor and debility; good for children troubled with worms. It is one of the ingredients in my spiced bitters. An even teaspoonful of the powder is a dose.
Is found in all parts of the United States. Its medical properties are the same as the garden angelica of Europe.
An annual plant, growing without cultivation in the south of Europe; is cultivated in our gardens; principally used to season food. It is stimulant, and has a tendency to remove pain and wind.
The bark and berries of the prickly ash are stimulant, tonic, and energetic. It has been highly esteemed as a remedy for chronic rheumatism, and is a celebrated remedy for the toothache; a very common ingredient in bitters; it possesses somewhat the properties of guaiacum. By a long continuance13 in taking this bark, it is said to produce salivation. The dose to be taken is from ten grains to half a drachm, to be repeated three or four times a day.
An excellent remedy for cleansing the blood. The oil is good for the toothache, and is used to disguise many popular panaceas.
The flower is tonic and astringent. Dr. Beach prescribes the rose water in connection with the pith of young sassafras twigs, in ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eyes.
Found all over the United States, and in Canada. It is gently stimulant, produces universal perspiration when taken in large quantities, warm, and we consider it the best drink to accompany the lobelia emetic. In cases of sudden suppression of the menses, a tumblerful of this drink, with an even teaspoonful of black pepper, powdered fine, sweetened and drank warm, after soaking the feet in weak ley, will rarely fail producing the desired effect. It is useful to qualify, or mix other medicines for sickness at the stomach, colds, &c., and may be drank freely.
Found throughout the United States, by the side of streams and wet places. It flowers in June, has a very handsome blue flower; grows about two feet high. The Oneida Indians make much use of this root for the cure of rheumatism. Make a strong tincture of the blue flag root, by putting it into spirits, or alcohol; let the patient take a teaspoonful14 three times a day, after eating, increasing the dose gradually. If it should produce slight pains in the head and breast, take less at a time.
The virtues of this plant has never, to my knowledge, been thoroughly understood. As a nervine in all female difficulties, and a valuable medicine when used for any derangement in the monthly courses, it has not many equals; it will remove pain immediately, and quiet the nerves.
Directions.—Take a handful of the flowers and leaves, and half the quantity of tanzy; make a good strong tea, and take a quantity on going to bed, if you can; if not, take it, but do not go out in the cold. The best time is bed time.
Grows in hedges, and along the road sides, in almost every part of America; flowers in July and August; the berry contains three irregular shaped seeds.
Medical Virtues.—A decoction of the berries and roots, has been found most efficacious in curing dropsies.
Preparation.—Boil two ounces of the dry root, in two quarts of rain water, down to one half, and strain the liquor. In dropsy, a gill of the decoction must be taken morning and night. A gill of the juice made from the inner, or green bark, works powerfully, both upwards and downwards, and has frequently cured dropsies. One ounce of the inner bark, dried, and one ounce of the dry roots, may be boiled in four quarts of rain water, down to two quarts; a teacupful, taken three times a day, works powerfully as a diuretic, and is an excellent remedy in suppression of the urine.
15
This is a newly discovered plant, known to but few botanists in the United States. It rises six or seven feet; the leaves grow in a cluster from the root to the top; blossoms, yellow; roots, small and black, about the size of cloves, and very tender, very much resembling the claws of an animal, and so full of nitre that the powder of the root, if kept in the open air, will liquify.
History.—This plant grows upon mountains and the sides of hills, in the Genesee country, and about Albany: the leaves ovate, and are two or three inches long.
Medical Virtues.—It is a powerful febrifuge, and I have found it a sure and quick medicine in exciting perspiration, without increasing the heat of the body. The root is effectual in all remittent, typhus, and nervous fevers, and will relieve the patient of all pains caused by colds.
Preparation.—After prescribing a mild puke of the American ipecacuanha, and the physic has done working, I give one or two ounces of the root, to be put into two quarts of rain water, and boiled down to one, and giving the patient, in bed, a teacupful of the strained liquor every hour, which causes a plentiful perspiration, and generally stops the fever in a few hours. The night-hectic fever, in a consumptive patient, I have relieved by the above treatment. It is an excellent medicine in pleurisy, and a sure remedy in erysipelatose fever.
Pulverize the root, sift the powder through a fine hair sieve, and put it in bottles, well stopped from the air. A teaspoonful of this powder may be taken every two hours, in a teacupful of black snakeroot tea, in order to raise a speedy diaphoresis, or perspiration, in pleurisies and fever, when they are violent.
16
Rises to the height of a small tree, and is much branched towards the top; the young shoots are full of pith—the old ones empty; the leaves are pinnated, consisting of two or three pair, with an odd one at the end; flowers, sweet smelling, white, and produced on large, flat umbels, or clusters. The fruit is a round, succulent berry, of a blackish purple color, and contains three seeds.
History.—This tree grows in hedges and clumps, along the borders of meadows or flats, in every part of the United States; flowers in July, and the berries are ripe in September.
Medical Virtues.—An infusion, in wine, of the inner bark of the trunk, or the expressed juice of the berries, in a dose of an ounce, will purge moderately, and, taken in small doses,—say a teaspoonful every hour,—proves an efficacious diabetruent, capable of promoting and assisting all the fluid secretions. The following is a good medicine in families, for the cure of recent colds and coughs:—
Take of the juice of elderberries, strained, ten pounds, and add three pounds of loaf sugar; evaporate in a bake pan, over a slow fire, into the consistence of thick honey. A tablespoonful or two may be taken at bed time; and two teaspoonsful, for children, in coughs and costiveness, will prove effectual.
In erysipelatosed fever, a teacupful of the infusion of dry flowers, (made by pouring a quart of boiling water on a handful of the flowers,) may be taken every hour, and the parts wet with the following wash:—Boil four ounces of beech drops, in four quarts of rain water, down to one half; strain the decoction, and add to it a teaspoonful of sugar of lead. The face and arms may be wet with a linen rag, dipped in this17 lotion, four or five times a day, which never fails to cure, after necessary evacuations.
The above is also very good for children having the whooping cough, by taking a teaspoonful or two every hour.
There are few who are ignorant of the existence of this plant, or unacquainted with its aromatic fragrance. It is to be found in almost every garden; flowers of a lilac-tinged, grayish color.
Medical Properties.—There are very few who really know how useful this plant is. It is stimulant, sudorific, antiseptic, anti-hysterical, and, I consider it, a great nervine. It is an excellent remedy for the headache, and to check a too profuse flow of the menses; is also good for worms.
Take a handful, pound and mix with rye meal; good for pains in the chest, or elsewhere. Mix with water only; put the poultice on the soles of the feet.
Very little known; it is a valuable medicine,—simple and efficacious in all cases where the stomach is weakened by taking too much medicine; it creates warmth in the stomach, that is, it expels wind and removes that cold mucous from the stomach, assisting the digestive organs in their functions, and creates a regular appetite. I have found it good for worms.
Directions.—Take two large tablespoonsful of seeds, clean and free from dirt, and put them into a half teacupful of spearmint tea; take a teaspoonful morning, noon, and bed time. Keep the decoction covered close, and should they be18come dry, add more tea. You must not chew them, but swallow them whole. Follow this treatment for fifteen days in succession. Give less to a child, in proportion to age and constitution, sweetened with sugar or molasses.
Notwithstanding this plant is but little thought of in regular practice, it is a very valuable herb. I have used it, with motherwort, for menstruation, and found it gave relief instantly, especially where they were swollen or bloated. I have often used it successfully in treating children in cases of fits, caused by worms. Make a half pint of strong, catnip tea, add an even teaspoonful of fine salt, two or three tablespoonsful of molasses, one tablespoonful of sweet oil, or hog’s lard; inject two-thirds of it, and keep it up ten or fifteen minutes, which may be done by compressing the parts with the hand. It will bring away the super-abundance of mucous slime which, in such cases, collects on the internal surface of the intestinal canal.
Catnip tea is very useful in fevers, producing perspiration without increasing the heat of the body; it is also an excellent remedy in spasmodic affections. I have used it instead of pennyroyal for an emetic; but I prefer pennyroyal in all cases where a vegetable emetic is to be given.
Though having a very offensive smell, is good for the gravel and all diseases of the urinary organs.
Good for retention of the urine, pain in the back, loins, &c.; can be taken as a tea.
19
Are excellent for consumptive persons, and, I would say, drink plentifully of the tea, by steeping it well; add a little licorice root.
Is a native of the States. It is warming and exhilarating in its nature, and has all the properties of the peppermint, but works more on the kidneys, and causes a copious flow of urine and perspiration.
The roots and seeds are aromatic, expectorant and laxative; they are good to promote menstrual discharge. I can highly recommend it to all who are troubled with cholic and flatulent disorders; it helps digestion, and warms the stomach.
This I have used successfully in cases of gleet and gonorrhœa; use a decoction made from the roots.
This plant grows wild, and is generally found in pastures; has long leaves, with a rib down the middle; very bitter. The wild succory is the strongest, and I generally prefer it in my practice. It is laxative, and excellent in fevers, cutaneous eruptions, and weak bowels.
This root is diaphoretic, very warming, and promotes perspiration; in a word, it is a strengthening cordial for all feeble persons. Steep it and sweeten with sugar; good as a20 drink in all fevers; its use will prevent mortification in a fractured limb.
A great tonic, as well as a pleasant bitter; valuable, and far superior to peruvian bark for intermittent fever. Take it when the fever is off.
Put a handful of the inner bark in a quart of luke-warm water, and let it stand a few hours; take a wineglassful in the morning, at noon, and at bed time.
The roots and leaves are opening, cleansing the liver and gall; it opens all the secretions of the viscera, cleanses the blood, and is good in fevers and general debility.
This herb is good for headaches. Steep in good vinegar, and bind on externally.
This herb is excellent in all bowel complaints, and is a good drink with your meals. The Shakers use this instead of tea and coffee; it makes a very pleasant drink when made weak; boil, or steep it in hot water, ten minutes, in order to make it palatable.
Is an excellent herb, and makes a good, pleasant tea; is cooling; good for humors, and all cutaneous eruptions of the skin.
21
Leaves and flowers possess the same virtues. It is very seldom used by females in the United States. This herb should be in every collection; an excellent regulator in all urinary difficulties, where the evacuations are scant, or too profuse; strengthens the kidneys and bladder.
Grows in wood bogs, and on low, sandy land; is emetic, and an excellent hydragogue, causing the water to pass off freely; is diaphoretic, possessing the same virtues as the English Ipecacuanha, but I prefer it as it is rather milder. It is the bitterest root we have it Botany. In another part of this book may be found a recipe for making the tincture. When properly administered, it is good in almost all ailments.
Sometimes called “emetic weed,” or “Indian tobacco.” I have used this herb with success; not sufficient to cause vomiting, but merely to loosen the phlegm and the gall cakes, or gall stones, which are formed by inward heat. It will act as an emetic and diaphoretic, but always have some balsamic herb with it, when used as such.
I have found it excellent in asthmas, whooping cough, and phthisic. Take the seeds, mandrake root, and blood root, equal parts of each, say 2 oz., and put them into a quart of good rum or whiskey; add a teaspoonful of coriander seeds, pulverized fine; let them stand ten hours near the fire, shaking often; give a half teaspoonful in sweetened water; give six to ten drops to a child having the rattles, or croup; it will loosen colds immediately, and act beneficially on the whole22 system. Keep this herb always at hand; do not be afraid of it; give a little at a time, until relieved; I have saved the lives of hundreds with it. In severe cases, put boiled, or bruised onions on the soles of the feet, and, likewise, take a half teaspoonful of spirits turpentine, added to a tablespoonful of goose grease, or hen’s oil, and rub it in briskly between the shoulders and on the breast; repeat often if necessary, but this will not be required except in very severe cases. Lobelia is also good to smoke for asthma.
The leaves are the only part of this that is used in practice, although the berries are very healthy in their season. I have used the leaves in combination with those of mullen, for canker, dysentery, diarrhœa, and sore mouth, both in adults and babes; it heals and removes all canker from the bowels. Let the patient drink plentifully of it.
Narcotic, but very useful in poultices; they are good for pain in the bowels and intestines, and in falling of the womb. Steep hops in whiskey, heat them hot, and spread on a cotton cloth, sprinkle on a little black pepper, and apply to the abdomen. Drink a strong tea made of hops, at bed time, for nine nights in succession. A pillow made of hops is excellent for persons having weak nerves, and is far healthier than feathers; so, also, is sweet fern.
This herb is pectoral and vermifuge; an excellent remedy in coughs, and for all female complaints,—general debility, &c. For a cough, take a handful, the same of upper23 mullen leaves, a half handful hoarhound, three cents’ worth licorice; put these into one quart of water and boil six minutes, then strain, adding two teaspoonsful cider vinegar and half pound of honey. Take a tablespoonful every time the cough is troublesome.
This berry is very beneficial in retention of the urine, and derangements of the kidneys and bladder. Make a tea of it, and use as occasion requires.
This balsam grows mostly in Maine. I can highly recommend it in coughs, for which take a little on sugar. For sore breast, anoint the nipples every night on going to bed, or, it may be used during the day, though I prefer the former. It is good for all kinds of sores, and may be used internally and externally, without danger, being simple and efficacious.
For pain in the side, take the flowers, pulverize, and mix with honey and sweet oil; good in agues, swellings, shrunk sinews, and in colic, jaundice, bilious colic, and gravel.
Good for wind, and as an assister in monthly courses. The leaves, pounded, are good for sores and ulcers; the juice of the root is excellent in salves, as it is both cleansing and healing.
May be effectually used for retention of urine, and for wind; also, in poultices for bruises.
24
Boil in rain water until the strength is out, then mix with old rum, is excellent for sore eyes; for film on the eye, make a salve with it and fresh butter; or, the juice may be squeezed into the eye, and for the same purpose, it can be mixed with breast milk.
A decoction, in wine, is good for jaundice; the root is good for dropsy, and when powdered and put into a hollow tooth will stop the toothache. The leaves, made into a tea, are good for a sweat, to be taken on going to bed; for a fever, if taken in its early stages, and as a component part in ointments.
This is a smaller species of Celandine and is highly recommended as a wash, or ointment, for king’s evil.
Excellent for bilious colic, gravel, and soreness of the stomach and lungs. The leaves, pounded and scalded, are good to cleanse and heal sores and fresh wounds; and wet in rum or hot vinegar, makes a good outward application for rheumatism.
A tea, made of the inner or middle bark, is good for dropsy, for coughs, and for affections of chest and lungs. The leaves are good for inflammation of the eyes. The juice of the berry, boiled in honey, and a few drops put in the ear, will stop the earache or headache. A tea, made from the roots, will assist the monthly courses, and remove obstructions; is also good to bathe the head when affected by cold. A tea,25 made from the blossoms, I recommend in retention of urine, for the piles, and to cleanse the blood. Striping the bark up, it will act as an emetic,—down, as a physic.
The bark from the root, scraped fine, relieves swellings, inflammations, and contracted sinews; the root should be boiled some hours, skimmed and allowed to cool. A poultice, made of the bark from the root, boiled one hour and strained, is good for bald head, and will make the hair grow; also, an excellent application for burns, scalds, and inflammations, inwardly or outwardly.
This is one of the best roots we have in coughs and consumption, or phthisic, when used as a syrup. It is good for the teeth, preventing their aching and decaying; good as an ointment for the itch, and, used with tobacco, is good for all kinds of sores. The tops, made into beer, are good for the sight, cramps, convulsions, spitting of blood, &c.
Description.—The stem of this plant twists around bushes, shrubs and trees, and shoots out to a great extent; its tendril leaves are very large, diminishing gradually to the top one; palmated lobes, pointed irregularly, and standing upon long foot-stalks; flowers of a yellow green, male and female, and from the alaæ of the leaves, which are striped with green veins, turns into a red berry. It grows in low meadows and swamps; the roots are white and large.
Medical Properties.—The root is a powerful drastic purgative; it was formerly much used by the celebrated Dr. Sydenham as a hydragogue purge in dropsies.
26
Directions.—In all dropsical swellings and suppressions of urine, the patient may take 2 to 3 drachms, which will work sufficient without griping; take soup as a drink.
This plant rises about two feet in hight; the petals white; the seeds are attached to their stamens, giving them the appearance of feathered tails.
This has a square stalk, and rises three feet in hight; flowers yellow, which terminate in a pod.
Medical Virtues.—The root has been found effectual in the cure of dropsy. I have used it with success in all dropsical cases.
Is also an excellent vermifuge for children. I have found it good in catarrhal, cachectic, scrofulous and rheumatic disorders.
Preparation.—You can steep it as a tea; (I only use the roots) make it strong, according to age. When it is used for suppression of the urine, drink plentifully; if for worms, give it night and morning to children, sweetened with molasses.
This is well known to all mankind, and grows plentifully in the United States. I would say, as to the medical virtues of this bark, it is Sudorific, diuretic, warming and stimulating, and very little should be used at a time. There are very many who chew it for a sweet breath, but it injures the habits, therefore be careful, use it for it is good, and take a little at a time, and not too much; it cleanses the blood.
27
This root is so well known to every individual that I deem it little to the purpose to say much about it; it is alterative in its properties, and more dependence has been put on its virtues than really could be relied on as a cure; but mixed with other roots of the same virtues, has always been found by me the best for all tumors, scrofulas, or venereal diseases. I think snakehead, or fisherworth, can be relied on for more virtue than sarsaparilla; but even if you have confidence in this root alone, I say make a decoction, or tea from it, strong. I prefer our own American sarsaparilla to the Spanish, and as a rule, prefer all roots, barks, berries, &c., from our own native soil.
This weed is well known to all; it resembles camomile, and is called by some, wild camomile. It has a very disagreeable smell and taste; although little used in practice, I consider it very useful in dysenteries or chronic disorders; it will instantly give relief in bloody flux and flooding; is Sudorific. If you have a case, and need a good sweat, drink a pint of tea made by steeping the weed.
Very heating; has a beautiful smell; is stimulating, and excellent for the aged, and for all persons of cold or phlegmatic temperaments.
There are four kinds of cohosh,—white, blue, red and black,—all possessing the same virtues. They are all diobstruents, sedative and tonic. As a general medicine for females, use the white and blue; the black, years past, was considered28 a great remedy for rheumatism, and I have found it so myself. Take equal parts of cohosh and prickley ash, and a very little mandrake, is good for aged persons.
This root is generally known; is good in falling of the womb, and troubles in the ovaries. Add it in every syrup you make for diseases of females.
Boiled in milk, is good for the dysentery and rickets.
A tea made of nettles relieves stich in the side and back.
This is one of the most useful roots we have, and no one should be without it; it is emetic, cathartic, pectoral and sudorific; in fact, it possesses many virtues; it will cure all internal and external ulcers.
The roots and tops are of the same medical properties, although we use the roots more in syrups than the leaves. The roots I consider of a cleansing and detergent quality, promotes sweat, is good in almost all syrups, and more especially for females in the decline of life.
This root is very acrid, pungent and heating; it promotes the watery excretions; its use quickens the circulation in individuals of cold or phlegmatic habits. For a cough, take29 a tablespoonful of the root, pulverized, to which add two tablespoonsful of pulverized loaf sugar, and a teaspoonful of flour of sulphur; mix well together, and put it into a jar, covered close. Take half teaspoonful five times a day. This will cure your cough, and quicken the action of the digestive organs. Take a green piece of this root, mixed with blue flag, pound them both together, and it will cure a fellon, on the finger or elsewhere. Apply three times.
It grows on the side of mountains and frequently in swamps; I have found it very strengthening in all female weaknesses. Combined with white cohosh, an ounce of each, put into one quart of wine, I have found good for hysteria cholic. Take half a wine glass full at morning and at bed time.
This is certainly the most astringent that grows. Great care must be taken when using it, and give a cathartic if it proves too binding. It can be used with honey as a wash for sore mouths.
Few country people are unacquainted with this root. Many persons use it for greens in the spring. Every one should be prudent, and not use it too freely as it is emetic and cathartic; it will vomit severely when taken in large doses, but when used with moderation it will purify the blood, and is an excellent remedy for inflammatory rheumatism, for which cut the root into slices and apply it on all parts of the body which are affected. For internal use, take one quart of the berries and half an ounce of mandrake root, in two30 quarts of whiskey, and add two ounces of prickley ash bark; drink a wine glass full in the same quantity of cold water, mornings and at bed time; begin with half a wine glass at first. It will be found good for males or females. In hysterics or fits, it will give instant relief.
This root is very different from poke root, and grows in swamps; is very hard to dig, and is called by some white hellebore; is a great nervine. I have known many put it into snuff, but it is very harsh; it has been used by many in case of mania, but as I do not recommend any poisons, would say to all, let it alone. If you have the seven years’ itch, you may add a little of it to the following wash: Take 2 ounces of pulverized blood root, in 2 quarts of best cider vinegar, and add quarter of an ounce of scoke root; shake well, and wash all over at bed time. Let this wash stand near the fire for several days before using it, shaking it frequently. When too thick, add more vinegar. Do not shake it when you wash with it, but turn it off clear.
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.
These grow in our gardens; the low mallow possesses the same medical virtues; are both good in canker, mild and31 loosening; for canker in children add a little catnip and coriander seed. Children have more or less canker in the bowels.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Is tonic, cathartic and nervine; excellent to wash sore eyes.
This root is an excellent remedy for fits in children, and in old times was called “fits 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.
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.
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, prevents33 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.
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.
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.
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.
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Make this tea by steeping prickly ash bark in hot water; take it three times a day before eating.
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.
I use the bark in all my syrups, as it is cleansing and quickens the circulative action.
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.
This will be found good in all poultices for sores.
Every one is well acquainted with this root; it is balsamic and healing; I generally use it for coughs and general debility.
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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.
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.
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 dulcamara36 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.
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 the37 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.
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 and38 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.
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 the39 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.
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,40 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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 roots45 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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 using56 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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For the Dropsy.—Make a tea of poke root, sliced fine, one ounce and a half; put this into one pint of white wine, add two tablespoonsful of ground mustard seed, and let it stand twenty-four hours. Drink a wine glass full every morning.
Another: Take half an ounce of Indian hemp, and add one quart of boiling water; simmer down to one pint, and add two ounces of cream tartar, half an ounce of ginger, one tablespoonful of brown sugar. Give the patient one tablespoonful every three hours, and increase if the patient can bear it. Use it moderately as it is powerful.
Composition.—Take two pounds bayberry bark, one pound ginger, one pound pulverized hemlock bark, one ounce cayenne pepper, one ounce cloves, all pulverized; mix thoroughly and sift. It is particularly useful as a convenient family medicine in sudden colds, febrile attacks, hoarseness, sore throat, coughs, influenza, toothache, pain in the stomach, bowels, or other parts of the body, rheumatism, cold hands and feet, diarrhœa, dysentery, colic, croup, giddiness, hysteria, mumps, jaundice, worms, nervous disorders, and the various affections of the skin.
Directions.—For a grown persen half a teaspoonful of the powder and add a little loaf sugar, rub them together and add half a pint of boiling water; drink the tea as hot as you can bear it. There is no occasion for swallowing the grounds, as is a common practice, for the strength of the medicine will be extracted by the boiling water, and the sediment can have no other effect than to clog and irritate the stomach. When the tea is taken the patient should be in bed with a warm brick at their feet, or sitting by a fire wrapped in a blanket, to create perspiration.
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For a Scald Head.—Take of hops and wood soot, four ounces each, and three pints of water; boil down to half a pint, then strain and add four ounces fresh butter; let it simmer till the water is out; use every day. Or, beef’s gall, dried to the consistence of a salve, spread on linen, and let it remain for five days; then make use of the soot ointment.
For Deafness.—Take a turnip, wrapped in brown paper, and put it in a bed of hot ashes; when cooked take it out and squeeze out the juice, and put it in bottles. Use by putting three drops on a piece of cotton every other day.
Cure for Sore Nipples.—Take a large flat turnip, scrape out the heart of it and put into the hollow half an ounce of beeswax, a gill of train oil, and a gill of honey; set it on hot ashes for an hour, when you must pound the turnip and contents until the juice is out. Apply this to the nipples four times a day, which will surely cure.
Eye Water.—Take fresh eggs and empty out the contents, leaving in each shell a little of the white of the egg, put into each shell ten grains of white vitrol and fill them with rose or rain water; set each shell in warm ashes to simmer for half an hour; strain the water through a piece of fine linen, and pour a gill of rose water in it; keep it in a bottle well corked. This will cure by applying it three or four times a day, and taking care not to catch cold.
Consumptive Complaints and Inflammation caused by Colds in Wounds.—Take yellow pond lily root and boil till the strength is out, then strain and thicken with coarse wheat flour; if yellow lily cannot be had, use slippery elm or basswood bark. Cattail flag is good to make a poultice.
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Stomach Tincture.—Take one ounce of gentian root, half an ounce of dried orange peel, one ounce of the inside bark of white pine; put these into one pint of cogniac brandy, and in four days it will be fit for use.
For Piles.—Canada thistle, simmered in clear lard.
Lime Water.—Take half a pound of unslacked lime, put it into two quarts of water, and let it stand twenty-four hours, stirring it two or three times. Take off the clear water, blow the scum aside, and take half glass full two or three times a day; if too strong, add water, or if it heats the stomach take vinegar.
To Regulate the Bowels.—Take one teaspoonful of castile soap before breakfast, and one teaspoonful after breakfast, for three days, then take gentian bitters.
Hoarseness.—Nettle roots, powdered fine, and mixed with an equal quantity of molasses; take one tablespoonful night and morning.
Inflammation in the Eyes.—Put half an ounce of quicksilver in three pints of water, and boil to one pint; then bottle it; make a poultice of this with Indian meal, and apply under the chin; renew it when too dry.
For a Cough.—Take equal parts of moss taken from white oak, white maple and white ash; make a strong tea, and sweeten with honey; this will generally cure. Take half a wine glass full three times a day, and in the night if required.
Another: Smartweed, pulverized fine, mixed with an equal quantity of molasses; take a teaspoonful three times a day.
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For a Fellon.—Take rock salt, rolled in a cabbage leaf and pulverized, two ounces spirits turpentine; mix and apply.
Volatile Salts.—Take one ounce sal amoniac, two ounces pearlash; powder them separately, then mix together, and moisten with the essence of cinnamon, or spirits of any kind; put it into a bottle and keep well corked. This is good to apply to the nose in case of faintness.
Toothache Drops.—Take wild celendine root in powder, or wet a piece of lint with the juice, and apply it to the tooth.
For Worms.—Take dry cobbs and burn them and make a powder; boil them in soft water till the strength is out; strain off the ley, and boil down very strong; give the patient a teaspoonful once an hour for three or four hours. This is very good for worms. Or make a strong tea of sumach berries of which drink a wine glass full. This will do when the patient is first attacked.
Bathing for all Pains.—Take three ounces of the oil of lavender, three ounces sulphuric ether, one ounce of alcohol, two drachms of laudanum; mix well together, and rub the afflicted part with a piece of flannel wet with the mixture; sit by a fire and keep it warm, before going to bed.
Ox Gall—Is good for the gout. Bathe the parts affected with the gall and warm it in with a hot shovel or brick. It will give prompt relief.
To Render Teeth Insensible to Pain.—Diseased teeth have been rendered insensible to pain by a cement composed of Canada balsam and slacked lime, which is to be inserted in the hollow, or cavity, of the tooth; it will relieve instantly.
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A Cancer Under the Eye—Was cured by drinking one quart of tar water daily, and applying a plaster of tar and mutton tallow melted together; this cured a cancer in two months, and of twenty years standing. Or mix black pepper, burned alum and honey, equal parts, and use it as an ointment.
A Newly Discovered Cure for a Polypus.—An elderly lady applied to me for advice, who had been afflicted for a long time with a fleshy excresence, which filled up the passage of her nose. By using the following simple prescription a cure was performed in a few days: Take half an ounce of blood root, finely pulverized and sifted, and one drachm of camomile; mix them together for a sternutatory. A small pinch of this powder is to be snuffed up the nostrils for the polypus of the nose, three times a day. The following wash, or lotion, is to be thrown up the nostrils with a syringe twice a day, until the polypus is removed: Dissolve half an ounce of powdered alum in a gill of brandy, and shake the vial until the alum is dissolved. This is a tried, safe and sure cure for polypus of the nose without the use of instruments, which subjects the patient to extreme pain and is often very dangerous.
Elixir Pro.—Take one quart of good spirits, to which add two ounces myrrh; let it stand in the sun four days, then add half an ounce of aloes, one ounce of saffron, and let it stand two days.
Alterative Syrup.—Take two pounds sarsaparilla, one pound guaiacum, eleven ounces sassafras, eleven ounces alder flowers; boil together in three quarts of water, pour off, add one pint and a half of spirits and five pounds of sugar. Drink a wine glass full three times a day.
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For a Cough.—Take two heads of garlic, a lemon sliced, four ounces licorice, half a pint of liquor, four ounces flax seed, three pints of water, boil down to one quart, and strain; take a tea cup full on going to bed.
Recipe for a Cold.—Take a large teaspoonful of linseed with two penny worth of stick licorice, and a quarter of a pound of sun raisins. Put them in two quarts of soft water; add to it a quarter of a pound of brown sugar candy, powdered and a tablespoonful of white wine vinegar, or lemon juice.
Note.—The vinegar is to be added only to the quantity you are going immediately to take; for if it be put into the whole, it is liable, in a little time, to grow flat. Drink half a pint on going to bed, and take a little when the cough is troublesome.
This recipe generally cures the worst of colds, in one or two days; and, if taken in time, may be said to be almost an infallible remedy. It is a sovereign balsamic cordial for the lungs, without the opening qualities which endanger fresh colds in going out. It has been known to cure colds which have almost been settled into consumptions, in less than three weeks.
Bite of a Rattlesnake, or any other Poisonous Snake.—It is good, when you expect to be in danger of being bitten by poisonous snakes, to keep a small bag of fine salt in your pocket, so that you may bind it on. As soon as you are bit, cut and scarify in and near the place where the bite is, with a lancet, or sharp pointed knife; this will keep the orifice open, so that the poison may the better be drawn out; then take, if it can be had, one or two of the nubs or balls of the thimble-weed, steep in water, pound it well, put it on the bite67 and keep it on a quarter or half hour; then see if it has made a blister, and if not, repeat the application until you get one; then take it off, but, in the mean time, take care to have the person chewing the leaves or bark of white ash, and swallow plenty of the juice, but not one drop of water, until the poison is working out; take the leaves of white ash, mountain flax, robin’s plantain roots, tops, and bloodwort, (called by some St. Andrew’s crosswort, and by some quinsy) roots and tops, and snake violet (sometimes called buck-horn plantain) roots and tops, and conicle roots, altogether, or such parts as can be collected in great haste, about a handful of each, and pound all together; then put them into a pot of water, and boil them until very strong, (save some out to drink often and plentifully,) and wash and bathe the part affected with this preparation often, rubbing, stroking and working above, below, and all around, pressing toward the wound; the liquor should be about blood warm; apply on the bite a cabbage leaf, or a smooth plantain leaf, wilted by the fire; apply your herbs and liquor like a poultice, all over the limb or the part affected, and repeat as often as the poultice gets too dry—not forgetting to drink often of the liquor. If the poison doth rage much, give the juice of horehound and brown sugar, to drink. But I tell you again, give no water to drink, and take care to keep the wound open and moving, with the leaves wilted by the fire.
When you want to heal the wound, make an ointment of hog’s lard and ox-weed, green bark of sweet elder, the smooth leaf plantain roots and tops, and anoint the part two or three times a day, or as you find need. After the cure is effected, you ought to physic well, in order to cleanse the blood; and to prevent a return of the sickness and preserve the eye-sight;68 the patient may have new milk to drink, with other drinks. And when the poison is out of the system, be careful not to drink great draughts of water, but make tea of good things, to warm and sweeten the blood. In this way, I have kept patients from one drop of water, for full nine days. One John Lee, being hit on his feet, had three doctors to attend him, who soon fixed him for his winding-sheet. He had been laid out near two hours, when a man came in and gave him the snake violet and bloodwort juice, in white or sweet wine, half of each, mixed together, and the man recovered and lived.
Stomach Faintness, Sickness and Swelling.—Take the ripe berries of spice bush, dry them, and pound them in a mortar as fine as you can; then put them in a good, strong linen bag, press it well, and it will produce a very good oil; then bottle it up for use. You may take it with safety.
A Salve for Bruises, Scalds and Wounds.—Take two pounds of fresh hog’s lard, one-half pound each of beeswax and rosin, one pound of good well-cured tobacco, one-quarter pound nightshade and one drachm of deaplemer; stew over a moderate fire about two hours, then strain it clear for use. It is also good for burns.
A Salve for Green Wounds and Boils.—Take the yolk of an egg, and one spoonful each of honey, wheat flour and white pine turpentine; simmer all together; when cold, it is fit for use.
To make Eye Water, and a Wash for Bruises, Stabs, old Sores, Ulcers, Swellings, Ear Aches, and to remove Cancers.—Take one quart of rain or river water, made boiling hot, put it into a pewter or earthen basin, and put into it69 one spoonful of white vitriol and half a spoonful of raw alum, pounded fine, one spoonful of the spirits of wine, half a large thimble full of gum elerne, made fine as can be; let it stand till it is cold, and bottle it up for use.
The way to use it, is to make it as hot as you can bear it, in an earthen vessel, and bathe the place often and well.
To stop Bleeding, and to Heal a Flesh Wound.—Take a clean linen rag, dry it well by the fire so that it begins to be brown; then put it to the blaze, and let it burn to a good cinder, put it on the wound as hot as you can, bind it on the wound and keep it on till it works loose, and it will stop the blood; if it wants more healing, apply clean lint instead of a plaster, and make a wash of liquor of soap and urine, spikenard, or the like.
For the Rheumatism.—Take a small glass bottle full of angle-worms, washed clean, with a rag or paper stopple, and put the bottle into a loaf of bread, and mould it to bake as usual; set it into the oven and bake it well, and after your bread is drawn out of the oven, let it stand till it gets cold; then cut it open, and the worms will make a fine oil; you may strain the oil from the muddy bottom, and anoint the place affected with it. For a drink, put the root and tops of princes pine into brandy, and drink night and morning as you can bear, repeating your anointing as often as required, and keep warm.
Another—For Rheumatism, or Painful Swelling of the Joints.—Take a black water turtle, and bruise or pound it to pieces; put it into a pot of water and boil it smartly near two hours; then take it off and let it get cold, and skim off70 the oil and keep it for use; anoint the place affected hot by the fire, bind it up with flannel cloths, and dress as often as you find need. For drink to cleanse the blood, take a handful of the roots and tops of princes pine, half a handful of horse-radish roots, a pound each of the bark of sweet alder roots, sarsaparilla root, prickly ash bark, black birch bark, garden nettle roots and burdock roots, and half a bushel of good malt or one gallon of molasses, and brew about six gallons of good beer, let it work well, and drink as you find you can bear; keep yourself from wet and cold.
An Excellent Salve for Burns and other Sores.—Take one gallon of good old cider, and steep one pound of good tobacco in it cold for twenty-four hours, then strain and press out all the liquor; you may dry the tobacco, and it will be good to smoke; take your liquor, strain it clean and put into it half a pound of rosin, half a pound of beeswax and half a pound of deer or mutton tallow; stew it over a moderate fire to the consumption of all the cider, and if you find it hard, temper it by adding fresh hog’s lard: fit for use. It is the best kind of salve.
To make good Family Physic.—Take a large iron pot full of the bark of butternut roots, got in the month of June; fill it up with water, and boil it twelve hours; take out the bark and put in a handful of the roots of smellage, dill, annis-seed, or the like, and boil it again till it begins to be a little thick; then strain it again very clean, and stew it away very moderately, until it is hard enough to form into pills, as you may ascertain by cooling some of it as the rest is boiling; when you find it is sufficiently hard, take it off the fire and put it into a small dish; burn two or three egg shells on the71 hot coals till they will pound fine enough to go through a coarse sieve, and near three spoonsful of fine flour of brimstone, together, and put it into the physic; mix it all the time while cooling, to prevent the powders from settling. A grown person may take as much as a tablespoonful at night, before going to bed, either made into pills or dissolved in water, or in the morning, fasting; if it does not work down in two hours, take half as much more, and keep repeating until it does work; drink a great plenty of water gruel, made of Indian meal.
An Ointment for the King’s Evil.—Take one pound of butter made in May, and take as much of the roots of fresh fox glove (what some call lady-shoe), pound it very fine, and put as much in the butter as will mix; set it in the hot sun thirty days, taking it in evenings, and days when it rains or is very cloudy; after it has had thirty days’ sun, press out the ointment, and annoint the king’s evil. For this purpose, it is said it has no equal; you must physic the blood well to carry it off.
For a Cough of long continuance.—Take three or four quarts of wheat bran, boil it in a pailful of water to a strong wort; then take it off the fire, take out near a quart of the wort and set it away to drink; then put your feet into the bran and liquor, and rub, scrape and work the soles of your feet with an old knife as long as the water is warm; then go right into a warm bed and drink the rest of the wort you have saved out; sweat plentifully and so repeat it three or four nights, and you will likely find help in almost any cough; be careful not to get any cold.
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Syrup for a Cough.—Take one or two turnips, slice them very thin, take a pewter or earthen basin and sprinkle it over with brown sugar, then lay on a layer of elecampane roots, sliced or pounded, then a laying of sugar, next of turnips, and so on until the basin is nearly full; set it in an oven, or a warm cellar, a day or a night, and you will have a fine syrup. Take half a gill on going to bed; you may eat the roots also—but, as they open the pores of the body, you ought to be careful not to get cold.
Another.—Take hoarhound, garden colt’s-foot roots, spikenard roots, and, for weakness, add hartshorn, Solomon’s seal, comfrey and brook liverwort; stew in water till it is strong, then strain off the liquor, and to a quart of the syrup add half a pound of honey or good brown sugar, and a gill of rum; simmer again over the fire half an hour and bottle it up; take as you can bear, night and morning, fasting.
Wind Cholic—Indian Medicine.—Take the bark or buds of boxwood, such as has a large blossom in the spring, much like a peach blossom—the tree is short and scrubby, and bears paleish berries; boil the bark or buds, or both together, in water, and give the person plenty to drink, to break away the wind, and it will quickly give the patient ease.
Hard Swelling—for Man or Beast.—Make an ointment of one pound of the bark of bittersweet, half pound of young and tender mullen leaves, a large handful of the white of hen dung and a handful of wormwood; boil all together in water till the strength is all boiled out; squeeze out the liquor and strain it clean; now add one pound of hog’s lard, stew it till the water is all out, then turn it into a small vessel and keep73 it for use, to annoint the place swelled; if you find it is not powerful enough, add to a gill of the ointment, one spoonful of the spirits of vitriol, or half a spoonful of the oil of vitriol, well mixed by a hot fire or with a hot iron. If it is a beast you have in hand, the spirits and oil of vitriol may be used with neat’s foot oil for the same purpose, or be put into other ointments for swellings, with safety; it is good for old crusty, hard, scabby sores, to work out hard, dead matter or crusts in sores, for both man or beast, and set the sore to work.
Dropsy.—For persons inclined to dropsy, or stoppage of urine, and swelling in the body, take the roots of one-berry, so called because it bears but one berry in a place, which is large, red, resembling a strawberry; by some it is called Scotch bonnet, because the bud on the top, before the blossom comes, resembles that bonnet; it grows some like a weed, about logs, stone-heaps or old fences; it has a large leaf, which falls off in the fall of the year, and grows again the next spring; some call this dropsy root. Take this root and boil it in water, and drink plenty of it. It is also very good for horses and cattle, if they swell in their bodies, for stoppage of water and great pain, add some rosin to it.
Ulcers, Sores and Hard Swellings on the Joints.—If they have been so for many years, take half a pailful of the bark of the red roots of red willow, (found on low, wet land,) scrape it off very fine with a knife; the bark must be red, as you will find some will be red and some not, as both will grow from one tree or bunch of willow bushes; that which is not red will not do at all, and if such large red willow is not to be had, get a small willow which is called rose willow, and grows on dry, hilly land, and sometimes on flat74 plains, two, three and four feet high, and has a bunch of leaves on the top, much in the form of a rose, from which it takes its name, and it will answer for the same purpose; take the red bark of these roots, as of the other, and boil it very strong in a large pot of water; then take it off the fire, and place the joint over the steam, covered over with a blanket and fermented as long as the liquor is hot; then wash and bathe as long as the liquor is warm, and bind on as much of the bark as you can keep on, and so repeat twice a day; it may be some months before a cure is completed.
In cases where fever sores existed, or the like, and the bone has rotted by the fever, and the scales come out, this treatment has made the greatest number of cures, in such cases, of any I have ever met with, or knew; it is also very good to put about half a brick, well pounded, in the liquor; in using this great remedy, you ought first to physic the blood thoroughly, to throw off the old humors, and make the cure sound and firm; afterwards, use plenty of scabis root, made into a tea, and drink every day, or make a good beer with it; or sometimes take it in powders—about a spoonful.
Worms in Children.—Take the third bark (which is the inner one,) of spotted alder, that bears a small, red berry, scrape off the bark with a knife, and boil half a pound in about one gallon of water, to one quart; then strain it clean, and take out, for a child, about half a pint, and set it away in a bottle; add to the other about half a pint of sweet milk and about half a pint of molasses; simmer these together over the fire a little while, and bottle it up; one day before the full or change of the moon, give the child a third part of that you saved out, and the rest the two next mornings; after that let them drink the syrup.
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Cancers.—Take the leaves and small, tender tops or branches of poke-weed; pound together and squeeze out the juice, and put it into an earthen pot; set it in the sun, till it has acquired the thickness of an ointment; spread the plaster the size of the sore on the leaf of the plant, when green, and on black silk in the winter; apply a new plaster three or four times during the day, if the pain can be indured, which is sometimes very great. This remedy, which kills and loosens the cancer at the bottom and draws it to the outside, makes it apparently worse for the time, on first using, but nevertheless effects a radical cure in about five or six months. No physic or strong drink is to be made use of, except in case of fainting, when a little good spirits may be used. This has effected cures, in many instances, where the cancers were of an inveterate kind and of long duration, and has never failed of success.
Salt Rheum or Scurvy.—Take the poke-weed leaves, any time in the summer, pound and squeeze out the juice; strain it into a pewter basin, and set in the sun until it becomes a salve; then put it into an earthen mug and add fresh butter and beeswax, sufficient to make an ointment of common thickness; simmer the whole over the fire, and keep constantly stirring it until it is thoroughly mixed; when cold, rub the part affected twice a day, till the cure is completed, which will be in the course of three or four months; the patient will soon experience its good effects.
Whooping Cough.—Take a good handful of dry colts-foot leaves, cut them small and boil them in one quart of spring water to half a pint, then take it off the fire, and when it is almost cold, strain it clean through a cloth, squeezing the76 herbs as dry as you can; then dissolve in it one ounce of brown sugar candy, finely powdered, and give a child three or four years old one spoonful, cold or warm, according to the season, and so in proportion to the age and strength, three or four times a day (or oftener if the fits of coughing come frequently,) till well, which will be in two or three days; it will soon abate the fits of coughing.
Rheumatism.—A specific and infallible cure for the most inveterate Rheumatism of many years standing, has been communicated by a man of character from the coast of Guinea. He says the negroes of that country easily remove it in a little time, by rubbing the part affected with a mixture of cayenne pepper and strong spirits; the rubbing must be continued for some time, and repeated till the cure is effected; the pepper must be reduced to powder. Several Americans, most grievously tormented with this intolerable disorder, have been so effectually relieved by this happy communication, as not to have the least remains of it, and with my own experience, I believe it, but would rather depend on it with the addition of drinking a glass of princes pine, steeped in good French brandy, morning and evening, for the blood; I do not doubt of its being an almost certain cure—but remember to guard against cold and wet.
Sore Breast.—Take the sprouts of the first year’s growth of bitter poplar, and scrape off the bark, and the bark of sumack roots, a handful of each, half a handful of camomile and as much of mullen leaves; stew in one pound of hog’s fat over a moderate fire, then strain it clean and add half a gill of good rum; simmer again to the consumption of the rum, and it is fit for use.
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For a Poultice—Take roots and some of the tender leaves of scabious, pound in a mortar to a salve and spread it on a piece of thin leather; heat it hot by the fire until it is brown, cover it over with the before mentioned ointment, and apply to the breast; repeat as often as you find need.
Ulcer.—A tea of white pine bark, elixir salutes and the yolk of an egg, is good for an inward ulcer that is broke.
Burns.—Make a poultice of Indian meal and emptyings, to draw out the fire; when it is out, strew on red precipitate, then apply a plaster made of hog’s fat, mutton tallow and beeswax; simmer together, take it off and cool it so as not to curdle the egg, then put in the yolk of an egg, and stir it till it becomes the consistency of salve.
Dissolving Stone in the Bladder.—Take the expressed juice of horse mint and red onion, one gill of each, every morning and evening, till the complaint be removed; if the green mint cannot be had, make a strong decoction of the dry herb.
Weak Joints.—When the cord is stretched, take yarrow, Solomon’s seal, comfrey roots and mug-wort, make it into an ointment, with fresh butter or cat’s grease; to guard the stomach, make a tea of St. John’s wort.
Flux.—Take two teaspoonfuls of clean hickory or oak ashes, quite hot, in half a gill of old spirits or milk, night and morning, two or three days if necessary; let the patient live on a flour diet altogether, and it is good to wear warm flannel next the stomach.
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Rheumatism.—Take one pound of roll brimstone, pound it fine and put it into an earthen pot; pour thereon one gallon of boiling water, and stir it well; after standing about twenty-four hours, it is fit for use. Drink half a pint in the morning, before breakfast, and the same before going to bed, and a radical cure will be effected in the space of a few weeks.
Broken Bones.—Take the bark of tag alder, wormwood tops and the white of hen-dung; boil in water till the strength is out, then strain and add one gill of hog’s fat, and simmer to an ointment; use with care not to hurt the bone.
Scald or Burn.—Take half a pint of milk, thicken it with Indian meal, add four spoonsful of soot and four spoonsful of molasses; wet the poultice with sweet oil and apply. The milk must be scalded, not boiled.
Rickets and Consumption.—To make two quarts of syrup: take a quart of malt, put it into two gallons of water and boil till the strength is out; strain it, and to the wort add brook and noble liverwort, rock polly pody, maiden hair, dog grass, comfrey roots, Indian beans, parsley, violets, daisy, Johnwort, low balm, tormentile, low bittory, elder flowers and garden berage, a good handful of each; boil them two or three hours, strain and let it settle, pour it off from the dregs and put into it a little licorice and annis-seed; boil it again, strain and put into it a pint of molasses, make it just boil, and it is done. Dose for a child three months old, a spoonful in the morning, before noon, afternoon and at night.
To make Elixir Pro.—Take one quart of good spirits, add to it two ounces of myrrh; let it stand in the warm sun79 four days, then add half ounce socotrin aloes and one ounce saffron; stir it as before, let it stand two days, then pour it off for use.
To make Elixir Asthmatic.—Take two ounces of flowers of benzoin, two ounces saffron, one ounce crude opium, half ounce oil of annis-seed and one pound spirits wine; put all together, stand four days in a warm place, frequently shaking it; strain, and add half ounce oil of annis-seed; shake it well. Dose, from 20 to 100 drops.
Piles.—Take one handful each of the bark of sumack roots, the green of alder, and mullen, put them all together in a clean earthen vessel, with hog’s lard; simmer over a moderate fire the best part of a day, then strain it through a cloth, and it is fit for use; anoint often.
Strengthening Syrup.—Take a handful each of asparagus roots; sweet apple tree bark, black and red alder bark, black cherry bark and hops; put all into two quarts water, and boil it down to one quart; add one ounce of rosin, sweeten it with loaf sugar, and add half a pint of gin. Dose, half a gill.
Head-Ache Pills.—Two ounces aloes, half an ounce mastic, two drachms dried marjoram, two drachms salts of wormwood; make them all into a powder, with juice of coolwort and sugar, as much as is sufficient. This compound strengthens the stomach, brain, nerves and muscles, and relieves them of humors; they open obstructions of the liver and spleen, and remove diseases therefrom. Take half a drachm on going to bed.
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Dewey’s Tincture.—Take two ounces gum guaiacum, half ounce alspice, one-fourth ounce salts of tartar or common pearlash, and one pint brandy; pulverize the gum and alspice, steep the whole in the brandy four days, and then strain off the liquor; add to it one tablespoonful of the volatile spirits of sal-ammoniac, and keep it corked close. Dose—a teaspoonful twice a day for about a week, before and at the time of being unwell.
Stimulating Embrocation.—In case of mortification, take a drachm of sal-ammoniac to two ounces of vinegar and six of water. This forms a mixture of the proper strength.
Poultice to stop Mortification.—Take beef brain, boil and skim it well, then take it off; take the blossoms of mayweed and feather few, powder them fine and put them in the brain, stirring them in; thicken it with Indian meal until fit for use. Do not put it over the fire after the meal is put in.
Rheumatism.—One pint neats foot oil, middling beef’s gall, half pint French brandy and one gill spirits turpentine, simmered well together; when applied to the parts affected, those parts should be well heated by the fire to make it take affect.
Cholic.—Take one handful of hoarhound and one handful of oak of Jerusalem, boil them well until the liquor is reduced to two tablespoonful, then add one tablespoonful of molasses; simmer the whole together, and add one spoonful each of good spirits and spirits of turpentine; stir them well together. Take one teaspoonful three times a day.
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Opodeldock.—Take two and half pounds of alcohol, five drachms windsor soap, and four drachms camphor; digest in a glass vessel till the soap is dissolved; then add one ounce oil of sassafras, three ounces oil of lavender, half drachm each origanum and oil fir, four drachms alcohol and spirits ammonia; put into viol.
Compound Powders.—Of jalap, cream tartar and senna, take equal quantities of each. Dose—one drachm or sixty grains.
Soda Powders.—Forty grains tartaric acid, in powders, fifty grains super-carbonate soda, and eighty grains Rochelle salts.
Pain in the Legs.—Take oil origanum and make a strong tincture; then add as much fine salt as will dissolve; bathe with this evenings.
Another.—Oil origanum, sassafras and lavender; add ether to dissolve the oils.
Phthisic.—Take buds of mandrake, dry them thoroughly and pound them finely, then take the same quantity of ipecac, put it into vinegar or warm water, and take a tablespoonful at a time, until it operates; then take roots of mandrake, split, dry and powder them fine, also a handful of rock lungwort, dried and powdered, and a spoonful of red vain-dock and tamarack gum; put all into a quart of gin, and drink half a wine glass full three times a day.
To Warm the Blood.—Take of wild colts foot roots and tops, white wood bark and skunk cabbage roots, three table82spoonsful each, powdered, in one pint of gin and one pint of water; infuse three days, and take half a wine glass full four times a day.
Salt Rheum.—Take half pound litharge, one quart sharp vinegar, simmer over the fire till the litharge is dissolved; add one pound hog’s lard, tallow, fresh butter, and the fine dust of guiacum; apply a moderate heat till the vinegar is principally evaporated; stir till cold. Anoint the parts twice a day. This has cured very obstinate cases.
To Cleanse the Blood.—Sarsaparilla, burdock roots, lignumvitæ and spice bush, in tea or syrup, with tar ointment made with mutton tallow.
Indigestion.—Take one quart of Lisbon wine, put in four ounces of Peruvian bark, three ounces of steel dust and one ounce of ginger; take a wine glass full four times a day, morning, noon and night, half an hour before eating; after supper, put two teaspoonsful of magnesia in water, and take before going to bed; to relieve the wind in the stomach, take a teaspoonful of ether in cold water.
Distress in Stomach and Breast.—Inside bark of white pine and tamarac twigs of this year’s growth, a large handful of each, and two large wild turnips; boil in three quarts of water down to three pints; strain and add half a pound loaf sugar and half pint rum; bottle it close. Dose—half a gill three times a day, an hour before you eat.
Fits.—One drachm flowers of pine, one drachm extract of stramonium and fifteen grains assafœtida; make into pills the size of a pea. Take one every night.
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Diabetes.—Take equal parts of the roots of Solomon’s seal and comfrey roots, and half as much spikenard; boil twelve hours and sweeten with honey; take sufficient to nauseate the stomach, three times a day; use medical beer with plenty sumach roots in it. Wash the abdomen every day with a wash made of equal parts tincture cantharadus and cinnamon water, mixed.
Plaster.—Four ounces rosin, one ounce beeswax, half ounce each black and red pepper; put the whole into one pint of spirits, and simmer till it becomes thick; when nearly cold, add half ounce sassafras oil and half ounce gum camphor pulverized; spread on leather.
Asthma.—The vegetables which compose these drops, present themselves about the last of July or first of August, and should be procured at that time. Take half pound garden rue, one pound garden colt’s-foot, one pound tops and blows of purple vervain, half pound green tobacco leaves, half pound hyssop, one pound hoarhound, one pound arsmart, half pound oak Jerusalem, half pound elecampane roots and half pound sweet cicely roots.
Pound these ingredients in an iron mortar, boil them twelve hours, then throw out the roots and put half a pound rock weed, called spleenwort; then add four ounces stick licorice, two ounces seneca snake root and two ounces annis seed; boil down to one quart, then strain and boil down to one pint; add one ounce refined licorice, half pound loaf sugar, half pound of honey—bumble bee honey, if it can be procured. These drops must be corked tight in tin vessels; after fermentation, add an ounce of red cedar oil. Take one teaspoonful twice a day.
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For Relaxation of the Solids.—Take four drachms each of colt’s-foot and sweet cicely, three ounces hartshorn rasped, two drachms guaiacum, two drachms each comfrey, Solomon’s seal and spikenard roots, and one drachm elecampane; boil or simmer all in a suitable quantity of water to three pints; strain and add one pound of honey; simmer, stir and strain again; when cold, add a pint of Madeira wine and bottle for use. Dose—half a gill three times a day.
Syrup for Consumption.—Take spikenard, elecampane, comfrey and yellow willow root, put into a stone pot and cover; let it stand and steep twelve hours, then strain it and add loaf sugar and one pint wine to a quart. Take half gill three times a day.
Flax Seed Syrup.—Take one pint flax seed and a small handful spikenard; boil in about three parts water until it becomes quite thick, then strain it through a thin strainer; add half pint molasses or strained honey, put it on to simmer, and be particular to take off the scum. The flax seed and spikenard should be washed clean. Take two tablespoonsful on going to bed, one in the morning, fasting, and one a little before dinner.
Marks on Children.—Take one gill of rum, one gill port wine, one spoonful tar, one spoonful black pepper and a piece of mutton tallow; take a parsnip and pound so as to get the strength; simmer the whole together in fresh butter till the liquid part is evaporated; then strain the ointment and anoint the sore.
Cough Syrup.—Take tamarac twigs, inside bark of white pine, oak of Jerusalem, colts-foot, maiden hair and wild turnip; half gill three times a day.
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Stomach Plaster.—Four pounds beeswax, two pounds frankincense (gum therics), two and a half pounds burgundy pitch, two pounds rosin, one pound Venice turpentine, two and half ounces winter’s bark, two and half ounces oil spearmint, four ounces alspice, two and half ounces camphor, two and half ounces cloves, six ounces red sanders.
Weak Stomach.—Take half pound green bark balsam fir, one pound white pine bark, half pound bark sumach roots, two ounces garden sallindine, and a little milk weed roots; boil in four quarts of water down to two quarts, add one pint of good rum, and sweeten with honey or sugar; take half a gill three times a day, an hour before eating.
Pain in the Breast.—Take white pine, one ounce grated touch-wood, and put in one quart French brandy; quarter gill three times a day.
Make a tea of golden maiden hair for a common drink.
Strengthening Syrup.—Take white pine, pitch pine and balm of gilead buds; make a syrup. Dose—half gill three times a day; live upon a light, nourishing diet.
For Consumptive Females.—Take polly pod roots, boil them in water to suitable strength, then sweeten, and add one pint of sweet wine to one quart. Take half gill three times a day.
Take pepperage chips from the east side of the tree, and make a tea for a constant drink.
Catamenia.—Give a tea of lady shoe, and polly pod roots, for an obstructed catamenia.
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Fits.—Take wild indigo roots, make a poultice, and put on the stomach, hands and feet.
To Strengthen.—Take two ounces prickly ash bark and one ounce crawley, and make a syrup. Take half gill three times a day, fasting.
King’s Evil.—A tea of seneca would be good for the patient to drink frequently; for a bath, take white maple bark, boil it and wash the parts affected, and apply the bark as a poultice.
Female Debility.—To prevent raising her food after eating, give her trule root, pulverized, instead of pepper, and tea of the former roots, a little before eating.
Beer.—Take two parts sumach roots, four parts each sassafrass and black alder, two parts wild cherry and spice bush.
Chilblains.—Take off the dirt from an ant-hill; then take the dirt and ants’ eggs, put them into boiling water; draw off the water, and save a bottle of it, to drink two or three times a day, half a gill at a time; with the remainder wash the feet.
To Warm and Cleanse the Blood.—Take prickly ash berries, bark of white wood roots, brook lime, bark of bitter sweet roots and culver, and a little bloodroot.
Syrup for Consumption.—Take one pound bark bitter sweet roots, one pound sarsaparilla roots, one pound inside of black birch bark, one pound twigs of sweet fern, one pound prickly ash bark; put into six quarts water, boil it to four,87 and strain the liquor into a large pewter basin; add a quart of rum, one pound loaf sugar, and simmer till the scum is raised; skim it off, and put into bottles for use. Take half gill three times a day, an hour before eating.
Cholera Morbus.—Take one part alspice and two parts saffron, steep them together and drink often; sweeten with loaf sugar.
Salve—To remove swellings, weakness of back or joints, and sores. Take one pound rosin, two ounces beeswax, one ounce spermacetti, one ounce mutton tallow; melt and stir these together, raise to boiling heat, take it off the fire and stir again, adding as much good cogniac brandy as will work in; put this salve into a glass jar, cover with brandy, and cork it tight for use.
Felons—On the fingers, may be effectually cured, it is said, in three hours, by making a poultice the size of a small bean, of quick lime slacked with soap, bound on the spot and renewed every half hour.
Cold Feet.—Take one ounce and half common salt, put into one quart rum and add one ounce oil origanum; rub the feet well every night.
Female Weakness.—Take one ounce golden seal, half ounce tansy, half ounce motherwort seed, not quite half ounce golden thread, ounce beth root, one ounce white cohosh; put all into four quarts water, boil six minutes, keep warm seven hours, strain and let cool; add one quart Madeira wine, and drink a wine glass morning, noon, and before tea.
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Spirits of Lavender.—Take one ounce cinnamon, two drachms cloves, four drachms nutmeg and three drachms red saunders, to two quarts spirits, half ounce oil lavender, and four scruples oil rosemary.
Hysteric Pills.—Take one ounce hepetick, half ounce each aloes, New England saffron, and castor; powder and mix them well together, then add two ounces pitch pine turpentine; stir well together and it is fit for use.
Currant Wine.—Take one gallon of water for every gallon currants; press the currants and strain the liquor; add three pounds sugar to gallon liquor; let it stand in an open vessel while the scum is rising, then skim, put it up and cork tight. Two bushels of currants will make a barrel of wine.
Sarsaparilla Syrup.—Take one pound sarsaparilla, thirteen ounces princes pine, nine ounces yellow dock, two pounds poke root, two pounds black cohosh, two pounds mandrake, one ounce blood root, two pounds bitter sweet, two pounds juniper berries; boil and strain, and to every thirteen pints syrup, add three-fourth pound extract dandelion, one ounce extract white ash, one and half grains licorice to fifteen gallons syrup, and three pounds sugar to a gallon.
Diuretic Drops.—Two ounces of sweet spirits nitre, one ounce balsam copavia, two ounces oil almonds, one ounce spirits turpentine; mix together and add one scruple champagne. Dose—a small teaspoonful given in mucilage of gum Arabic, three or four times a day.
These drops are useful in scalding of urine, from syphilitic or other inflammations.
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Bloody Flux.—Take fresh butter, melt and skim curdy part; give two teaspoonsful two or three times a day.
Another.—Take three-fourths ounce old cheese, scrape it fine in a pint new milk, thickened with flour; let this be the diet; purge with rhubarb.
Plaster—To draw all humors to one place. Take two quarts strong beer, not sour, four ounces copperas, four ounces bole Armenia, six drachms Venice turpentine, and one pint tar; pulverize hard substances, and mix all in an iron vessel; simmer (not boil,) over a slow coal fire, stirring often, until it is reduced to one quart; take it from the fire, stirring it constantly while cooling; it will take from twelve to sixteen hours to prepare it.
Manner of Using.—Spread it on a piece of soft leather, two inches or more in diameter; put the plaster on when you want to draw the sore; dress it once in two days, until it begins to run, then dress every morning.
Manner of Dressing.—Take the plaster off, and scrape off the salve; wash the sore one morning with Castile soap, and the next morning with milk and water; remove all the old salve before putting on fresh.
Medicine Internally.—Make a tea of three pints water to one ounce mandrake root; when cold, add a quarter pound salts; take half tea cup on going to bed. Drink sarsaparilla and spotted maple tea; be careful not to overheat the blood.
Asparagus Roots.—An excellent ingredient in all compositions intended to cleanse the viscera, especially where there are obstructions, and in jaundice and dropsy, as it operates on the urine; it is likewise used in disorders of the breast.
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Sudorific Drops.—Two ounces ipecac, two ounces saffron, two ounces camphor, two ounces Virginia snake root, two ounces opium, three quarts Holland gin or spirits; let stand two weeks and strain. Dose—one teaspoonful in a cup of catnip or pennyroyal tea, given every hour. To raise perspiration in colds, fevers and inflammations, I know of no medicine so sure in its operation as this.
Madame Young’s Medica Mentum.—Half ounce of gum aloes, one ounce each of rhubarb and ginger, one teaspoonful myrrh and cayenne pepper, and one quart spirits; steep twenty-four hours, and add one teacup sugar and half pint water. Take one to two tablespoonsful an hour before eating. This is good for dyspepsia, or any derangement of the stomach.
Bowel Complaint.—One ounce rhubarb, one teaspoonful saleratus, and one pint boiling water; when cold, add two teaspoonsful essence peppermint; a tablespoonful to be taken every hour.
Sprains, Bruises, &c.—One pint soft soap, handful salt, and tablespoonful saltpetre; apply with bandage.
Neutralizing Cordial—Good for dysentery, cholera morbus and diarrhœa. Take one pound green peppermint, simmer in half gallon water and strain off; then take four ounces Turkey rhubarb, simmer into half a gallon water, till all the strength is out; then strain, add these two liquids together, with two ounces saleratus and three pounds loaf sugar; then boil all a few minutes, and when nearly cold, add half pint brandy. Dose, wine glass full.
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Elder Wine.—Take sixteen quarts of elder berries, clean from the stem, put with six gallons cold water in a large tub; let them stand two days, then boil them till the berries fall to the bottom; strain and squeeze, and to every gallon liquor add three pounds brown sugar; boil and add quarter pound bruised ginger, two ounces allspice, and cloves, if you like; when cold, add a little yeast; let it work two days, then cork bottle up tight.
Swellings.—Dogmacamus is good, scraped, for swellings; steep in milk and water.
Acid Cough Drops.—One pound sumach berries, four ounces elecampane, one ounce West Indian or African cayenne, one gallon vinegar; boil, strain and add three pounds honey, or double the quantity of molasses. If you add licorice, wild turnip, skunk cabbage, say two ounces, you will have a syrup that will cure sore throat, mouth or lungs. Take a tablespoonful when the cough is troublesome, or every two hours, gargling it in the throat, if sore.
Snuff.—For headache and catarrh: Take one pound yellow dock, half pound bayberry, four ounces elecampane, three ounces bloodroot and three ounces beth-root. Take a pinch occasionally, particularly on going to bed.
Vegetable Tooth Powder.—Equal parts bayberry bark, yellow oak bark, black alder bark, pulverized; add half a pound elecampane, quarter pound prickly ash bark, four ounces cloves. This will cure scurvy, and, if the teeth are sore and loose, it will cure and make them firm in a short time.
Nerve Drops.—One pint and half gin, half pint water, two ounces nerve powder, one ounce hops, pulverized, half92 ounce skunk cabbage; let this stand ten days, shaking it often; strain and let it settle. This will calm and strengthen the nervous system; whereas opium destroys every energy of the system, and makes it a complete wreck.
Anodyne Bathing Solution.—Two ounces camphor, six fluid drachms solution ammonia, and one pint essence lavender; mix the lavender with the ammonia, then put in camphor, and it is ready for use.
Ulcers or Bad Sores.—Boil one pound each vervain, yellow dock and sage, half pound cicuta leaves, in one gallon water; wet cloths in this, and let them lay on the sores; then dry and sprinkle with powdered bloodroot, mornings only. Make a strong tea of vervain, drink a teacupful three times a day, taking three or four of my bilious pills at night, for nine nights successively.
Iroquois Universal Ointment.—Take one pound tobacco leaves, bruise and steep twelve hours in one pint red wine; then add half pound fresh hog’s lard, simmer over a slow fire till the red wine is consumed; then add four ounces tobacco juice and two ounces rosin; simmer again till juice is evaporated, then add one ounce wild turnip, and rosin sufficient to make into an ointment. This is good for sores of every description, and a wound dressed with this will never putrefy; if you have pain in your head, anoint your temples; apply to the stomach and lungs, and no inflammation will settle there; anoint the bowels of children in case of worms or weakness. This ointment is, as I know, the best now in use, for sores, burns, ulcers, &c.
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Old Sores.—Pumpkin or carrot poultice is good for old sores; if they smell bad, sprinkle charcoal on the poultice; to prevent putrefaction, wash it twice a day in saltpeter water.
St. Anthony’s Fire.—Drink lemonade and tar water, warm, and wash in tar water.
Anti-Emetic Drops.—Take a teacup full of good cider vinegar; add a teaspoonful each of salt and cayenne pepper; give a teaspoonful every fifteen minutes. I never knew a case where but a half teaspoonful had not the desired effect. It is good in external application for rheumatism, bruises, headaches and sprains; for the latter, use hot.
Sorrel Extract.—If you wish to make sorrel extract, for burns or sores, gather it before the 20th June, press out the juice and dry on a pewter plate. This is the best way to make good extract.
To Cleanse the Blood and Strengthen the Liver.—Wide leaf dock, black alder bark and buds, burdock roots and leaves, sarsaparilla, striped maple, and half as much bloodroot;. a handful of each, to which add one gallon of water. Drink a teacup full three times a day, before eating.
Fevers.—Marigolds are good to put on the stomach, in all cases of fevers, inflammation, &c.
Goitre, or Adam’s Apple.—Take a teaspoonful nettle seed, pulverized, morning and noon; at night take a teaspoonful of a mixture of one ounce cream tartar, one ounce sulphur, and half ounce Turkey rhubarb. This is good for corpulent people and for spitting blood.
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Tonic.—Red rose willow is an excellent tonic.
Chronic Rheumatism.—Unicorn root (aletois farinasa), is good with prickly ash bark; add a small quantity bloodroot; it is necessary in some cases to add spirits, for flatulency, colic or hysterics. Take a teaspoonful in warm water.
Tincture of Soap Anodyne.—Take two ounces hard soap, shaved, one ounce opium, one ounce camphor, half ounce of rosemary, two pounds alcohol; let the soap and opium stand three days; shake often, then add the camphor and oil. This is good for sprains, and pains of all descriptions.
But one thing I would remark; that is, where opium is used frequently, it will debilitate; but from three to five times will not injure, but will allay pains for the time being.
Rheumatism.—Take one ounce mandrake, two ounces Epsom salts, put into one quart metheglin wine—wine glass twice a day; an anodyne at night, say a cup of strong hop tea; rub the parts affected with the following ointment: boil skunk cabbage in water, make a strong decoction, then add hog’s lard, simmer all the water away, and add sulphur. This is an excellent anti-rheumatic ointment. It must be rubbed near the fire.
For Humors.—Make a very strong decoction of boiled oats, to one pint of which add one ounce saltpeter; this is good for swellings. For carbuncles, mix equal parts of bloodroot, beth root and honey; purge with anti-bilious pills.
Rheumatism.—Take bark of sumach roots, and cayenne, if it can be borne by the patient; boil in rum and bathe the parts; take inwardly a strong decoction of prickly ash bark.95 I would recommend salt and vinegar, with cayenne, for bathing, but in most cases it must be hot, and applied with cloths.
Indian Turnip, or Wake Robin.—For chronic, deep-rooted rheumatism, pains, debilitated habits, loss of appetite, lowness of spirits, faintness, &c. Take three pounds fine Indian turnip and three pounds fine loaf sugar; mix them together in a mortar; there must be equal parts of each, well mixed. Take a teaspoonful three times a day, half hour before eating; it must be taken dry, if possible. Begin with half teaspoonful and increase to whole one.
Gravel.—Life root is good for the gravel.
Dropsy.—Wild lettuce is good for dropsy, ten or twelve grains a day; use white cohosh as drink, also cuckles seed mixed with juniper berries.
Gall, &c.—Low centuary, of all herbs, is one of the best for overflowing of the gall, and, in my opinion, is good in jaundice and all bilious complaints, and also in cleansing the blood from humors; it must be used plentifully and for some weeks.
Bloodroot.—This is good for the rattles; mix with honey and give a child five years old a teaspoonful.
Bone Ointment.—Equal parts small kind mullen, red clover tops, burdock burs, plantain, sweet alder bark, yarrow, black alder buds and tobacco; simmer down in hog’s lard and fresh butter. This ointment is likewise good for all kinds of sores.
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Sticking Salve.—Equal parts catnip tops, horsemint, sarsaparilla, striped (some call it soft) maple, spikenard, mouse wood, (this wood or tree grows bushy, and the wood is tender but the bark is tough; use the wood and bark,) comfrey, young mullen leaves, Solomon’s seal, yellow dock, princes pine, wormwood; boil down thick, then add one pound and four ounces mutton tallow; roll, and it is fit for use; all cuts and sores, with or without swellings, inflammations and wounds, this will cure, and no proud flesh will be created.
Balsam of Honey.—Take as much balsam of tolu as will dissolve in alcohol.
Oil Soap.—Take as much Castile soap as will dissolve in alcohol.
Salve for Scrofulous Sores.—Take turpentine, and half a pound bayberry, and tallow; dissolve and add sweet oil if necessary.
The best Salve I ever found, in all cases of humors, is composed of raw linseed oil, beeswax, and mutton tallow, for sore lips, and chapped hands; if the sore is very bad, sprinkle pulverized bloodroot on it every morning, then apply salve; a sore need not be washed but once a day, but dress it three times a day, if bad.
Ointment Pills.—Sweet fern, sweet apple-tree, rose leaves, cats foot, and cream; simmer on a slow fire. The best I ever found was composed of hog’s dung and lamp oil, simmered; a little beeswax will be good to keep it firm.
Hot Drops.—To one quart alcohol add one ounce hemlock oil, one ounce gum myrrh, two tablespoonsful cayenne; shake97 well twice a day for at least a week. This is good for rheumatism, pains in head and stomach. Take from ten drops to a teaspoonful, in sugar and water.
Tar Syrup.—One gill tar, one pint wheat bran, half pound loaf sugar, and two quarts water. Dose, wine glass full three times per day, for cough and consumptive complaints.
Rupture Plaster.—One part fresh buckthorn, bruised, and two parts fresh cranes bill; blend by bruising in a mortar; spread on leather and apply; wear a truss or bandage; this must be occasionally changed and worn three months.
Indian Turnip.—Pulverize it fine, two ounces loaf sugar or sugar candy, half ounce flour sulphur; mix and let the patient take a teaspoonful three times a day, dry, if possible, if not, in any vehicle the most palatable, molasses, &c. Use in all lingering, or beginning of pains of a consumptive nature, such as pain in the breast, weak appetite, and slow circulation of the blood; where there is any cough, whether loose or tight, add half ounce pulverized bloodroot. I can testify by experience that this is good, not only for the young, but particularly for the aged, it is better than all the tinctures in the world, as it creates action and warms the blood. Either of the ingredients can be omitted, if disagreeable.
For Consumptive Persons.—Two ounces aven root, half ounce wild turnip, one skunk cabbage ball, masterwort and ginseng, half ounce each, and one ounce sugar candy; mix one tablespoonful, and boil in one quart water; add one pint new milk; two teacupsful of this chocolate to be taken night and morning; bathe with cold or tepid water every morning, if the patient can bear it; walking is the best exercise.
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Cancers.—A cancer under the eye was cured by the patient drinking one quart of tar water daily, and apply a plaster and mutton tallow, melted together; this cured a cancer of twenty years standing, in two months; mix black pepper, burnt alum, and honey, equal parts, and use as an ointment; the last I would not recommend to be used but a few times—rather use bloodroot, daily.
Dysentery, or Relax in Children.—Take equal parts good vinegar and hens’ eggs, and beat them well together; mix in wheat flour, stiff as common dough; bake this moderately, then pulverize; give one teaspoonful of the powder three times a day; mix with the above powder, hens’ gizzards, pulverized.
Bathing with Ox Gall.—In gout or pains, heat a shovel, mix a little vinegar and pour on; bathe the parts affected with the steam. In all pains, never use any local application, without taking some warming medicine internally, if but a little red pepper; it is not essential to give alcohol in any form; a little carminative, such as pulverized mandrakes, or angelica seed, ought always to be on hand.
Anti-Bilious Powders.—One pound jalap, two pounds Alexandria senna, one pound peppermint; let these all be pulverized, then mix, after sifting fine; for a grown person, a teaspoonful in a cup full of boiling water; then cool, sweeten it and drink; no harm if two teaspoonsful are taken. I would advise the patient to take three anti-bilious pills the night previous. This medicine can be taken at all times.
To Promote the Growth of the Hair.—Mix equal parts olive oil, spirits rosemary, and bloodroot.
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Weakness.—Acorns are good for weaknesses; make into coffee.
Anti-Scrofulous Plaster.—One gill tar, two yolks eggs roasted inside, and one puff ball; simmer over a slow fire, spread on thin leather, and apply.
Ulcer on the Leg.—Wash the ulcer twice a day, night and morning, with one pint of weak lime water, and apply a poultice over the sore, twice a day, made of blood root and beth root, finely pulverized and mixed with honey; in case the leg is swelled, apply a poultice of slippery elm bark, every night.
Give a wine glass full of my cleansing syrup, morning, noon and at bed time, and drink, as a common beverage, the following: take a handful each of cherry bark and princes pine, put them into two quarts boiling water, and let it steep well; then strain. Abstain from spirituous liquors and salt meats.
Cancer.—Take the powder of dry yellow dock root, wet with port wine and put it on the cancer, renewing it three times a day; make your daily drink a decoction of one handful of yellow dock root, bruised, and a handful of the bark or buds of black alder, boiled in four quarts of rain water to the consumption of two quarts.
Prolapsus Uteri.—Take one ounce each of white oak bark, beth root, crowfoot roots, and rose leaves; boil the whole in four quarts of water, down to two; strain the decoction, to which add a pint of port wine, and two ounces of powdered alum, while it is warm. The patient must first take a dose of castor oil, and, after its operation, must foment the part four or five times a day, with a flannel dipped in the100 decoction as warm as it can be held in the hand. In order to prevent a relapse, the patient must wet the parts twice a day with warm water, in which a spoonful of salt has been dissolved, and keep the bowels open by a dose of castor oil once a week, using salt water bath twice a week.
Rupture of the Testicles.—Three years ago, a Canadian, who had been laboring under a large swelling of the testicles, and been given up as incurable, made application to me. The surgeons had held consultation over him, and agreed that he must be castrated, but he would not comply. Upon examination, I found it to be a sarcocele, or fleshy tumor of the testicles, and therefore resolved to attempt the cure by discutients. I first cleansed and purified the blood from humors and mercury, and applied the following cataplasm, or poultice, over the scrotum: take every-night two handsful of goose-grass, or cleavers, in two quarts of cider vinegar; foment the swelling with flannel wet in the vinegar, for the space of fifteen minutes, then bind the leaves over the tumor. Anoint it frequently, every day, with the following ointment: take the scrapings of a powder horn, and the inner bark of rose willow, pound it fine, and wet it well with brandy; apply through the day.
Hives in Children.—Dissolve twenty grains of bitter root in six teaspoonsful of warm water, and give the child, according to age—from six months to a year old, one to two teaspoonsful of the infusion; if it does not operate in fifteen minutes, give the child a little warm camomile tea, in order to cleanse the stomach; after the operation, give it, according to age, a little poppies of syrup, in catnip tea. Give the child, until well, the following: take one ounce of drago101n’s claw root, ten grains of bitter root, and a quarter of an ounce of mandrake root; pour on all these one quart of boiling water, and let them steep four hours; stir frequently, then strain; give from a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful every four hours, until well; give always according to age.
Syrup for Worms.—Take six ounces of fresh bark of black alder, eight ounces of dry buck-horn plantain, and three ounces of unicorn root; boil the ingredients in four quarts of water, down to two; strain the decoction, to which add two quarts of molasses, and boil it away to the consistency of syrup. Children from two to four years of age, may take from three to four teaspoonsful of the syrup, morning and evening, for three days before both the full and change of the moon, which will carry away the worms, and stop the fever. Adults may take a wine glass full, morning and evening, for three days respectively, before both the full and change of the moon.
To Create an Appetite.—Dissolve two tablespoonsful of bay salt in half pint of warm rain water, and add one ounce of rectified spirits of salts. Dose—a teaspoonful, in a wine glass of cold water, before breakfast and dinner. This will excite the appetite, without vomiting, and increase the urinary discharge.
To Cleanse the Blood from Mercury.—Put four ounces, of the powdered root of may apple into one gallon of metheglin; dissolve four ounces of Epsom salts in a quart of the liquor, made warm, and mix all together; shake the vessel frequently, and let it stand for a week. The patient may take a wine glass full of the above liquor, once or twice a day, according to its effects.
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Take the leaves and roots of skunk cabbage, of each eight ounces, bruise in a mortar, and boil them in two pounds of hog’s lard, for four hours; then press it through a hair sieve or canvas, and mix in it one ounce of pulverized roll brimstone. The parts affected must be rubbed with this ointment, before the fire, for ten minutes every night and morning, and covered with flannel, using the warm bath twice a week, in the spring of the year. After all the pains are removed, the patient may use tonic medicines, such as fine Columbia root, and ten grains of the rust of iron, three times a day. Use the salt water bath twice a week, in the months of June and July, and have moderate exercise on horse-back, in order to brace the solids.
Ointment.—Take pitch pine knots, and saw them into dust; then boil the dust in water; when well boiled, skim off the turpentine, and strain the water; then put in equal parts of rue, saffron, sage and camomile; boil the strength out, strain the liquid, and put in fresh butter.
Black Jaundice.—Take a handful of the leaves of artichoke, bruise, put them in an earthen pot, and pour three pints of good ale on them; set the pot near the fire, for two days; strain the liquor, to which add a quart of Tenerife wine. The patient, if costive, must take a wine glass of this syrup every morning, for nine mornings, first taking a dose of anti-bilious pills.
Seven Years’ Itch.—Take four ounces each of white hellebore and yellow sharp pointed dock root, and two ounces of elecampane root; bruise them in a mortar, and boil them in four quarts of water, down to two; strain the decoction,103 and while warm, dissolve one ounce of cura sal-amoniac in the wash; wet the parts with a linen rag, dipped in the lotion, every night at bed time, and take a teaspoonful of cream of tartar and flour of sulphur, in molasses, twice a day for three days, by which time the itch will be cured. This is a more cleanly method than using greasy ointments, and is an infallible and safe cure. Put on clean linen and sheets the fourth night, to prevent a relapse.
Corns on Feet.—To keep the feet in proper condition, they should be frequently soaked and well washed; at these times, the nails of the toes should be pared, and prevented from growing into the flesh. Corns are the most troublesome evils connected with the feet; they are of two kinds, soft and hard. The soft corns are those which grow between the toes; they may be easily removed by applying ivy leaf, steeped in vinegar; if the corn be very painful, change the ivy leaves every morning; the leaf may be steeped for one or two days before using.
Pleurisy.—Drink freely of soot tea, half a pint of hot tar water every hour, or a strong tea of nettles, and the leaves pounded and applied as a poultice, every day; at night, apply the white of an egg, mixed with sulphur.
Weakness.—Half pound spikenard root, half pound Solomon’s seal, quarter pound tamarac bark, and quarter pound lungwort; boil in one gallon rain water ten minutes, then let them steep six hours; strain, and add half pound loaf sugar and half pint best Holland gin. Take a wine glass full three times a day.
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Loss of Appetite and Debility.—Take one pint of white pine bark, tamarac bark, and spikenard root, and one ounce spruce gum; boil all together in three quarts and a half rain water, fifteen minutes, then strain and add half pint molasses; boil six minutes, then let it cool. Drink half a teacup full morning and evening; if there is no heat, add half pint best brandy.
Small Pox.—Make a warm tea of saffron and catnip, and give the patient; immerse the feet in weak ley, and wash the body or surface three times a day.
Give also the follow ing: take one ounce mandrake, ten grains bitter root, four grains blood root, ten grains sassafras bark, and half ounce Turkey rhubarb; put all into one quart boiling water, and let them steep four hours; stir frequently, then strain. Give a child one year old, a teaspoonful four or five times a day—to others, according to age and constitution.
Bathe the head with tepid vinegar and water; if the throat is sore, gargle with sage and hyssop, sweetened with honey; when excessive restlessness prevents the rising and filling of the pox, give a teaspoonful of the syrup of poppies, in a little catnip tea, every five or six hours; and if purple spots appear among the pox, give yeast inwardly, and apply strong poultices to the feet.
Cough or Whooping Cough.—Take one ounce each colt foot, St. John’s wort, spikenard, elecampane root, and mullen leaves; let them boil half an hour slowly, then add half an ounce Indian physic, or American ipecacuanha, pulverized; stir often, and steep for four hours; then squeeze, strain, and add one pint of pure honey. Give as often as required, from105 a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful. It will loosen the phlegm and heal the lungs, is very sudorific, and good for all coughs or colds.
Injections.—Take weak thoroughwort tea, one pint milk, half pint molasses, and half a wine glass full oil—olive oil is generally used, but hen’s oil is equally as good; for a child, use less. This is excellent in fevers, inflammations, &c.
Asthma.—Ether, tincture of castor, and opium, equal parts; mix all together, and take a teaspoonful when the symptoms appear, as often as required.
Pleurisy.—Drink freely of wind root (otherwise called lung root or pleurisy root), and make a syrup of the following: take one ounce each wild cherry bark, white ash bark, poplar bark and red ozier bark, and half ounce each culver root, sassafras bark and mandrake root; put all in three quarts warm water, boil ten minutes, then steep three hours; strain, and bottle. Drink a wine glass full mornings, and half a teacupful at bed time.
Spitting Blood.—Take four ounces fresh comfrey root, the same quantity fresh burdock root, two ounces red willow bark, one ounce parsley, and two ounces yarrow tops; boil these ingredients in four quarts water and one quart new milk, to the consumption of three quarts; strain it, and take one gill of this decoction, well sweetened with loaf sugar, three times a day.
It is also beneficial in curing the fluor albus, or whites, in weakly females. The root of comfrey is good for all fluxes, and a bad smell in urine. Take four ounces comfrey, and106 one ounce tormentil root, boil them in two quarts and a half water, ten minutes; then strain, and add a gill of best brandy and half pound loaf sugar. A gill or a common teacup full may be taken by an adult, night and morning, or as often as necessary; a child may take a tablespoonful, as often as required.
Salt Rheum.—Take a large handful plain or white clover, red clover, and common plantain; put them in two quarts of urine and one quart of beef brine, for six hours—let them be only warm, not hot; then squeeze them well, strain and put up for use. Wash the parts affected night and day, with a clean linen rag; drink freely of fishes mouth, or what is called balmony, and take, twice a week, one teaspoonful of powdered mandrake root, at bed time.
Epileptic Fits, or Hysterical Affections.—Take ladies’ smock, dry the leaves, and keep them in a bottle; when wanted, take a teaspoonful of the leaves, and steep in a half teacup boiling water. Give, when required, as often as necessary.
After Pains in Child Birth.—To relieve them, take a tablespoonful of Epsom salts, and put it in half a pint hot water; take half of it, and in the course of two hours take the remainder, if the patient is very costive, if not, take less; then take a teaspoonful of devil’s bit (otherwise called blazing star root), in a little weak tanzy tea; if faint, put in it some gin or brandy. You can administer this dose every three hours, if required. It seldom fails of giving instant relief and is an excellent gargle for a sore mouth, sore throat, or scrofula.
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Pregnant Ladies.—Take one quart of butternuts, when green and so soft that you can run a needle into them, one ounce ginger root, and three pints molasses; boil them at least half an hour, slowly. Take one three times a week, and drink frequently of slippery elm bark, steeped in water. If this is unpleasant, put in a few sumach berries, a little black birch bark, or a small quantity of tanzy, merely to give a flavor.
To Remove a Film on the Eye.—Take equal quantities fresh celendine and ground ivy juice, and set it on warm ashes, in a tin vessel, for an hour; strain the sediment from the clear juice; take a gill of this, and put in half a teaspoonful of best loaf sugar; bottle it, and wet the spot several times a day.
Another.—Take the gall of an eel, and drop a little in the eye three times a week; then put in one drop of olive oil, to heal the eye. It has cured, when all other remedies had failed.
Wild Cucumber.—This is a forest tree, similar to the poplar; you will often find them from seventy to eighty feet high. There are other species of the cucumber which are evergreen, but the leaves of this are deciduous, oval, acuminate, and pubescent beneath. It produces a fruit bearing some resemblance, while green, to a small cucumber; in August, the fruit turns to a deep red color, and opens; the seeds are red, and the size of a kernel of corn; they have a bitter taste, and are quite pungent.
I have used them extensively, and consider them very valuable in certain forms of diseases, especially where there is a phlegmatic temperament, or a general relaxed state of the108 system. In dropsical affections, I have found the cucumber to be a superior remedy. The bark of the trunk and root, is also very valuable; it is somewhat similar to the poplar, yet it is more diuretic and stimulating; it is good in dyspepsia, or where we want a remedy to increase the tone of the stomach. I have known and cured many cases of anasarca, and yellow fever.
Make a tincture of the seeds or bark, and take half a wine glass full mornings, before dinner, and at bed time. This will cure the chronic rheumatism. I can safely say it is a very valuable medicine in all families, as it possesses tonic, stimulant, and diuretic properties.
For Dropsical Patients—a teaspoonful of the powdered bark or seeds, mixed with honey, and taken mornings and at bed time, will produce a cure. Drink plentifully of dwarf elder bark tea, as a common beverage.
Family Pills.—Take four ounces black root, and half an ounce each cayenne and mandrake root, pulverized; make an extract of these together by moderate warmth, straining during the time of preparing, and bring the substance to the consistency of tar; then add equal parts of pulverized gum gamboge, and natural extract of lobelia—one tenth as much as there is of the above compound extract. Previous to making into pills, work into the mass seven drops of oil of spearmint; then form your pills with magnesia, to the size of a pea. Take from one to four or five, night and morning. It would be well to take them nine days in succession, beginning with less, and increasing if necessary. They can be relied on, and are excellent to take in the spring and autumn.
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St. Anthony’s Fire, or Canker Sore Throat.—Take eight ounces of beech drops, put them into four quarts cold water, boil down to two quarts and sweeten with loaf sugar; after proper evacuations, patients subject to the rose or erysipelas, may take a teacup full of this, four times a day; apply clean linen rags, wet with the decoction not sweetened, over the inflamed parts, until perfectly well. Do not take the above when your courses are flowing, or when you expect them. The above is an excellent wash for children that are chafed, either in the neck or groins; wash the parts affected as often as necessary, using a clean cloth; the cleaner the cloth you wash any sore with, the sooner it will heal; never use the same cloth on any sore twice; it ought to be instantly washed in clean water, before using the second time.
Carbuncles.—Take equal parts beth root and blood root, powdered fine and mixed with honey; bind it over the carbuncle, and renew it every two hours. Make a purge of the following: take a handful each of thoroughwort, tanzy, and tamarack bark, one ounce culver root, half ounce mandrake, ten grains sassafras bark, and half ounce angelica seed; put all together in three quarts cold water; boil seven minutes, and keep hot nine hours. Take from half a wine glass full to a whole one, three times a day. Drink, as a common beverage, a strong tea of princes pine, or red ozier.
Emetic.—Take a large handful leaves and blows of thoroughwort, (called by some boneset,) put them into one quart boiling water, and let them stand near the fire three hours; then stir, and strain off. Give the patient one gill, as hot as it can be drank, and if it does not operate in half an hour, give another, or half the quantity; drink every morning, a110 wine glass of the remainder cold, as it is a tonic in all cases of general debility.
Deafness.—Take a beaver’s tail, roast it, squeeze out the oil and apply on cotton. Or, roast a turnip in ashes, squeeze out the juice, and put four drops, twice a week, into the ear. Take cleansing syrup daily.
Cathartic for Fevers.—Take half ounce American ipecacuanha, three ounces culver root, three ounces snake root, sliced and bruised, and one quart good old rum; keep them in a covered earthen vessel by the fire, for five days, and then strain the tincture for use. Dose—a tablespoonful twice a day.
As a diaphoretic, in low stages of fever, and in confluent small pox, when sores appear gangrene, and the powers of life seem sunk, take the following mixture: four drachms of bruised snake root, one pint boiling water, two drachms tincture snake root, four drachms syrup of ginger. Dose—two tablespoonsful, to be taken every three hours, in the above complaint.
Lumbago.—Take one pound of fresh brake root, or female fern, one ounce sumach root, cut fine, half ounce culver root, half ounce mandrake root, and half ounce angelica seed; boil them in two quarts whiskey, until they become slimy; then dip cloths in and bind on. Take a tablespoonful nights, inwardly, and half a wine glass full mornings. Repeat the application on the spine, very frequently.
Rickets in Children.—Take one ounce of brake root, or female fern, cut fine, and pour one quart of boiling water on111 it; sweeten it, and give the child a teacup full four times a day; if the child is too young to take this dose, give less, according to age. At the same time, use the decoction in rum, for bathing the spine and limbs of the child; it would be well to bathe the child in a spring, every morning in summer.
Scrofulous Swellings.—Take the inner bark of bayberry bush, pound it soft, and apply it over the swellings and sores, nights and mornings. Drink a strong tea made of bayberry leaves—a teacup full four times a day.
Wind, or Cholic.—Take one ounce of bayberry berries, bruise them well, and half ounce masterwort seed, well pulverized or bruised; infuse them in three pints of best cogniac brandy for a week, and shake the bottle frequently. Take a half wine glass full in the same quantity warm water, twice a day, on an empty stomach; if necessary, take it three times a day.
Indian Remedy for Fevers.—I find the Indians more incident to fevers, than any other disease, and they rarely fail to cure themselves, by sweating, and then plunging themselves into cold water, which, they say, is the only way not to catch cold. I once saw an instance of this kind. Being in search of a particular root, at the Lake of the Two Mountains, about thirty miles from Montreal, I called on an Indian chief, and found him ill of a fever; his head and limbs were apparently much affected with pain; his wife was preparing a bagnio, or bath, for him. The bagnio resembled a large oven, into which he crept by a door; on the side opposite the door was a hole, in which she put hot stones. She fastened the hole up as closely as possible, to prevent the least air entering therein.112 While he was sweating in his bagnio, his wife was preparing his road to the lake. This was in August, 1835—a very cold season; in less than half an hour, he was in so great a sweat that when he came out, he was as wet as if he had come out of a river, and the steam from his body was so thick, that it was hard to discern his form or face, although I stood near him. In this condition, naked, a body cloth only excepted, he ran to the river, about thirty paces distant, ducked himself two or three times, and returned, passing through his bagnio, to mitigate the severe shock of the cold, to his own house, perhaps twenty paces further, and, wrapping himself in his woolen mantle, lay down at full length near a long, but gentle fire in the middle of his wigwam—turning himself several times, till dry; he then arose, and began getting dinner ready for us, seeming to be as easy and as well as either of us.
The squaws wash their new-born babes in cold water, as soon as they are delivered, often repeating the same healthy operation. I have recommended cold water to a number of weak females, during pregnancy, and they have borne up with a vigor scarcely less wonderful than that of the Indian woman.
Hardihood of Indian Women.—The great power of endurance which the Indian woman of the forest, uncontaminated by the blighting influence which civilization often introduces among them, many have noticed. Every one has read the account of their remarkable health, during pregnancy and child-birth. Washington Irving, in his “Astoria,” in giving an account of a journey, through the dreary deserts lying between the Snake and Columbia Rivers, says: [Pg 113]
“And here we cannot but notice the wonderful patience, perseverance, and hardihood of the Indian woman, as exemplified in the conduct of the poor squaw of the interpreter. She was now far advanced in pregnancy, and had two children to take care of—one four, and the other two years of age. The latter, of course, she frequently had to carry on her back, in addition to the burdens usually imposed upon the squaw; yet she had borne all her hardships without a murmur, and throughout this weary and painful journey, had kept pace with the best pedestrians. Indeed, on various occasions, in the course of this enterprise, she displayed a force of character that won the respect and applause of the white man.”
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To my Beloved Sex:—
SEEING so many of you daily imposed upon by those who profess to be acquainted with prolapsus uteri, or falling of the womb, and knowing that two-thirds of the married ladies are very ignorant, as regards the structure of their own bodies, and therefore the more easily imposed upon, I will endeavor to give a full description and explanation of the living animal, which we call physiology. It is a beautiful study, and we read of King David’s admiration, after viewing the structure of his own body; he exclaims in rapture, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” I am sorry this important study is excluded from our schools. The reader may ask—what are the component parts of the living animal, the heart, brain, eyes, ears, muscles, bones, and the many other parts—how do they act, and what are their uses?
The chest is formed by the back bone behind, the breast bone in front, and the ribs, which go from the back bone to the breast bone. Seven of the ribs are long, and five short;116 the five lower are the short ribs, and they are united to the breast bone by an elastic cartilage; by this construction, the chest is made flexible.
Now that I have explained the formation of the lungs, we will look in and see what it contains—the lungs and heart.
The lungs are wedge-shaped—the small ends being up under the collar bone, while the base, or larger part, is at the bottom, turned down heavily in the midriff. The lungs are attached to the wind-pipe, and larger air vessels and blood vessels, these likewise being connected to the back bone with cartilages. The lungs float downward into the midriff, and against the ribs or the side of the chest, every time the air is drawn into the chest. They are divided into two parts, on each side of the chest, something like a sponge, full of cells; the most correct resemblance of these cells, or vacancies, would be, in my opinion, a thick branch of some shrub, very full of the minutest berries you can conceive of, and without leaves; you must imagine the shrub as hollow, through all its branches and twigs, until quite into the cells; then cut the extremity of all the twigs, until you bring it to a wedge shape, and weave something like a spider web, to cover the cells, so that nothing but the air or blood can pass through, to be renewed.
The heart is in front, between the two tubes of the lungs. It is likewise wedge-shaped, the base, or larger end being up, while the small end points downward, slanting into the left chest; it occupies one-third more room in the left chest than in the right, measuring from the centre of the breast bone, under which the heart is placed, towards the middle of the breast bone.
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This important organ is little known, and I wish to explain its offices and revolutions, in a comprehensive manner, that all may understand it.
We have three different kinds of blood vessels; the largest vein is called vena cavæ; the smaller veins are called capillaries and arteries; every time you prick yourself, you open a capillary vein. On the right side is the vena cavæ, one part descending and the other ascending, but both meeting on the right side; this brings all the contaminated blood from all parts of the body; from thence it empties into the right ventricle, then to the right auricle, pushes on to the pulmonary artery, through the lungs, to be purified, returns with velocity to the left auricle, and then to the left ventricle. There are thousands and tens of thousands little arteries, that carry the blood to all parts of the body.
I will quote a report from Dr. Edwards. He had been speaking of the wonderful distribution of the blood, in the little arteries, when he added:
“Along on the lines of these little tubes or canals, (the arteries,) through which the blood with all its treasures flows, God has provided a vast multitude of little organs, or waiters, whose office is each one to take out of the blood, as it comes along, that kind and quantity of nourishment which it needs, for its own support, and also for the support of that part of the body which is committed particularly to its care. And, although exceedingly minute and delicate, they are endowed by their Creator with the wonderful power of doing this, and also of abstaining from, or of expelling and throwing back into the common mass, what is unsuitable, or what they do not want, to be carried to some other place where it may be118 needed; or, if it is not needed anywhere, and is good for nothing, to be thrown out of the body as a nuisance.
“Now let us follow these little organs, as they fly upward, to carry support to the hair, to make it grow. But, as they proceed upward, the ears will want serum—the eyes will want something for the eye-balls, and the organs about the eye will take that and work it up into the eyes, and cause them to grow; then proceed on to your joints, and along the bones, muscles and nerves; the joints want strength—it is a fluid called synovia, in physiology; then proceed to your finger nails.”
So you see the whole system is supported by the blood; all these vessels or supports go to every organ in the body, and are called secretions; if these secretions are obstructed by disease, they cannot perform their regular routine, or office, and the parts will gradually become infirm. The blood carries little atoms, or particles, to make all parts of the body grow, and which, you may perceive, are necessary to replace the atoms which are worn off by friction, in our motion, as there is a constant waste in every part of the body, or system.
Now let me return to the heart. It is not larger than a man’s fist, and is strong and muscular. It is, as I said before, situated slanting, or obliquely; both sides of the heart fill in the same instant, and then contract, shrink, and compresses, with as much force as a strong man could press it with his hand. Such is the admirable circulation of the blood, that this revolution goes regular, one hundred thousand times in twenty-four hours.
How can we but admire the creation of such a beautiful machine! Then consider how much resistance this poor119 heart has to overcome, in sending blood to all parts of the body, and the many obstructions in its way, which causes it to stop its motion, or it will quiver and throb, according as it is repulsed by those obstructions. How many there are who say, “My heart is diseased—the physician says so.” Now, my friends, not in one case of ten is the heart diseased; but it is obstructed in its revolutions, by not being able to send the blood through these little vessels, to all parts of the body; they are crooked, and the least impediment must necessarily cause agitation, or stop this great propeller.
There is a strong partition between the right and left sides of the heart, so that the right auricle and right ventricle, with their blood, brought back from the veins, can have nothing to do with the blood in the left auricle and left ventricle; it is, indeed, as if there were two hearts, placed side by side, and pressed closely together. We know not how the heart is kept in motion, nor can the wisest anatomist or physiologist in the world tell us; we know that the lungs have something to do in the case, and, when once set a-going, we can form some idea of what keeps it in motion—but, after all, the real causes of the continued movement of either the heart or lungs, has ever been a great mystery, and may possibly always remain so.
Our bones, nerves, and muscles receive life and nourishment from the blood; then how necessary it should be pure and clean. As the blood is made from our food, we should be careful as to the quality and quantity, eating only what is conducive to health, which surely will promote happiness. Strong spices, hot bread, rich pies and cakes, salt pork and beef, are injurious eating at all hours of the day, especially at bed time, and is contrary to the laws of nature. Some may120 laugh, and say, “Why, I eat half a mince pie, and half a dozen pickles, every night, and yet I am well.” You may tantalize your digestive organs for a while, but remember, your gratifying your unnatural appetite, will be repaid by years of pain and distress. Be rational beings; eat to live, and not live to eat.
Mothers, as a general thing, feed their children too often; even if you nourish your child with the breast, it should be regular—not twenty times a day, and all night. This is very wrong; you bring your little ones up gluttons, and, as soon as they are weaned, they will be continually crying for something to eat—never satisfied. Always be regular in eating your own meals, and giving the same to your children, if you wish them to be healthy; as a general rule, give them food according to your own judgment—not too much. I think many a poor child has been murdered, by an over fond mother giving it all it wanted, and not using that judgment which was required, because the child cried. O! mothers, be firm, wise, and prudent, in raising those tender plants; remember, if the digestive organs are too weak, the child will fall into fits. Let a child eat mashed potatoes; all vegetables are better, and give more nourishment, than cakes and pies; a little lean meat, is healthy for a child. In our food, we all want a change; but let all be well cooked, well baked, and plainly seasoned.
Now let me go back, and say a little in regard to the nerves and bones. The nerves derive their support from the blood, but not entirely, for the nerves may be weakened by other causes; still they depend on the blood, in a measure, for support. For instance, a lady may fall and break her back bone, or spine; now this is the seat of the nerves; they all branch121 out from the spine, and, of course, all the nerves are affected; perhaps the pain would be most severe at the extremity of the nerves. Many able and eminent physicians have been baffled, in procuring ease to their patients, as there was no pain where the parts were injured, but at the extremity of the nerves.
The digestive organs depend entirely upon the nerves for support; therefore, never irritate the spine by blistering, as it injures every nerve. Everything that is applied to the spine—plasters, bathing, or drops, should be of a cooling nature, and at the same time strengthening, and never irritating, as it only makes you worse; I never saw any good effect derived from it. If you want to irritate, draw from the spine, by putting blisters on the thighs or legs, not to the spine or head; let your motive be, in all cases, to draw downward.
How do the joints derive support from the blood? It is the secretion we call in physiology, synovia. It serves the same purpose as the grease which men use for wheels, to prevent their making a noise; so, when this secretion is obstructed, or the circulation irregular, the ligaments and muscles find no support, and consequently they become stiff and inactive; call it rheumatism, if you like, or weak joints. Sometimes the bones become crooked and deformed, which is often caused by mercury, or by scrofula, which creates heat, and absorbs all the nourishment from them. Sometimes the muscles become stiff; in all such cases, cleanse the blood, and rub in hemlock tincture; you will find, in this book, very good bathing drops.
Now that I have explained the circulation of the blood, and showed you the contents of the chest, I will proceed to the122 midriff. The contents of the chest are separated from the abdomen, by a floating curtain, called the midriff, or diaphragm. The midriff is the floor of the lungs; the right and left portions are loose, and float upward into the chest every time we breathe out the air in the chest; on breathing, or drawing in the air, the midriff of a person in health, forms a floor to the lungs and heart, and it descends until it is drawn tight, flat and stiff, across the body. The arrangement of the midriff is such, as always to form a strong support to the heart and lungs, as it floats below the lungs, every time we empty the air out from the chest.
The midriff is united, or fastened to the back bone, breast bone, and the middle of the ribs; therefore, we say the right and left portions float upward into the chest. How often is this part strained, and then called consumption! I allow there may be a cough, and tightness across the chest; but the real cause is, the lungs have lost their support, and consequently they wither and decay, unless you can strengthen the floor or support, that is, the ligaments; the symptoms are, you are unable to draw a long breath; if you go up stairs, your breath becomes short.
How many of you have had relations or some female friend, whom you considered near dying of consumption, but fortunately became pregnant; and she, to your astonishment, enjoyed better health than for years previous. But how could it be so? Why, this is the cause: as soon as the fœtus rose from the vagina, it supported the midriff, and pushed up the floor of the lungs, and the poor patient found instant relief; she could breathe freely, could walk easily, her cough ceased, and her sleep was calm. But alas! as soon as parturition takes place, her symptoms all return, and, as no one understands her case, she must die, through ignorance.
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Young men very often sprain their midriff, by lifting, or in wrestling, and frequently die of consumption, when, by a little care and judicious treatment, they might be saved. In the first place, your lungs hang on your wind-pipe, air vessels, and blood vessels; now, if so, they want a support, and the midriff is this support; but if it is gone, do not be surprised if you decap a blood vessel, and thereby spit blood from that cause; but be not frightened to death by this, as it will, in many cases, relieve you and be beneficial in the end.
The gullet is the food pipe; it passes through the chest, from the back part of the mouth, along the back bone; its shape is tolerably regular, until it passes the contents of the chest; then it opens into a spacious apartment, called the stomach; it lies across the body, leaning to the left side; it is more like a bag, than anything I can describe; it is very close to the diaphragm, and one would suppose the diaphragm rested on it. The stomach of an adult, will hold from one to three pints.
This is the largest gland in the human body. It lies on the right side, under the right breast; the gall bladder is attached to the liver, and there is also a communication with the stomach; the gall bladder is the size of your thumb, and is called secretion, or bile; if we have too much, it overflows, and causes jaundice, sick headache, gall-stones, and many other diseases, which cannot be cured, unless you commence by cleansing your blood. As the liver is a gland it can be124 diseased in various ways; it can be ulcerated, and may contain grubs, or worms.
This contains the intestines, and commences from the stomach; that part the ancients used to call the second stomach, is now termed duodenum; this turns downward and backward, toward the right side, there it turns again to the left, and I may say, zig-zags, until it joins the larger intestines; both ends of the large intestines, are tied to the back bone, to keep them from floating; the lower end passes through the basket of the hips, to the end of the back bone, to keep it in its right place; this forms the back passage, and the end of the back bone is called the rectum. The bowels move; and if so, how often you injure yourself by not obeying the calls of nature to evacuate them; you put it off to some more convenient time; but nature will not be baffled with impunity—you must suffer for your omission the next day, or day after; the head is afflicted, and you go to your closet, force and strain to accomplish what you refused nature at the suitable time; as the intestines float, will you not cause debility and disease? Yes, surely you will; then, of course, you have recourse to physic, and this makes you worse, as the intestines become coated. Now for the results; as I said before, the large intestines pass through the basket of the hips; they are straight along the bone, when in a healthy condition, but by this forcing and straining, they become drawn down, in a wrinkled condition, and there is no action; thence arises costiveness, constipation, piles, ulcers, fistulas, and numerous other diseases, which assail these parts, through neglecting the calls of nature. And here I would observe, in regard to your125 children, be watchful; I have been told by girls from six to twelve years old, how they have been so costive, that they would have to force themselves to such a degree, that every object around them appeared black. O! what poor miserable beings will they be all their lives, through a mother’s neglect. Never let a young child sit too long on a vessel or chair; it weakens the intestines, and brings on general debility. I have known many to die in fits, and to have the relaxation of the fundament, merely by sitting too long on a stool chair.
The kidneys are not in the box of the hips, but above it, in the small of the back, on each side of the back bone. Their office is to separate the salt, earth, and surplus water, from the blood; there is a chamber to each kidney, into which the water is first poured; from each of these chambers, there is a pipe, or tube, that passes downward to the bladder; this tube is called, in physiology, the ureter. The kidneys seem to be a sort of sieve, or filter, with this difference, however: while a sieve permits only the finest and best part to pass through it, the kidneys filter out the worse, or coarser parts; these are carried to the bladder, whence they are conveyed immediately out of the system. In a natural and healthy state, the proper time when the bowels should be evacuated, is indicated by nature; should the water be retained, and the voice of nature disobeyed, the effects are these: as in the bowels, it will lessen the action of the bladder and kidneys, and what you retain, does more injury than you can possibly imagine; your kidneys become coated by retention—thence come gravel, stone, stoppage of the urine, and various other diseases of the kidneys and bladder.
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Never trifle with nature. What pain and suffering might be averted, if all would obey the first call of nature! By retention of the urine, a bad odor arises from the body; what you retain in the bladder, is emitted from the pores in a measure, and your perspiration is very offensive. Mothers ought to instruct their children in regard to this important call of nature. I have found, in my practice, a great number who habituated themselves to retain the water in the bladder all day, that is, from morning to bed time; and what miserable looking objects they were; their countenances were sallow, and the skin dry and withered, although young in years.
The kidney may be ulcerated, and contain grubs, as well as the liver, it being likewise a gland, but much smaller than the liver. You can injure the kidneys by food, as all water or liquids go immediately to the kidneys; sweet spices and all acids should be avoided, as they coat the kidneys, and cause the gravel; the ureter, or pipe which takes the water to the bladder, finally gets filled and obstructed, so the water cannot pass thence.
The bony walls of the hips are very strong and solid. The only part that is movable, is the lower end of the back bone, in front; behind the cross bone is the bladder, next comes the womb, and behind this is the back passage.
The womb is pear-shaped—the large end being uppermost, and the small end, or mouth, downward, and connected with the neck of the vagina. It hangs on four crotchets, or hooks, which are the upper ligaments to support it; it is also sup127ported by muscles, and from the crown of your head to the ends of your fingers and toes, there are small fibres connected with it. I would say to all, be careful not to stretch or reach the arm higher than its natural limits; a child from seven years old and upwards, to fifteen, may injure these supporters by jumping, and swinging at the length of their arms; so the squaws of the Iroquois tribe assure me, and I have seen a large number of the most distressing cases of this kind.
The ovaries are on each side of the womb, and are a great support to it; ovaries signify egg vessels, and egg, in physiology, means ovum. The egg is the beginning of our specie, or animal life; thence the germ, or seed. The ovaries are two balls, the size of a small egg, connected with the womb by a pipe, or tube, called the fallopian tube; this tube, or passage, carries the ovum to the womb. When menstruation takes place, the ripening and expulsion of the egg is affected by a real inflammation, similar to what may be seen when you run a nail, or piece of wood, into your flesh, when there will arise an inflammation which will cause it to fester, and then it is easily removed from the flesh; it is this periodical irritation, which causes a sympathetic inflammation; at the beginning of the month, the inflammation is slight, but about the time the egg is expelled from the vesicles, the inflammation reaches its height; in order to give relief, the vessels pour out an abundance of blood, and frequently mucous, according to the healthy condition of the ovaries. The ovaries are placed very low in the groins, advancing into the pelvis. In case of malformation, the menses never appear, and impregnation is impossible; but I have known females128 to become mothers at the age of fifteen, and they never saw their menses; no doubt, if they had not married, it would have come about in its own time. But here I would remark, it is frequently colorless in weak, scrofulous constitutions, and often these obstructions are in the fallopian tube, and falling of the womb is the principal cause. The periodical discharge of the blood, I may say, is often from the uterus, through the vagina, and sometimes from the vagina alone. Menstruation commences between the ages of fourteen and eighteen; I have, however, in my practice, found several cases where they appeared at the age of ten years; but this is not a general rule, and such cases rarely occur. Usually, the earlier the menses appear, the sooner they disappear; but, as a general rule, the menses ought not to depart until at the age of forty-eight or fifty, and I have known them to continue to fifty-five, and those females were perfectly well.
As I said before, the mouth of the womb is connected with the vagina, which signifies a tube, or passage. The vagina is a very thick wall, capable of dilating and contracting, to a very great extent; its length is from four, to five, six, and seven inches, and some anatomists have testified that it is, in some rare cases, even eight inches long; it is not strait—its curve is in front, next to the bladder, while the convex part is next to the rectum, or larger bowels. I explain this, as many are led into error, imagining the womb within an inch of the entrance.
Now, my friends, I have given you a plain description of your internal organs, and I hope you will overlook its deficiencies; I have given my descriptions as delicately as possible.
I will endeavor to explain to you the diseases of the womb and ovaries. In the first place, you can injure the womb by129 miscarriages; but previous to this, perhaps the ligaments of the womb were weak, and the cause of the miscarriage might be attributed to that. No female should stand on the ends of her toes and reach, as it injures the womb; all tight lacing is injurious; by costiveness, you impair the womb; lifting, beyond your strength, should be avoided. Child-bearing, or violent labor in child-birth, retention of the after-birth—all combine to weaken every muscle and ligament of the womb, and bring on prolapsus uteri, or falling of the womb. I have known the womb to be caloused, in several cases; and as to its falling, as we say, it may be felt more on the rectum and ovaries, and there will, in these cases, be more pain in the sciatica joints, or hip bone, and it may press more on the lower part of the bowels; this is generally brought on by costiveness; long waists have done their work, as well as heavy petticoats; all these combine to press down the bowels and ligaments of the womb; all fall, or bear heavily on the ureter and fallopian tube, and bring on many distressing diseases, as leucorrhœa, or whites. I will here explain the cause of this running, as many are perfectly ignorant of it; in most cases, it is the weeping of the ovaries; when it is purely white, we call it weakness—as a sore or weak eye weeps, so do the ovaries; and when it changes color, green or yellow, and has a disagreeable smell, no doubt they are diseased—either ulcers in the ovaries, or womb, and the distillation is so acrid, that it causes itching and smarting in the vagina, and the lips of it are swelled. There have been, of late, several cases in my practice, in which the female has communicated the same disease to her husband—similar to the clap. But remember, I have known such cases among the most virtuous, and where there was not the least taint of any venereal disease in the system; I do not say but that their blood might be contami130nated with humors; I seldom meet with a person, but has more or less humors to combat with. And how many have been injured by mercury, which poisons the blood. Girls may be troubled with the whites, at from three months to fourteen years of age. The womb can be ulcerated as well as the ovaries, and thence comes dropsy, cancers, and various other diseases; and by this pressing down, in fact, two-thirds die of consumption, because all the parts are pulled down, from the midriff, to the liver, intestines, kidneys, womb, and ovaries—there is no action—all is in a debilitated state. Now what can be done? In the first place, put waists on your petticoats; then obtain a cleansing syrup—you will find a recipe for one in the foregoing pages; then take a piece of leather, that will cover from the breasts to the pelvis, a quarter of a yard wide above, but narrower at the bottom, making a hole in it for the navel; spread it with strengthening plaster, a recipe for which will be found in this book; drink the following as a constant beverage: take five roots of sweet fern, a tablespoonful of dry tanzy, and boil in two quarts of water; then strain, and drink a tumbler half full twice during the day.
When the top of the womb falls forward, it infringes on the back part, and top of the bladder, and every few minutes you have a desire to evacuate the water; there is a sinking feeling at the stomach, and pain, or distress, in the bladder. Sometimes the womb will protrude in, and on the pelvis, and below, into the front passage; if there is no one near that understands my mode of treatment in this case, do it yourself; I learned it from a squaw, and have replaced ten thousand or more. In the first place, wash it well with cold water, and hold wet cloths to it; then lay on your back, and put131 it up carefully with your hand, holding or drawing in your breath; then apply a womb plaster. Never allow a male or female practitioner to plug your womb; it only destroys it, and causes ulcers, cancers, and a multitude of other diseases, in the womb.
It seems to me, every female of common sense—letting alone christianity, would shudder at the expression of this word, if they really knew its definition, or could realize the extent of the crime. The Boston Scalpel defines the word “abortionism,” to be “the knowledge and practice of expelling from the womb the ovum, or fœtus, ere it is matured.”
In this enlightened century, when the gospel is read and preached in every tongue, can it be possible that we find women so barbarous, as to destroy the immortal life which God has given. You may deprive the precious, unborn babe from coming into this beautiful world, but its spirit will return to God, who gave it, and arise in judgment against you. Many females at the present day, exclaim, (and it is a fashionable saying,) “I could have children, if I choosed, but I will not be annoyed with them, and my husband dislikes them.” How unlike the blessed Savior! He took children in his arms, and blessed them. What were your intentions, in taking upon you the duties of a wife? Surely, some motive must have prompted your ambition, or you did not take a realizing sense of its duties, as it was expressly commanded by God himself. After He had created Eve, He joined Adam and Eve together, and said, “Go forth and multiply!” He did not say, “gratify your carnal passions, and destroy the effects;” but He said, “replenish the earth.” The fruits of the womb132 are God’s reward, and He has chosen woman to bring forth at His command.
No time in the life of woman, can she feel to lift up her heart and voice, to praise God, with more fervor for his protecting care, and rejoice in His mercy, than after a safe delivery of a living babe. She forgets all her suffering, when she clasps the little innocent to her breast. In ancient times, miscarriage was thought to be a curse on the female, as it endangers her life, by bringing on hemorrhage, from the adhesion of the placenta. There is a difference between miscarriage and abortion: an exclusion of the fœtus six, and sometimes seven weeks after the cessation of the menses, is termed miscarriage; between that and six months, an abortion; and between that and nine months, premature labor. Sometimes the fault lies in some deficiency on the part of the ovum. Abortion may be caused by the inability of the uterus to distend itself, beyond a certain limit; and this may be imputed to dress, nine cases out of ten.
Woman was designed by God, as I have said before, to bring forth; she is, by nature, a producer of her race, intended, by God, to feed and nourish, with her own blood, the fœtus, and bring it into the world, an image of God himself, and of man.
Abortion is unnatural; and many lose their lives, directly after it, and few gain their strength, as it was previous to it. And all those preventatives, which are in fashion at the present day, to baffle the will of God, are an abomination in His all-seeing eye, and He will repay ten fold.
Kind and beloved woman! preserve thy purity, virtue, and chastity, and thy days will be many and pleasant upon the earth; and finally, thou shalt become a chosen angel in Heaven, to sing the praises of God and the Lamb!
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Masturbation, or self-pollution, has brought many to an untimely grave. It is held to with tenacity, because of the evenescent, fleeting, and animal pleasure derived therefrom. Mothers, how many of your children could you save, by timely care, while in their infant state! Teach them chastity; not to expose their bodies; not to allow the least exposure to sisters, and never to brothers—it contaminates the mind; never allow boys and girls to sleep together. Children never forget what they hear, as many suppose. How often do we find mothers, who have no respect for their children, frequently using the most obscene language in their presence, and sowing the seeds of impurity. St. Paul says, “Being evil yourselves, give good gifts to them that ask.” Your children depend on every word, look, and action; you can form them as you will—to virtue, or vice. You can rule the nation!
Never allow your children to sleep with strangers; however young, they may learn more of impurity in ten minutes, than you could teach them virtue in years. The reason why I speak to you of the necessity of having a watchful eye on your offspring, is that so many young men and women, whom I have been called to visit, in consumption, and some in a deranged state, have confessed to me, that they had contracted an intimacy with a play-mate, who had taught them the act of self-pollution, and, to their sorrow, had practiced the same for years, till they had no control of themselves; this brought involuntary emissions, and thence come leucorrhœa, falling of the womb, and frequently insanity; the greatest number, as a general rule, end in consumption. Doctors are too delicate to mention the cause of this disease, and treat the case, directly134 opposite to what it should be, as all the internal organs are debilitated.
I will relate a very distressing case, which I hope will be a warning to mothers and daughters:
A daughter of one of the first families of Springfield, Massachusetts, a few years ago, was pronounced by all the physicians of that city, to be in a consumption. I was called on, by a friend of the family, and requested to visit the young lady, at her special request, immediately. I lost no time, but went instantly, and what a pitiful object I beheld! A living skeleton—a fearful picture of self-pollution! I desired all to quit the apartment, and this poor child confessed her weakness; she was willing to die, she said, if she could atone for the trouble and expense she had brought on her parents. Now what was to be done. I well knew her debility was too great to depend on tonics, and to save her, I must gain her confidence and love. I left her, and returned soon after, got her permission to divulge the secret to her mother, and lost no time, in order to save her from death. She must have her genital organ cut out; the operation should take place instantly, as involuntary emissions would soon carry her off, her debility was so great. But thanks be to God, she is still living, in the far west; but never can she enjoy the blessings of married life.
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COLLECT such as are sound and perfect, and separate from them such as are injured or decayed. Those precautions must be taken which are best fitted for preserving them, and they should, as a general rule, be defended from the effects of moisture, too great heat, or cold, and confined air. Vegetable matters should be collected in the countries where they are indigenous, and those which grow wild in dry soil and high situations, fully exposed to the air and sun, are, in general, to be preferred to those which are cultivated, or which grow in moist, low, shady, or confined places.
Roots which are annual, should be collected before they shoot out their stalks, or flowers; biennial roots, in the harvest of the first, or spring of the second year; perennial roots, either in spring, before the sap begins to mount, or in harvest, after it has returned. Those which are worm eaten, except136 some resinous roots, or which are decayed, are to be rejected; the others are immediately to be cleaned, with a brush and cold water, letting them lie in it as short a time as possible; the fibres and little roots, when not essential, are to be cut away. Roots which consist principally of fibres, and have but a small top, may be immediately dried, if they are juicy, and not aromatic; this may be done by heat, not 100 degrees of Fahrenheit; but, if aromatic, by simply exposing and turning them frequently in a current of dry air; if they are thick and strong, they should be split or cut into slices, and strung upon thread; if covered with a rough bark, they may be peeled fresh, then dried. Such as lose their virtues by drying, or are directed to be preserved in a fresh state, are to be kept buried in dry sand.
No very general rule can be given for the collection of herbs and leaves—some of them acquiring activity by age, and others, as the mucilaginous leaves, from the same cause, losing the properties for which they are efficient. Aromatics are to be gathered after the flower buds are formed; annuals, not aromatic, when they are about to flower, or when in flower; biennials, before they shoot, and perennials, before they flower, especially if their fibres become woody; they are to be gathered in dry weather, after the dew is off them, or in the evening, before it falls, and are to be freed from decayed, withered, or foreign leaves; they are usually tied in bundles, and hung up in a shady, warm, and airy place, or spread upon the floor, and frequently turned; if very juicy, they are laid upon a sieve, and dried by a gentle degree of artificial warmth, by the stove.
Sprouts are collected before the buds open, and stalks are gathered in autumn.
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Barks and woods are collected when the most active part of the vegetable are concentrated in them, which occurs in spring and in autumn; spring is preferred for resinous barks, and autumn for others, which are not resinous, but rather gummy. Barks should be taken from young trees. Among the resinous woods, the heaviest, which sink in water, are selected; the alburnum is to be rejected.
Flowers are collected in dry weather, before noon, but after the dew is off, either when they are just about to open, or immediately after they have opened; of some, the petals only are preserved, and the colorless claws are even cut away; of others, whose calyx is odorous, the whole flower is kept. Flowers which are too small to be pulled singly, are dried with part of the stalk, and are called heads, or tops. Flowers and herbs are to be dried by the gentle heat of a stove, or common fire, in such quantities at a time, that the process may be finished as quickly as possible—for by this means their powers are best preserved, the test of which is the perfect preservation of their natural color; when they lose their color and smell, they are unfit for use.
Seeds and fruits, unless when otherwise directed, are to be gathered when ripe, but before they fell spontaneously. Some pulpy fruits are freed from their core, and seeds are strung on thread, and dried artificially; they are, in general, best preserved in their natural coverings, although some, as the colacynth, are peeled, and others, as the tamarind, preserved fresh. Many of these are apt to spoil, or become rancid; and as they are then no longer fit for medical use, no very large quantity of them should be collected at a time.
The proper drying of vegetable substances, is of the greatest importance. It is often directed to be done in the shade,138 and slowly, that the volatile and active particles may not be dissipated by too great heat. But this is an error; for they always lose infinitely more by slow than by quick drying. When, on account of the color, they cannot be exposed to the sun, and the warmth of the atmosphere is insufficient, they should be dried by an artificial warmth, less than 100 degrees of Fahrenheit, and well exposed to a current of air. When perfectly dry and friable, they have little smell, but after being kept some time, they attract moisture from the air, and regain their proper odor.
The boxes and drawers in which vegetable matters are kept, should not impart to them any smell or taste; and more certainly to avoid this, they should be lined with paper. Such as are volatile, of a delicate texture, or subject to suffer from insects, must be kept in well-covered glasses. Fruits and oily seeds, which are apt to become rancid, must be kept in a cool and dry, and by no means in a warm or moist place. Oily seeds, odorous plants, and those containing volatile principles, should be collected fresh every year; others, whose properties are more permanent and not subject to decay, will keep for several years. Vegetables collected in a moist and rainy season are, in general, more watery, and apt to spoil; in a dry season, they contain more oily and resinous particles, and keep much better.
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THIS disease, which has prevailed extensively at the west, is treated under a variety of names—such as nervous, putrid, gastrionic, brain fever, &c.; while the people of this vicinity, designate it by the name of slow fever, which, in my opinion, is about as descriptive of the disease as any above mentioned. It is most prevalent during the winter and spring. Patients are variously affected during the first stages of the disease. Some are taken with a chill, while others are not conscious of any such sensations, but merely complain of loss of strength and appetite; others complain of pain in their head and back. I have seen some take to their beds, and declare that nothing was the matter with them, and would insist on the correctness of their absurd opinions for several days. The pulse soon becomes small and frequent, the skin hot and dry, while insufferable thirst continually torments the sufferer. Patients fre140quently manifest a strong propensity to sing, while laboring under it, yet they seldom complain of pain, though delirium be constantly present, and the bowels morbidly sensitive to firm pressure. I have seen patients die without complaining of pain, and yet, on making post mortem examination, satisfactory evidence was furnished that inflammation of the brain, the lungs, and the mucuous membrane of the bowels, were present. These inflammations, therefore, constitute some of the complications of this disease, while a lack of sensibility, points to an obtunded condition of the nervous system. Ordinarily, for four or five days, the disease does not assume an aggravated appearance, during which time the fever has a remitting form; but shortly after this, if the patient is not relieved, the fever becomes continued; and now begin to rise gradually all the worst symptoms of typhoid fever; the tongue, which at first was white, or of a yellowish brown color, now becomes black, dry in the centre, and cracked; the patient soon falls into a deep coma, and delirium is almost constantly present. Twitching of the muscles of the face, subsultus-tendinum, and floccillation, are symptoms which generally attend this disease.
Somebody has said, that God gives shower baths to every thing that will stay out doors. A very significant hint, this, to human bipeds; it seems very strange that we are such dull scholars, in this world. We see the fevered earth parch, and burn, and fail of its fruits, till the refreshing rain comes down and cures it; and we never once think, when our blood boils, our flesh burns, and our skin parches with fever, that the same blessed medicine that is poured out on the earth, will141 heal us; or, if men get a little theoretical faith of this kind, they lose it as soon as they become sick. Early superstition, of all kinds, generally come upon men with peculiar force, when they are weakened and confused by illness.
There is no more invigorating process for preserving health, after the inhaling of pure air, than the daily use of the cold bath. The bath is not useful alone because it removes impurities from the skin; but the fresh, sparkling water, has an absolute life in it, which we receive. And this is the reason why the bath is so much more useful, when the water is just drawn from the fountain, than when it is suffered to stand, and lose its living, or electrical properties.
The best time to take a bath is in the morning, when we rise. No one should take a cold bath, as if he were lazily doing an unpleasant duty; and no one can do it long. Beginners with the bath, should observe the following directions: Bathe the head and face first; bathe the rest of the body thoroughly and quickly; then use much friction—first with a towel, and then with the hand, or a soft brush; this should be continued until the subject is in a glow.
Some people think there are so many difficulties in the way of bathing, that they cannot overcome them, and they believe they must, perforce, be like the dirty representative to an eastern legislature, who boasted that he had not bathed for fifteen years! Let us look at these difficulties, and we shall find that “where there is a will there is a way.” Anybody, that is anybody, can surely get a bowl of water, and a sponge, or towel; with these, he can take a thorough washing, and, if he has any energy, he can rub the body in a glow with a brush, a hand towel, or the hand.
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There is no preventive of colds equal to this simple process, repeated every morning. It makes a man feel clean, bright, and respectable. The use of warm baths, except in particular cases of illness, is mischievous; they weaken the skin, and expose the person who takes them, to attacks of colds and influenza. Still, the occasional use of warm baths for cleaning the skin, is better than to allow the skin to be dirty. Shower baths are useful in cases where there is high health, or general inflammation; where there is full reactive power they are safe, and not otherwise; where they induce a chill, they are very hurtful. The indiscriminate recommendation of the shower bath, is always an evidence of very partial knowledge. The sponge bath is probably more universally beneficial, and is safer than any other bath.
Mr. N. had been married but a few weeks, and his bride was a lovely and accomplished lady. Her health was perfect; she had never known, by personal experience, what sickness is, and they were looking forward to the future with the most sanguine expectations of happiness. But disappointment is written upon all earthly hopes, and Mr. N. was not to be an exception from the general rule. His wife was suddenly taken with cholera. The family physician was called in, and did what he could to arrest the disease. But she continued to grow worse, and a council of doctors was called, to consult measures for her relief.
Mrs. N. had requested that a friend of hers, who had long been employed in nursing and doctoring those who had confidence in her—a lady of great talent and education in the art of curing with roots and herbs—to call in and see her.143 As this lady approached the house, and saw the carriages of the physicians, she became alarmed for the safety of her friend; but when she entered the house, the silence and sadness that reigned in that once happy mansion, sent a chill to her heart. Soon the doctors came out, one by one, and silently left the house. Mr. N. did not inquire their opinion of the condition of his wife—he could read it in their looks. After all had gone but the attending physician, Mr. N. and the nurse, Mrs. T., entered the room, where the patient lay, apparently in the last stage of the disease. The doctor rose from his seat beside the bed; as Mr. N. advanced and inquired, “Is there no hope?” he could hardly command his voice to tell that afflicted man, that his wife must die; and his gushing tears spoke his sympathy with the sufferer.
Mrs. T. looked for a moment upon the unconscious form of her friend, then, turning to the doctor, said,
“Tell me, my dear sir, can you do nothing more for this woman?”
He shook his head, and then turned away.
“Then you are willing,” she continued, “I should do what I can to make her more comfortable while she lives?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. N.
“Certainly,” repeated the doctor. “If you can do anything for her comfort, do it, for she cannot stay with us long.”
As he said this, he left the house, and Mrs. T. applied herself to her task. She directed the friends to get some hot water, bricks, &c., while she sent a boy for some herbs; she wrote a note, and requested him to carry it to the man with whom she had been living. He soon returned with the articles. What she gave the patient to drink, we do not know; but we soon saw its effects. The cold sweat was wiped from144 her limbs—bottles of hot water were placed around her—a plaster was applied to her stomach, and, in a short time, she sank into a sweet sleep, which continued an hour or two, when she awoke, and began to vomit. The friends were now much alarmed, and thought she must certainly die. But the joyful expression of Mrs. T.’s countenance, told them that she, at least, had no fears of a fatal result.
Through the day and night, the nurse continued her exertions for her friend; and the next morning, when the kind and sympathizing doctor came in to look at the corpse, he was very much surprised to find his patient sitting up in bed, eating a bowl of porridge!
Turning to the nurse, he asked, “What did you give this woman?”
“Herb tea, sir!” she answered, in a tone of voice which forbade further questioning.
Mrs. N. still lives, and, when her children are sick, she gives them HERB TEA!
145
AS far as I can ascertain, the present season (1857-8,) has been a remarkable healthy one, in this portion of the west. But scientifically, every few days, some poor sufferer is consigned to the grave—but not until nature has disputed, most resolutely, every inch of ground, and at last has been compelled to yield to King Calomel! It is only a few days since, a child of ten or twelve years old was laid away, with a part of the lower portion of its face already fallen off, and appearances indicating that a large part of the rest would soon have followed, had not death terminated its sufferings in mercy, and spared its friends the anguish of beholding the farther devastations of this most potent “remedy.” In such instances, the outraged feelings of surviving friends, are usually quieted with the assurance that “it is the Lord’s will;” and so these works of iniquity are saddled upon the Supreme Arbiter of events, and He is made the scape-goat of one of the most wicked systems that ever cursed the world.
I am sometimes perfectly confounded by the blind bigotry which possesses the minds of those men, whose business it is to administer to the wants of suffering humanity. It146 does seem as though they thought more of conforming to the opinions of certain authors, and following the prescribed rules of a Medical Association, than they do of the lives of their patients. In their opposition, especially to reform in medical practice, some of them hesitate not to endanger the life of a fellow-being, if, by so doing, they can bring obloquy upon that system to which they are opposed.
These are hard sayings; but I am compelled to believe them, for it is but a short time since one of the poison-dealers tried to persuade a patient of mine to eat unripe peaches, only two days after he had reported him as in a very dangerous situation, with bilious fever. This same man, was prescribing for a slight ailment in a stout individual, who was still able to be about town and attend to his business. This person ate some of the same kind of fruit, and thought that it injured him. He told his physician what he had done, who broke out with an oath, and told him he wondered it had not killed him. This shows the estimation in which he held the fruit, which he had told my patient would do him good. Comments, upon such an act, are unnecessary, or upon a profession which feels itself obliged to treat with contempt, every thing not paying homage to its mandates—no matter how much it may promise to add to the welfare of mankind, if it cannot trace its origin within the walls of a legalized inclosure.
Of all men, the physician should be a liberal-minded man—ever anxious to learn all that will enable him to be of benefit to his suffering fellow-creatures. He should never conclude that he has nothing more to know, or that he can find all knowledge in any one system, or theory, of practice; he should ever be ready to learn, from every body. He who147 expects to find out all that can be known, in one train of reasoning, or round of study, is like a man traveling upon a circle, who thinks, because he can travel all his life-time upon that circle, he can consequently visit every place that the length of his life will permit him to visit. After a while, some one—who has learned that, in order to extend his knowledge, he must strike out a path diverging from that one, so long traveled—starts out accordingly in a new direction, and finds an extent of knowledge and research, of which he never before dreamed.
Our traveler, who thinks that the old path will lead him to all that he can ever know, comes around to the new road. He stops, and asks, “Who made this new track? Was it the man who marked out the one that I am in?”
“No!” says one; “the path which you are in, tells the same old story; this new path is a better way. Discoveries have been made in it, far more valuable than in the one in which you are, and they have been made by one who does not believe that your old way is perfect.”
Now see self-confidence, bigotry, and ignorance, encircling the lips of scorn. “Fools!” says he, and he goes, muttering vengeance on the “poor deluded fanatics!”
But this state of things cannot always remain. The light of truth is shining, and is destined to dispel the clouds of mystery, which have so long covered the pathway to the grave, of millions of our fellow-men. Men of intellect, science, and humanity, are engaged in this good cause, and, so sure as “truth is mighty,” it must prevail. In order, however, to the accomplishment of this desired event, physicians must be men of principle, and adhere firmly to that which they know to be right. In the practice of some, there is too148 much disposition to accommodate the taste and prejudice of the patient, even at his expense. I was talking with a physician not long since, who advocated the practice of making medicine to suit the taste of the patient. Instead of accommodating his desire too much, in a matter about which he cannot be a judge, the physician should take that course which will be most likely to cure him speedily, though the remedy be not quite so palatable; there should be no tampering with his whims, to the prolonging of his disease.
This principle cannot be too deeply impressed upon the mind of every one, while he is receiving his medical education; for the triumph of our cause, and the rescuing of suffering humanity from the iron grasp of medical tyranny, depend upon the integrity of our practitioners, and their strict adherence to the true principles of practice. In the name of Humanity, let us not fall into the same vortex of quackery, which characterizes the practice against which we war!
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A PECULIAR acid, in rheumatic complaints, is now generally admitted to secrete, or accumulate, in the system; and, though this acid is found to pervade the entire body, yet this form of disease has been thought to be rather a local complaint—that the joints, or parts affected, are particularly in fault, and the remedies used are to be of a local, and external character; or, if general, are particularly to act on the seat of the pain.
The more we study the human frame, and become familiar with the organism of the human body, the more convinced we are that, whenever one organ or function of the system is deranged, all others feel its effects. In rheumatism, therefore, we have always discovered that the stomach and liver are diseased; these notions we have had very well substantiated by many. The internal irritation, renders the nutritive energy of certain parts at the periphery, (namely, the fibrous sheaths and covering of the muscles,) feeble, and their power of resisting external causes of disease, deficient. When cold and damp, therefore, are applied to the skin, the blood is driven thence toward the parts most ready, from their want of organic150 energy, to retain it, and least able to resist its flow. Those parts are the tissues which have been most violently employed—the tissues connected with the organs of voluntary motion, and the fibrous tissues of the muscles and joints. In some persons, these tissues are congenitally weak, the hereditary predisposition exists, and there is morbid sympathy always existing between them and the centre of nutrition. The laboring man who keeps his stomach and liver in a constant state of irritation, with spirituous drinks—who uses his voluntary muscles hard and long every day, and is exposed to all kinds of weather, is the most eligible, and the most frequent victim of rheumatism; for in him the condition of the stomach, the limbs, and the exciting cause, meet in all their strength. Hence, in places where perry and cider abound, the peasantry are especially subject to rheumatism.
Why the rheumatism seizes one joint or set of muscles, more than another, we know not, positively; but we do know, that more or less digestive derangements are present at the time. I never saw a rheumatic attack, in which such derangements were not present, previously to its commencement. How often does it happen that a patient, racked with pain is instantly relieved by a copious vomiting of bile, or by a common diarrhœa.
We come to the conclusion, then, that rheumatism is not a mere inflammatory pain of the sheaths of the muscles, but has its origin in some digestive irritation—exhibited by a certain kind and amount of fibrous inflammation, and this may be caused by the circulation of this acid blood, in its passage through the minute cappillaries of the joints and tendons, since nothing but the white and thin blood can pass through the circulation of the tendons and ligaments. Perhaps this151 blood may be almost entirely of an acid character; it has no red particles, and may lack those qualities which render it subservient to nutrition and assimilation.
If this view of the subject is correct, we readily perceive how the bleeding, cupping, leeching, and blistering processes, tend directly to weaken the energy of the organs, and render them more liable to distension and congestion.
A peculiar odor also arises from the patient, which I have thought quite symptomatic of the disease, while the evacuations are thin, dark, watery, and extremely offensive. The eruption on the skin I have observed, but am not able to say whether or not it is present in all cases; I have never been able to see it in negroes, neither do I know whether it is perceptible at all in such subjects, but I am inclined to the opinion that it is not. The eruption, as I have observed, is various in appearance. It consists of small, rosy blotches, of a roundish, or lenticular shape, scarcely, if at all, raised above the general surface of the skin on which they appear.
I have observed another eruption in this disease, called “petechiæ.” This eruption is most perceptible on the chest, and interior part of the arms. There is still another eruption which I have frequently observed, but it is not peculiar to this disease; I have also often observed it in other forms of disease. It makes its appearance about the neck, and the eruption varies in size, from a mere point to that of half a pea, and is filled with a transparent fluid; it looks not unlike large and small drops of dew, scattered about over the neck; this eruption I have often observed on negroes.
Shortly after the termination of the disease, and sometimes even before its termination, the skin commences desquamating. This desquamation is particularly apt to take place on the152 inner surface of the hands, and bottoms of the feet; the hair also frequently falls off, and even the nails are sometimes shed. Patients recovering from this disease, frequently have a numbness of the arms or legs, which sometimes amounts to a complete paralysis.
Abscesses often form about the thigh, leg, or some other part, which burrow in the inter-muscular substance, and are very hard to cure.
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MRS. N. was the wife of a clergyman of high standing in the denomination to which he belonged. She was a worthy woman, and, as things are viewed by finite eyes, deserved a better fate than it was her fortune to meet. Some years previous to my acquaintance with her, she had a severe illness, and opium was freely prescribed, notwithstanding the opposition of her husband to its use. Being naturally of a nervous temperament, he feared that she would find it hard to relinquish a powerful stimulant, if she once became accustomed to its use. On her recovery, his fears were fully realized; for some time, she continued to take her daily dose; but at length her husband felt that the habit must be broken up, or her usefulness would be entirely destroyed. It would never do to have the parson’s wife an opium-taker, and he told her that she must give it up, for he should not get her any more.
As soon as she had used up what she had on hand, she was seized with vomiting and diarrhœa, which continued for one day, when she began to grow cold. Through the following154 night, the chills continued to increase, and toward morning she was taken with fainting. She could not retain a particle of food, or anything else, except brandy and water, on her stomach. By daylight, her strength was nearly exhausted, and she looked more like a corpse than a living person. It was a serious question with her husband, whether he should not send and get her some opium; but, as he was obliged to leave home on business, he resolved to wait until his return, and see if she would not get along without it.
As soon as he was gone, she took a full dose of brandy, and then started to go to the doctor’s house, which was but a short distance. She knew the doctor’s wife would supply her with what she wanted; but she did not dare to send one of her children, for she knew that they partook too much of their father’s spirit. She succeeded in reaching the door, and then fainted. The doctor’s wife, being aware of the real state of things, soon found means to relieve her, and she returned home, comparatively comfortable.
When her husband returned home, he was rejoiced to find her so much better, and he remarked that, as she had now began to amend without opium, he hoped she would not be compelled to use it again. This was a damper to her spirits, for which she was not quite prepared, as she had not thought of the results of her deception. But she was unwilling to mar her husband’s happiness by telling him the truth; so she permitted him to believe that she was, in reality, dispensing with the accustomed stimulus.
Months passed away, and she continued the secret indulgence. At length, the doctor and his wife suddenly left home, and she was again in great trouble. No opium could she get, without the assistance of her husband; and to acquaint him155 with her real condition, was not to be thought of. For two days she was very sick, and her husband thought she would die. A physician was called, but was desired not to give opium, lest she should again be brought under its influence. His prescription did her no good, and, finding she must die as she was, she requested to have a friend sent for, to whom she revealed her secret.
This woman was one of the few who have the moral courage to do right. Fearless of consequences, she went immediately to Mr. N., and told him of the apparent danger of one so dear, and finally procured what was wanted, for that time; but no entreaties could induce him to purchase a quantity, to keep in the house. What should she do now? Her eldest son was just married, and his wife was a kind, affectionate daughter, and a good nurse; she understood the cause of her mother’s suffering, but could not comprehend why the remedy was so cruelly withheld. She resolved to provide it herself, little suspecting what terrible results would follow such kindness.
Mrs. N. had given up in despair, and resigned herself to what seemed inevitable death, when her son’s wife came in with a largo bottle of laudanum in her hand, and presented it to her. She received it with that joy which can never be expressed by words, or in any degree comprehended, by one who has not passed through the horrible suffering which opium prepares for its victims.
Again she was able to fill her place as a pastor’s wife, and for many years she continued her course of deception, on which she had almost unconsciously entered. But it could not always last; her health declined—her mind became more and more feeble, until it seemed as though her intellectual156 faculties were almost destroyed. As the disease increased, she increased her use of opium, until she found herself in the iron grasp of consumption! Still, she thought opium would eventually relieve her, if she only took enough. With this idea, she one day swallowed a powerful dose. Worn out nature could no longer contend with so potent an enemy, and was on the point of giving up the contest. She became alarmed; a physician was called—the cause of the trouble and all the long train of deception brought to light. Much blame was cast upon the kind-hearted daughter-in-law, and much did she regret the deplorable results of her mistaken kindness.
The old doctor, who had been her friend and medical adviser for years, was now dead, and his place was filled by his son, who had little sympathy with such as voluntarily give themselves up to what he considered a sinful indulgence. He thought that, by breaking up this pernicious habit, he could again restore her to comfortable health. Her husband and daughter feared that she had not strength to survive the loss of her accustomed stimulus; but the doctor assured them that there was no danger—that the change in her habits should be gradual, and that, when once out from under its influence, she would not feel the need of opium.
He accordingly commenced the Herculean task, which the inspired writer truly compares to changing the Ethiopian’s skin, or the leopard’s spots. He gave her a weak solution of morphine, with other medicines; but it was only a trifle, compared with the large doses which she had formerly taken. He had prescribed for her about ten days, when I called to see her. No language can describe the unutterable anguish depicted in her countenance! She was reduced to a mere skeleton—too157 weak to roll from side to side, but every motion indicating such extreme nervous restlessness, as would have caused her to do so, if she had strength sufficient.
She had formerly made me her confidant, and now she felt that I should understand her real situation, and feel the deep sympathy for her suffering which she craved. As I stood by her bed, she took my hand in her own, so cold, emaciated, and corpse-like, that it sent an involuntary shudder through my frame, and said, in a whisper, “I am dying, for the want of a little opium!”
Seeing me start, as though I would speak, she said,
“No! no! don’t tell them! They don’t know how I suffer for the want of it; but you do, and you know how to pity me. O! I would give the whole world, if it were mine, for one little dose—yes, one little dose would be bliss to me!”
Ye who have hearts to feel for human woe, think, if you can, what were my feelings, as I stood beside that bed, witnessing such misery and hearing such language—well knowing, that I could do nothing for her relief, nor say anything to influence others to give her what she so much needed; and what, if she had done wrong in taking so long—who will dare to say, that it was right to withhold it from her, in that fearful emergency! But it was withheld—and in a few days she died!
Would that I could present the picture of this woman’s sufferings, to all those invalids in our land, who are beginning to tamper with this deadly drug, which at last “biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder!” Methinks they would hasten to deliver themselves, as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
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THERE is no part of the human system which has such a controlling influence over the whole body, as respects health or disease, as the digestive organs. Any derangement in these, especially the stomach, calls up a sympathy of action from the whole animal economy. Nearly all the morbid actions found in the general system, are produced from causes, first operative on the stomach.
Hence, keeping the digestive system in a healthy state, secures, as a general rule, a healthy action in every other part of the physical organization. Therefore, to know something of the anatomy and physiology of the digestive organs, together with the laws of digestion, seems indespensable for every individual who would know how to take care of his health. By the term “digestive organs,” is intended the mouth, stomach, liver, and bowels, including the whole length of this canal is a lining membrane, called the mucous mem160brane, which continues from the lips to the opposite extremity; this membrane is filled through its whole extent with minute blood vessels, and in some parts, abundantly supplied with fine filaments of nerves. This membrane has important functions to perform in the process of digestion; it is a membrane of much delicacy of structure. Its healthy action is easily deranged, and when impaired in one part, becomes, by sympathy, deranged in every part.
The mouth, with its teeth and glands, commences the digestive process; the teeth are to masticate the food; the salivary glands give important aid to digestion. There are three pairs of glands, which pour the fluid they secrete, into the mouth; this fluid is called saliva; the efforts of chewing food excites these glands, and promotes the secretion of saliva, which is essential to the healthy digestive process.
The stomach is the most important organ of digestion. It has three coats; that which has most to do with digestion is the mucous coat, which lines it; this coat is supposed to furnish, by its glands, what is called gastric juice, which is the principal agent of digestion. The stomach is abundantly supplied with nerves, and holds a very powerful sway over the whole nervous system—so that, when the stomach is under the influence of disease, either acute or chronic, the whole system is immediately in a state of suffering. To secure, then, a healthy organization, the stomach must be kept in health.
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This organ is also essential to digestion; it furnishes the bile; it is the largest gland in the body, and its office seems to be to gather from and carry out of the system substances which, if retained, might prove hurtful. When the liver is inactive, we have what is called the jaundice; the liver failing to take up from the system that substance which forms the bile. When this is the case, a yellow substance is found diffused throughout the whole body, and it exhibits a yellow tinge. The bile, when properly secreted and discharged, meets the contents of the stomach as discharged into that part of the bowels nearest the stomach, and is there supposed to assist in the process of separating the nutritious part of the contents from the refuse, which is to pass off by the bowels; but its more important office is, doubtless, to rid the passage of the refuse, or the fæces, by evacuation. The bile seems to be nature’s appropriate stimulus to the bowels, without which costiveness, and other irregularities, are likely to ensue.
The bowels contain the absorbent vessels, which take up the nutritious part of the food and carry it into the circulation of the blood, for the support of the system; they also convey the refuse part of the food out of the body.
Mastication, or chewing, is the first step in the process of digestion. When food is taken, it should be thoroughly masticated, before it is suffered to pass into the stomach, or it is unprepared for the action of the gastric juice. Besides this, the action of chewing causes the food to be mixed with the162 saliva, which is an important item in the preparation of it for the action of the stomach and its juice. The food should be taken with sufficient moderation, to give time for the process of mastication, and the discharge of saliva from the glands of the mouth. Eating fast, or even talking while chewing, besides its incongruity with politeness and good breeding, is directly at war with thorough mastication.
Many persons seem to think, that hurrying their meals to save time is economy; their business drives them, and they drive their time of meals into the smallest possible compass. This is miserable economy; for, when they hurry down their food, half chewed and half moistened with saliva, it deranges the process of digestion throughout, and, as a consequence, the food not only sits bad on the stomach, and in time causes dyspepsia, but fails to accomplish the sole object of taking it—the nourishment of the body. In order to derive nourishment from food, it must be well digested; hence it must be well masticated. When, therefore, we hurry our eating, we hasten our steps on the wrong road; time curtailed in eating, is worse than hiring money at three per cent. a month. If we cannot spare time to eat, we had better not eat at all; this idea cannot be too deeply impressed upon the minds of all. Thousands, by this kind of careless and reckless eating, have, found themselves the victims of dyspepsia, and all its attendant train of evils; the digestive organs may bear the abuse awhile, without giving many signs of trouble, but the penalty of that broken law must sooner or later come; and it may come in the form of a broken constitution.
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Chymification, or the transformation of food into chyme, is the most important step in the process of digestion. The food, after mastication, passes into the stomach; here it is formed into a homogenous mass, partly fluid and partly solid, which is called chyme. What is the exact philosophy of this process, has been a matter of some discussion, into which it is not necessary now to enter; nor is it yet satisfactorily settled, so as to admit of any definite instructions being given. The theory which is now generally received, respecting the manner in which the stomach acts upon food, is, that the gastric juice possesses a solvent power, by which the food becomes reduced to a uniform mass; the solvent power of the gastric juice is very great in a healthy, vigorous stomach, but varies in strength according to the energy of that organ. The solvent power of the gastric juice is evidently controlled by the vital principle of life; while the gastric juice of a healthy stomach acts vigorously upon the hardest kinds of food; yet sometimes, when it comes in contact with anything possessed of the principles of life, its power is stayed—worms, while living, are not affected by it, but when destroyed, are often digested. The gastric juice also possesses the property of coagulating liquid albuminous substances; the stomach of the calf is used for this purpose, by the dairy-woman, in making cheese; and when the infant throws up its milk, because the stomach is too full, that milk will be more or less curdled—and instead of considering this curdling an indication of disease, it should be accounted a symptom of a good, healthy stomach.
The time ordinarily occupied in the process of chymification, when the food has been properly masticated, has been164 found to be four or five hours; the three first hours of the period, is occupied in the process of intermixing the food, after it enters the stomach, with the gastric juice. After this is accomplished, an alternation of contraction and expansion of the stomach, or a kind of churning motion takes place, and continues until the whole mass is converted into chyme, and conveyed to the first intestines, or duodenum, to undergo another change.
Chylifaction, or the formation of chyle, is the next great step in the process of digestion. This takes place in the duodenum; the chyme from the stomach is let into the intestines little by little; a valve at the lower opening, or outlet of the stomach prevents it from passing any faster than it can be disposed of, in the formation of chyle. This fluid is a thin, milky liquid, extracted from the chyme, and then taken up by absorbent vessels, called lacteals; the chyme passes slowly through the duodenum, and, in doing so, becomes mixed with another fluid furnished from the pancreas, or sweetbread, and the bile from the liver; passing slowly through this large intestine, ample time is given for the lacteal to take up all that is valuable, to be carried into the circulation, for the nourishment and support of the system. This chyle, taken up by the lacteals, is directly converted into blood, and, in many of its characteristics, it very closely resembles blood. The process by which this conversion is carried on, is called absorption; that class of absorbent vessels called lacteals, are not only found in the first intestine, or duodenum, but are distributed along the small intestines, for the purpose, as before stated, of conducting the chyle in its appropriate course, for the formation of blood.
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Evacuation, or the discharge of the refuse part of the food, through the bowels, is another and the last step in the process of digestion. This part of the subject has a very important bearing on the condition of the health; it is impossible for any one to possess good health, while this office of the bowels is imperfectly performed. If the bowels are relaxed and irritable, the food is borne along too soon and too rapidly; this causes the process of chylification to be imperfect—the chyle is imperfectly formed, and the lacteals have not sufficient time to absorb it from the mass; this prevents the food from nourishing the system. Hence, those who suffer from chronic diarrhœa may eat largely, and yet grow weaker and weaker; their food does not nourish them; the nutritious part passes off through the bowels, instead of being taken into the blood. If the bowels, on the other hand, are constipated, the consequences are no less unhappy. No one can possibly be well with costive bowels; the free and easy action of the bowels is as truly essential to health, as the free circulation of the blood. When the bowels are sluggish, the process of absorption of the chyle is retarded; and what is absorbed, is less pure and healthy, so the quality of the blood is impaired.
Besides the evils already mentioned, a costive state of the bowels often causes a pressure of blood on the brain, and also derangement of the nervous system, excitability of the nerves, nervous headache, depression of spirits, and a long catalogue of sufferings, too numerous for details. Habitual costiveness impairs the tone of the stomach, and prevents its healthy action; piles, also, with various degrees of severity, are often caused, directly or indirectly, by constipated bowels.
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The causes of constipation are various, and to point them out in detail would be, perhaps, a fruitless task. But there is one cause, and a very common one, which claims attention here; it is the habit of inattention to, and neglect of, the natural promptings of the bowels to evacuate themselves. Thousands on thousands, especially females, by a habit of checking the natural inclination of the bowels to throw off their contents, have brought upon themselves habitual costiveness, which, in time, has cost them immense suffering and wretchedness. No one should ever hold his bowels in check, if it be possible to avoid it; it can readily be perceived, that doing this would tend to diminish the natural effort of the bowels, and to collect their contents into a solid mass; then, the exertion required to empty the bowels, or the physic taken to aid or make effectual that exertion, tends also to increase the difficulty.
A habit of costiveness should always be removed, if possible; and the best way of doing this, is by a course of discipline. Those articles of food should be selected, which have an influence to keep the bowels open. Bread, made of flour, has a tendency to constipate them; but brown bread, and bread made of wheat meal, have a tendency to open them—also molasses, taken with food, has an additional tendency; fruits and greens, if the stomach can bear them, are adapted to relieve costiveness. The influence of the mind should also be brought to bear upon this difficulty; the operation of the mind on the physical system is very great, especially in chronic complaints.
A person with costive bowels, should have a mental determination to have a natural evacuation of the bowels, at some regular hour in the morning—just after breakfast should be167 preferred. By a mental calculation, by bearing the subject in mind, by thinking and desiring, by intending to have the bowels move about that hour, very much may be done by way of facilitating such a result. But if, instead of attending to a favorable diet, and of thinking on the subject at the proper time, we treat the difficulty with medicines alone, we do harm rather than good: for the more alteratives we take, the more we increase the trouble; the physic only overcomes the constipation for the time, and afterward leaves the bowels in a more torpid state. Still, rather than endure the consequences of costiveness, it is better to take alteratives, in conjunction with other means, until the difficulty can be removed. When alteratives are used in conjunction with discipline, they should be of the mildest kind. No proper pains should be spared, in overcoming this derangement of nature, till a habitual movement of the bowels once in twenty-four hours, is secured.—Coles, on Health.
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AS a general rule, mothers have not that care of infants which nature requires. In the first place, as soon as the little stranger makes its appearance, every precaution should be taken; it should be wrapped in warm clothes, with particular care not to have it laid in a cold place. Then a basin of warm water and good Castile soap should be ready, and great care should be taken as to the tightness of its bands. The infant, you must remember, comes from a warm berth, and particular pains should be taken to keep it warm, especially when asleep.
I verily believe, that two-thirds of the children that die before attaining the age of two years, die through ignorance of mothers and nurses. In the first place, as soon as it comes into the world, it is laid under the bed or table, with little or no care as to its exposure to the cold; next a little rag is used,170 with some fine scented soap, and it is dressed in a cold, gaudy apparel—its comfort not considered—only the show of fine clothes. You have not the least idea how much this little creature suffers, and you are laying up trouble for yourself; I believe a child that has no pain, never cries. What is the next thing that is done? “Why, I must give it purgatives; the child must have a dose; we must deprive the poor thing of its senses, in order that it may rest;” then they dose it with narcotics, and if, by chance, it lives to be a month old, they take off its belly-band. Then comes feeding; a bowl of strong bread and milk is prepared—and though the nurse or mother has sufficient breast milk for it, they imagine the child craves food, and the poor little creature is, as I may say, crammed to death.
Why does the child cry? Perhaps, my dear friend, the cause is your own fault—over dosing in the first place; be cautious, as soon as the little one makes its entrance into this world. Do as I directed before, then take a piece of fresh butter the size of a bird’s egg, mix it up with loaf-sugar, put a little piece at a time into the new-born infant’s mouth, and it will suck it down; this will cleanse its mouth and alimentary canal, and open all obstructions in the intestines. Let the child have the breast as soon as possible; the first milk will purge the infant sufficiently, without having recourse to cathartics; by giving purgatives to an infant, it does more harm than good. A child ought to be put at the breast as soon as possible—it is a great error to keep the child from it for several hours; and suppose the mother to be weak, it will not injure her health in the least, as it is natural; but it is unnatural to give the child strong bread and milk—give it a little catnip tea, if it is absolutely necessary.
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I have seen a mother, who imagined her child was hungry, and she would have a cup of bread and milk on the stove all day, and every few minutes she would give the child a teaspoonful; if the little creature pushed it out with its tongue, she would push it back with her finger. This is cruel; we may call this mother over fond. A child should never have any kind of food until six, or even nine months old, if the mother has milk of her own; I never gave mine any until they were to be weaned—in fact, I never allowed my eldest son to have a mouthful of any food, except the breast, until he was one year old; that day I commenced weaning him, and gave him no drink through the night, except cold water; I never gave my other children any drink but cold water, after they were weaned. Feeding children at night is a foolish habit.
Let them wear their belly-band at least until you put short clothes on them; then have a waist to their petticoats, with shoulder straps, buttoned behind the waist, made from their arms to the hips; this supports the bowels; keep the same on your girls for years; it would, if practicable, be well for them to wear it all their lives, and we would not then see so many young females afflicted with tumors and cancers in the ovaries, nor the falling of the womb. I think babes’ dresses ought not to be too long, as it draws too heavily; the weak form cannot support it as easily as you imagine. Let me beg of you to study their comfort and health. I love to see a child well dressed, as well as any one—but I see too many that suffer from the law of fashion rather than comfort, that I pity them. Keep the feet warm with socks, and the head cool, but not to extremes.
Great care should be taken in regard to bathing children; always bathe them regularly every morning—but let the water172 be warm; cold water will do more harm than good. In the heat of summer let it be tepid—it will strengthen a child; but when cold water seizes the little creature, it generally produces too much fear to be beneficial.
When you intend to wean your infant, it would be well to choose the shortest days, as the child will sleep more. A good substitute for mother’s milk is arrow-root, boiled in half milk and water. Avoid strong food; the least sugar you give the better. If medicine is required, use Turkey rhubarb; always buy the root, and prepare it yourself—do not get it pulverized; cut it, and steep it as much as necessary; add a few caraway seeds to it, when you steep it. This medicine will not injure the child, in case you give too much, as would any other cathartic, but it is strengthening to the bowels.
If the child has a sore mouth, get some pulverized wild turnip and cranesbill bark; take two teaspoonsful of loaf sugar, and as much of the barks as you can hold on a ten cent piece; mix well, and put a little, two or three times a day, into its mouth; give a little saffron tea and a little rhubarb.
If the child is chafed in the neck, or elsewhere, take pulverized cranesbill bark, and put it into a muslin bag; when you wash the child, dust this in all the parts affected; do it as often as you think necessary.
If it has sores, wash with Castile soap, and get some pulverized bloodroot, and mix it with two-thirds water and one-third cider, and wash it; this alone will cure all sores. A good medicine for children, in the spring, is composed of the following: take half an ounce of the best sulphur, quarter of an ounce each of cream tartar, pulverized yellow dock root, tanzy, elecampane root, pulverized rhubarb root, one ounce173 black alder bark, a teaspoonful of mandrake root, and a tablespoonful caraway seed; mix these with molasses, and let them stand twenty-four hours, stirring it two or three times during the day. Give according to age—a child two months old, a piece the size of a bean; a child three years old, half a teaspoonful in the morning, before dinner, and at bed-time; you can begin with small doses, and increase as you think best.
The best way to cleanse the blood of an infant, when at the breast, is for the mother to take the proper medicines and purify her own blood; it will do the child more good, and renew the milk. If your child is full of humors, you may be sure they will increase; but do not wean it on that account—purify your blood by taking the cleansing syrups mentioned in this book; and, in case you do not understand how to mix them, send to me for them, mentioning the age of the child, and how the humor makes its appearance.
The seven years’ itch is very prevalent at the present day, among all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest; it is fashionably termed salt rheum, or a species of it. Children are more or less troubled with the preaff, a species of ringworm; use no ointments, externally, until the inside is well guarded, or you throw it on the lungs, or in the joints, and make it a fool or a cripple for life. So be wise and prudent. Do not comb or scrape a baby’s head, if it has dandruff; wet it with a little sweet or olive oil at night, the next morning wash it carefully with Castile soap, and continue until all is removed. Keep the infant’s ears well cleaned; always use a soft brush for the hair.
Kind reader—I have endeavored to instruct you how to secure good health for your children; allow your aged friend to say a few words for the soul—which never dies, but returns174 to its Creator, God. Have you ever considered this important truth? If so—happy soul! angels rejoice to see a mother leading her babes to Jesus! As soon as they can lisp, teach them to pronounce the name of Jesus, and to ask him to bless them and you. Bow with them at the Throne of Grace, morning and evening; be simple and short, in your requests to your Heavenly Father, that it may be a pleasure, rather than a task, to them.
Has death visited your abode, or fortune frowned upon you—go to Bethlehem; there you will find the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of your Savior—poor, outcast, and dejected, seeking a shelter, to bring forth the God-man! Then follow her to the Cross; here, a sword pierces her own soul, to behold her only-beloved Son expire on the cross for ungrateful man. But she had grace from on high; and we, too, can have the same ark. Remember, this is not our abiding place; Mary rejoiced, because she knew this, and her soul was filled with love—no murmuring or complaint escaped her lips—all was submission to the will of God! Let us all follow her example; and join our dear babes in Heaven, as the mother of our God and Savior did.
175
THIS book will be read by friends and foes, and many will scrutinize every word. I would politely ask such—cannot the aged be excused? and remember my age. While writing the foregoing, it has been my aim to speak the truth, in a plain and easy manner, so that all could understand it—avoiding all vulgar phrases that was not necessary for your comprehension.
It has been my determination, as far as practicable, to dispose of the book myself, and only among my sex. I pray to God it may be a blessing to the rising generation. I shall always be happy to give you any information, in regard to your health, by letter. After the first of May, 1858, you can address to “Saint Vincent de Paul, Lower Canada,” nine miles from the city of Montreal; and the first of June, I shall be enabled to accommodate a few invalids, at my own house. It is situated on a branch of the Ottawa, and commands a beautiful view up and down the river; as to the location, it cannot be surpassed.
176
All letters must be sent by the fifteenth of May, 1858, as the number will be limited. Those that place themselves under my care, shall have my care; where there are a great number, some, of course, must be neglected. My farm is only one mile and a half from my residence, where the ladies can ride and walk. It is considered, by visitors, a delightful and healthy situation.
Reference, as to character and location:
Rev. Mr. N. La Vallie, }
Dr. Pomeville, } St. Vincent de Paul.
Dr. Pratt, }
Hon. C. C. S. De Bleury, }
177
DURING the early stage of life, all heating and stimulating food and drinks should be strictly forbidden. They tend more certainly to produce disease, in the really excited system during childhood, than perhaps at any other period of life. Vegetables should, in fact, constitute the principal diet of children; especially the farinaceous substances—such as bread, rice, arrow-root, potatoes, &c. To these may be added milk, soft-boiled eggs, and a very moderate allowance of plain and simply cooked animal food. Children, in general, have very excellent appetites, and a sufficiency of nourishing food is absolutely necessary—not merely to renew the waste of their systems, but also to supply materials for their daily growth.
Three, or perhaps four, light meals a day, will be found a good allowance during childhood. At one of these—the dinner, or mid-day meal—animal food may be allowed, in178 moderation; for the others, bread, or potatoes, and milk, various preparations of rice, or rice and milk, plain bread pudding, and custard, form a proper and wholesome diet. All salted and high-seasoned food should be forbidden. Some have objected to butter for children; although experience would appear to show that a very moderate allowance of fresh butter is by no means injurious.
Of vegetables—potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets and cauliflowers, will be found most wholesome. They should be well boiled, and the potatoes and turnips eaten without being mashed, or mixed with butter or fat gravy. Children should never be indulged in pastry, of any kind. They may, occasionally, take a little of the cooked fruit of a pie; but even this should be in moderation.
The drink of children should be simply water, milk, whey, or very weak tea, milk and sugar. All stimulating and fermenting liquors are not only unnecessary, but positively injurious, by increasing, to an improper extent, the circulation of the blood; they induce fever, indigestion, inflammation, or convulsions, to say nothing of the danger of their use during childhood—giving rise to habits of intemperance in after life.
The period of the meals should be strictly regulated, and in such a manner that the intervals between them should not be so great as to permit the children to experience, at any time, a sensation of hunger. Supper should be taken an hour or two before bed-time. Children should get their breakfasts as soon as possible after they have arisen, and have been properly combed and washed; the stomach is then empty, and the appetite keen. If food be too long withheld, the cravings become either too importunate, or the appetite fails—either of which would be injurious.
179
As little variety of food as possible should be set before children; since every extraordinary article becomes a new incentive to appetite. They should never be indulged with a second course; if they sit down with an appetite, they will satisfy it by eating of the first articles presented to them—hence, all the rest is superfluous, and therefore injurious. If the appetite be trifling, the less they eat at the time the better; as by taking but little, the appetite will more certainly return at the next meal. But should this instinct of nature for an observance of moderation be neglected, or attempted to be overcome by variety, repletion, with all its evils, will follow. Instead of a renewed and healthy appetite following, as would have been the case had the instinct been obeyed, it will be found diminished, and most probably attended with headache, fever, oppression, or even vomiting.
Children should not be allowed to eat frequently of bread and butter, bread and molasses, cakes, or fruit, between meals, for this will either destroy the regular appetite, or induce them to eat too much. In the first case, the stomach will be interrupted in its regular routine of function; consequently, the appetite will become either irregular or capricious. In the second case, all the evils attendant upon an over distension of the stomach must follow. They should not, therefore, be suffered to carry food in their pockets, to eat between meals, or during school hours, as this produces the injurious habit of requiring food at improper times; by which the digestion of the previous meal is interfered with—a fresh quantity of food being forced upon the stomach, before it has properly digested that which had been before received.
Children are to be restrained from any violent exercise immediately after dinner; if not kept in a state of perfect180 rest, they should at least be prevented from engaging in any pastime which requires considerable bodily exertion. They should also be early taught the importance of eating slowly, and chewing their food well; on this account alone, the habit of resting after a meal is of importance, as it prevents them from swallowing their food hastily, in order that they may return more quickly to their play.
In regulating the diet of children, care should be taken not to force any particular article upon them, after it is found, by a fair trial, not to agree with their stomach. The contrary practice is both cruel and injudicious; cruel, because the poor child is forced to swallow what is disagreeable to it; and injudicious, because it is liable to perpetuate a disgust which most probably would have subsided, had no forcible attempt been made to overcome it. At the same time, however, great care must be taken that permanent dislikes are not formed, at this period of life, against certain wholesome articles of food. This is often a matter of very great difficulty; a good deal of close observation and discernment being required, in order to distinguish between a wayward prejudice and an actual disgust. The former, if indulged in too long, may be converted into the latter; while the latter may often, by judicious and well adapted means, be entirely removed. Children should never be suffered to eat alone, unless the proper quantity of food be meted out to them; otherwise, they will eat too much. If a child demand more than is judged proper for it, its importunities should always be resisted with firmness, or it will certainly acquire habits of gluttony.
181
PROBABLY the best means of ascertaining food best adapted to the human stomach, has been given us by Dr. Beaumont, in his experiments.
While stationed at Michilimackinac, Michigan Territory, in 1822, in the service of the United States, he was called upon to take charge of Alexis St. Martin, a young Canadian, eighteen years of age, of good constitution and robust health, who was accidentally wounded by the discharge of a musket, June 6th, 1822.
“The charge,” says Dr. Beaumont,182 “consisting of powder and duck-shot, was received in the left side, at the distance of one yard from the muzzle of the gun. The contents entered posteriorly, in an oblique direction, forward and inward, literally blowing off inguments and muscles the size of a man’s hand, fracturing and carrying away the anterior half of the sixth rib, fracturing the fifth, lacerating the lower portion of the left lobe of the lungs, the diaphragm, and also perforating the stomach!”
On the fifth day, sloughing took place; lacerated portions of the lung and stomach separated, and left a perforation into the latter “large enough to admit the whole length of the middle finger into its cavity; and also a passage into the chest, half as large as his fist.” Violent fever and further sloughing ensued, and for seventeen days, everything swallowed passed out through the wound, and the patient was kept alive chiefly by nourishing injections. By and by the fever subsided, the wound improved in appearance, and after the fourth week the appetite became good, digestion regular, the evacuations natural, and the health of the system complete. The orifice, however, never closed; and at every dressing the contents of the stomach flowed out, and its coats frequently became everted, or protruded so far as to equal in size a hen’s egg; but they were always easily returned.
On the 6th of June, 1823, a year from the date of the accident, the injured parts were all sound except the perforation into the stomach, which was now two and a half inches in circumference. For some months thereafter, the food could be retained only by constantly wearing a compress and bandage; but early in winter, a small fold or doubling of the villous coat began to appear, which gradually increased till it filled the aperture, and acted as a valve, so as completely to prevent any efflux from within, but to admit of being easily pushed back by the finger from without.
Here, then, was an admirable opportunity for experimenting on the subject of digestion, and for observing the healthy and undisturbed operations of nature, free from the agony of183 vivisections, and from the sources of fallacy inseparable from operating on animals. Dr. Beaumont was sensible of its value, and accordingly pursued his enquiries with a zeal, perseverance, and disinterestedness, highly creditable to his character, both as a man and as a philosopher.
Dr. Beaumont began his experiments in May, 1825, and continued them for four or five months, St. Martin being then in high health. In the autumn, St. Martin returned to Canada, married, had a family, worked hard, engaged as a voyager with the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company, remained there four years, and was then engaged at a great expense, by Dr. Beaumont, to come and reside near him, on the Mississippi, for the purpose of enabling him to complete his investigations. He came accordingly in August, 1829, and remained till March, 1831. He then went a second time to Canada, but returned to Dr. Beaumont in November, 1832, when the experiments were once more resumed, and continued till March, 1833, at which time he finally left Dr. Beaumont. He now enjoys perfect health, but the orifice made by the wound remains in the same state as in 1824.
The following table exhibits the general results of all the experiments made upon St. Martin, posterior to 1825; and the average is deduced from those which were performed when the stomach was considered, by Dr. Beaumont, to be in its natural state, and St. Martin himself subjected to ordinary exercise.
184
| Articles of Diet. | Mode of Preparation. |
Time required for Digestion. |
|---|---|---|
| H. M. | ||
| Rice, | Boiled, | 1.00 |
| Sago, | do. | 1.45 |
| Tapioca, | do. | 2.00 |
| Barley, | do. | 2.00 |
| Milk, | do. | 2.00 |
| Do. | Raw, | 2.15 |
| Gelatine, | Boiled, | 2.30 |
| Pigs’ feet, soused, | do. | 1.00 |
| Tripe, soused, | do. | 1.00 |
| Brains, | do. | 1.45 |
| Venison steak, | Broiled, | 1.35 |
| Spinal marrow, | Boiled, | 2.40 |
| Turkey, domestic, | Roasted, | 2.30 |
| Do. do. | Boiled, | 2.25 |
| Do. wild, | Roasted, | 2.18 |
| Goose, | do. | 2.30 |
| Pig, sucking, | do. | 2.30 |
| Liver, beef’s fresh, | Broiled, | 2.00 |
| Lamb, fresh, | do. | 2.30 |
| Chicken, full-grown, | Fricassee, | 2.45 |
| Eggs, fresh, | Hard boiled, | 3.30185 |
| Do. do. | Soft do. | 3.00 |
| Do. do. | Fried, | 3.30 |
| Do. do. | Roasted, | 2.15 |
| Do. do. | Raw, | 2.00 |
| Do. whipped, | do. | 1.30 |
| Custard, | Baked, | 2.45 |
| Codfish, cured, dry, | Boiled, | 2.00 |
| Trout, salmon, fresh, | do. | 1.30 |
| Do. do. | Fried, | 1.30 |
| Bass, striped, fresh, | Broiled, | 3.00 |
| Flounder, do. | Fried, | 3.30 |
| Catfish, do. | do. | 3.30 |
| Salmon, salted, | Boiled, | 4.00 |
| Oysters, fresh, | Raw, | 2.55 |
| Do. do. | Roasted, | 3.15 |
| Do. do. | Stewed, | 3.30 |
| Beef, fresh, lean, rare, | Roasted, | 3.00 |
| Do. do. dry, | do. | 3.30 |
| Do. steak, | Broiled, | 3.00 |
| Do. with salt only, | Boiled, | 2.45 |
| Do. with mustard, &c., | do. | 3.30 |
| Do. fresh, lean, | Fried, | 4.00 |
| Do. old, hard, salted, | Boiled, | 4.15 |
| Pork, steak, | Broiled, | 3.15 |
| Do. fat and lean, | Roasted, | 5.15 |
| Do. recently salted, | Boiled, | 4.30 |
| Do. do. | Fried, | 4.15 |
| Do. do. | Broiled, | 3.13 |
| Do. do. | Raw, | 3.00 |
| Do. do. | Stewed, | 3.00 |
| 186Mutton, fresh, | Roasted, | 3.15 |
| Do. do. | Broiled, | 3.00 |
| Do. do. | Boiled, | 3.00 |
| Veal, fresh, | Broiled, | 4.00 |
| Veal, fresh, | Fried, | 4.30 |
| Fowls, domestic, | Broiled, | 4.00 |
| Do. do. | Roasted, | 4.00 |
| Ducks, do. | do. | 4.00 |
| Do. wild, | do. | 4.30 |
| Suet, beef, fresh, | Boiled, | 5.03 |
| Do. mutton, | do. | 4.30 |
| Butter, | Melted, | 3.30 |
| Cheese, old, strong, | Raw, | 3.30 |
| Soup-beef, vegetable, and bread, |
Boiled, | 4.00 |
| Do. marrow bones, | do. | 4.14 |
| Do. bean, | do. | 3.00 |
| Do. barley, | do. | 1.30 |
| Do. mutton, | do. | 3.30 |
| Green corn and beans, | do. | 3.45 |
| Chicken soup, | do. | 3.00 |
| Oyster soup, | do. | 3.30 |
| Hash, meat and vegetable, | Warmed, | 2.30 |
| Sausage, fresh, | Broiled, | 3.20 |
| Heart, animal, | Fried, | 4.00 |
| Tendon, | Boiled, | 5.30 |
| Cartilage, | do. | 4.15 |
| Aponeurosis, | do. | 3.00 |
| Beans, pod, | do. | 2.30 |
| Bread, wheaten, fresh, | Baked, | 3.30187 |
| Do. corn, | do. | 3.15 |
| Cake, corn, | Baked, | 3.00 |
| Do. sponge, | do. | 2.30 |
| Dumpling, apple, | Boiled, | 3.00 |
| Apples, sour and hard, | Raw, | 2.50 |
| Do. do. mellow, | do. | 2.00 |
| Do. sweet, do. | do. | 1.30 |
| Parsnips, | Boiled, | 2.30 |
| Carrots, orange, | do. | 3.15 |
| Beets, | do. | 3.45 |
| Turnips, flat, | do. | 3.30 |
| Potatoes, Irish, | do. | 3.30 |
| Do. do. | Roasted, | 2.30 |
| Do. do. | Baked, | 2.30 |
| Cabbage, head, | Raw, | 2.20 |
| Do. with vinegar, | do. | 2.00 |
| Do. do. | Boiled, | 4.30 |
As a general rule, animal food is more easily and speedily digested, and contains a greater quantity of nutriment in a given bulk, than either herbaceous or farinaceous food; but, apparently from the same cause, it is also more heating and stimulating. Minuteness of division, and tenderness of fibre, are shown, by Dr. Beaumont’s experiments, to be two grand essentials for the easy digestion of butcher-meat; and the different kinds of fish, flesh, fowl, and game, are found to vary in digestibility, chiefly in proportion as they approach or depart from these two standing qualities.
Farinaceous food, such as rice, sago, arrow-root, and gruel, are also rapidly assimulated, and prove less stimulating to the system than concentrated animal food. Milk seems to rank in the same class, when the stomach is in a healthy state.
188
Animal food, it is true, affords a more stimulating nutriment than farinaceous and other kinds of vegetable aliment, and hence it is avoided in diseases of excitement. But it seems to me that this stimulus is owing, not only to its own inherent properties, but also to its more highly concentrated state, and to the much greater quantity of chyle which is derived from it, than from an equal bulk of vegetable aliment.
Before concluding his experiments on the agents employed in digestion, Dr. Beaumont made many observations, with a view to ascertain whether any increase of temperature took place during that process. By introducing a thermometer with a long stem, at the external opening into St. Martin’s stomach, both before and during the chymification, he succeeded in obtaining very accurate information on this point. In two or three of the experiments, the heat of the stomach seemed to be increased after taking food; but in by far the greater number, the temperature remained the same. It appeared, however, that the variations of the atmosphere produced a sensible change on the heat of the stomach—a dry air increasing, and a moist air diminishing it. The ordinary temperature may be estimated at 100 Fahrenheit, and in several instances it was higher at the pyloric than at the cardiac end. On one cloudy, damp, and rainy day, the thermometer rose only to 94 degrees, and on another to 96 degrees; whereas the next day, when the weather was clear and dry, it rose to 99 degrees; and on that following, when the weather was both clear and cold, to 100. On several occasions, it rose as high as 102 degrees, and once to 103 degrees; but these were after exercise, which was always observed to cause an increase of two or three degrees. We have already seen that artificial digestion is entirely arrested by cold.
189
1. That hunger is the effect of distension of the vessels that secrete the gastric juice.
2. That the processes of mastication, insalivation, and deglutition, in an abstract point of view, do not in any way affect the digestion of the food; or, in other words, when food is introduced directly into the stomach, in a finely divided state, without these previous steps, it is as perfectly digested as when they have been taken.
3. That saliva does not possess the properties of an alimentary solvent.
4. That the agent of chymification is the gastric juice.
5. That the pure gastric juice is fluid, clear, and transparent; without odor, a little salt, and perceptibly acid.
6. That it contains free muriatic acid, and some other active chymical properties.
7. That it is never found free in the gastric cavity; but it is always excited to discharge itself by the introduction of food or other irritants.
8. That it is secreted from vessels distinct from the mucous follicles.
9. That it is seldom obtained pure; but is generally mixed with mucous, and sometimes with saliva. When pure, it is capable of being kept for months, and perhaps for years.
10. That it coagulates albumen, and afterward dissolves the coagulæ.
11. That it checks the progress of putrefaction.
12. That it acts as a solvent of food, and alters its properties.
190
13. That, like other chymical agents, it commences its action on food as soon as it comes in contact with it.
14. That it is capable of combining with a certain and fixed quantity of food; and when more aliment is presented for its action than it will dissolve, disturbance of the stomach, or “indigestion," will ensue.
15. That its action is facilitated by the warmth and motions of the stomach.
16. That it becomes intimately mixed and blended with the ingestæ in the stomach, by the motions of that organ.
17. That it is invariably the same substance, modified only by admixture with other fluids.
18. That the motions of the stomach produce a constant churning of its contents, and admixture of food and gastric juice.
19. That these motions are in two directions—transversely and longitudinally.
20. That no other fluid produces the same effect on food that gastric juice does; and that it is the only solvent of aliment.
21. That the action of the stomach and its fluids is the same on all kinds of diet.
22. That solid food, of a certain texture, is easier of digestion than fluid.
23. That animal and farinaceous aliments are more easy of digestion than vegetable.
191
| Common Names. | Botanical Names. | Per lb. |
|---|---|---|
| Abscess Root, | Polemonium reptans, | 50 |
| Aconite leaves, | Aconitum napellus, | |
| Aconite root, | " | |
| Agrimony, | Agrimonia eupatoria | 50 |
| Alder bark, black, | Prinos verticillatus, | 25 |
| Alder berries, black, | " | |
| Alder, red or tag, | Alnus serrulata, | 25 |
| Alder, striped, | (See witch hazel,) | |
| Alum root, | Heucheria acerifolia, | |
| Angelica leaves, | Angelica atropurpurea, | 25 |
| Angelica root, | " | 50 |
| Angelica seed, | " | |
| Anise seed, | Pimpinella anisum, | |
| Apple, Peru, | (See thorn apple,) | |
| Apple-tree bark, | Pyrus malus, | 25 |
| Arbutus, trailing, | (See gravel plant,) | |
| Archangel, | Angelica archangelica, | 50 |
| Arnica flowers, | Arnica montana, | |
| Arnica root, | "192 | |
| Arse-smart, | (See water pepper,) | |
| Ash bark, prickly, | Xanthoxylum fraxineum, | 50 |
| Ash berries, prickly, | " | 25 |
| Ash bark, white, | Fraxinus acuminata, | |
| Ash, mountain, bark, | Aralia spinosa, | 50 |
| Asparagus root, | Asparagus officinalis, | |
| Asthma weed, | (See lobelia,) | |
| Aven’s root, | Geum rivale, | 50 |
| Backache brake, | Apsidium filix-femina, | |
| Balm, lemon, | Melissa officinalis, | 50 |
| Balm, mountain, | (See Oswego tea,) | |
| Balm, red, | " | |
| Balm, sweet, | Dracocephalum canariensis, | 35 |
| Balm of Gilead, buds, | Populus balsamifera, | |
| Balmony, | Chelone Glabra, | 30 |
| Balsam, sweet, | Gnaphaleum polycephalum, | 35 |
| Balsam, white, | " | |
| Barberry bark, | Berberis vulgaris, | 50 |
| Basil, sweet, | Ocymum basilicum, | 50 |
| Basil, wild, | (See dittany,) | |
| Basswood bark, | (See tilia,) | 38 |
| Bayberry bark, | Myrica cerifera, | 20 |
| Bayberry leaves, | " | |
| Bearberry, | (See uva-ursi,) | |
| Beccabunga, | (See brooklime,) | |
| Bed-straw, | (See cleavers,) | |
| Beech bark, | Fagus ferrigenea, | 30 |
| Beech drops, | Epiphegus virginiana, | 50 |
| Beech leaves | Fagus ferrigenea, | 50 |
| Bee’s nest, | (See wild carrot,) | |
| Belladonna leaves, | (See deadly nightshade,)193 | |
| Bellwort, | Uvularia perfoliata, | 75 |
| Benne leaves, | Sesamum indicum, | |
| Beth root, | Trilium purpu, | 1 00 |
| Betony wood, | Pedicularis canadensis, | |
| Bindweed, | (See man root,) | |
| Birch hark, black, | Betula lenta, | 25 |
| Bird’s nest, | (See wild carrot,) | |
| Bird peppers, | (See pepper,) | |
| Bitter-clover, | (See centuary,) | |
| Birth-root, | (See beth root,) | |
| Bitter herb, | (See balmony,) | |
| Bitter root, | Apocynum an drosæmifolium, | 75 |
| Bittersweet, bark of root, | Celastrus scandens, | 75 |
| Bittersweet berries, | " | |
| Bittersweet herb, | Solanum dulcamara, | 50 |
| Bitterworm, | (See buckbean,) | |
| Blackberry root, | Rubus occidentalis, | 25 |
| Blackberry, bark of root, | " | |
| Black root, | (See Culver’s root,) | |
| Black snake root, | (See black cohosh,) | |
| Blazing star root, | Aletris farinosa, | |
| Blood root, | Sanguinaria canadensis, | 50 |
| Blue-bells, | (See abscess root,) | |
| Blue-berry, | (See pappoose root,) | |
| Blue flag, | Iris versicolor, | 50 |
| Boneset, | Eupatorium perfoliatum, | 25 |
| Boneset, purple, | (See queen of the meadow,) | |
| Borage, | Borago officinalis, | 50 |
| Bouncing Bet | (See soapwort,) | |
| Bowman’s root, | (See Culver’s root,) | |
| Box-berry, | (See wintergreen,)194 | |
| Boxwood bark, | Cornus florida, | 37 |
| Boxwood flowers, | " | 50 |
| Brooklime, | Veronica beccabunga, | |
| Buchu leaves, | Diosma crenata, | |
| Buckbean, | Menyanthes trifoliata, | 75 |
| Buckhorn brake, | Osmunda regalis, | |
| Buckthorn berries, | Rhamnus catharticus, | |
| Bugle, bitter, | Lycopus Europeus, | 50 |
| Bugle, sweet, | Lycopus virginicus, | 50 |
| Bugloss, common, | (See borage,) | |
| Burdock leaves, | Artium lappa, | 25 |
| Burdock root, | " | 35 |
| Burdock seed, | " | 30 |
| Butterfly weed, | (See pleurisy root,) | |
| Butternut bark, | Junglans cineria, | 25 |
| Button snake root, | Liatris spicata, | 50 |
| Cabbage, meadow, swamp, | (See skunk cabbage,) | |
| Calamus, | (See sweet flag,) | |
| Canada thistle root, | Cnicus arvensis, | |
| Cancer root plant, | (See beech drops,) | |
| Canker weed, | Prenanthes alba, | 50 |
| Capsicum, | (See pepper,) | |
| Caraway seed, | Carum carni | |
| Cardinal flower, blue, | Lobelia syphilitica, | 50 |
| Cardus, spotted, | Centaurea benedicta, | 50 |
| Carrot leaves, wild, | Daucus carota, | |
| Carrot seed, wild, | " | |
| Catchweed, | (See cleavers,) | |
| Catnip, or catmint, | Nepeta cataria, | 25 |
| Cayenne, | (See bird pepper,) | |
| Celandine, garden, | Chelidonum majus, | 50195 |
| Celandine, wild, | Impatiens pallida, | 25 |
| Centuary, Am., | Sabbatia angularis, | 50 |
| Chamomile, low, | Anthemis nobilis, | 50 |
| Chamomile, wild, | (See mayweed,) | |
| Checkerberry, | (See squaw vine,) | |
| Cherries, wild, | Prunus virginiana, | |
| Cherry bark, wild, | " | 25 |
| Chickweed, | Cerastium vulgatum, | |
| Chillies, | (See red pepper,) | |
| Chocolate root, | (See Aven’s root,) | |
| Christmas rose, | (See black hellebore,) | |
| Cicely, sweet, | Uraspermum claytoni, | 50 |
| Cicuta leaves, | Conium maculatum, | 25 |
| Cinque foil, | (See five finger,) | |
| Clammy sage, | Salvia selara, | 40 |
| Clary, | " | 40 |
| Cleavers, or clivers, | Galium aparine, | 50 |
| Cliff-weed, | (See alum root,) | |
| Clove garlic, | (See garlic,) | |
| Clover heads, red, | Trifolium pratense, | |
| Clover, sweet, | (See meliot,) | |
| Clustered Sol. Seal, | (See small Sol. seal,) | |
| Coakum, | (See poke,) | |
| Cocash root, | Puniceus, | 25 |
| Cock-up hat, | (See queen’s delight,) | |
| Coffee, wild, | (See fever root,) | |
| Cohosh, black, | Macrotys racemose, | 50 |
| Cohosh, blue, | (See pappoose root,) | 25 |
| Cohosh, red, | Actaea rubra, | 50 |
| Cohosh, white, | Actaea alba, | 50 |
| Columbo root, Am., | Frasera caroliniensis,196 | |
| Coltsfoot, | Tussilago farfara, | 35 |
| Comfrey, | Symphitum officinalis, | 30 |
| Consumption brake, | Botrychium fumaroides, | |
| Coolwort, | Mitella corifolia, | 25 |
| Coral root, | (See crawley,) | |
| Corn snake root, | (See button snake root,) | |
| Coriander seed, | Coriandrum sativum, | 25 |
| Cough root, | (See beth root,) | |
| Cowparsnip leaves, | Heracleum lanatum, | 50 |
| " root, | " | 50 |
| " seed, | " | 50 |
| Cramp bark, | Viburnum oxycoccus, | 50 |
| Cranesbill, | Geranium maculatum, | 45 |
| Crawley, | Corallorhiza adontorhiza, | |
| Crowfoot, | (See cranesbill,) | |
| Cuckoo-bread, | (See wood sorrel,) | |
| Cucumber tree bark, | Magnolia acuminata, | |
| Culver’s root, | Leptandria virginica, | 1 00 |
| Cure-all, | (See lemon balm,) | |
| Daisy flowers, | Crysanthemum leucanthemum, | 25 |
| Dandelion herb, | Leontodon taraxacum, | 25 |
| " root, | " | 40 |
| Devil’s bit, | (See blazing star,) | 75 |
| Dill seed, or dilly, | Anethum graveolens, | |
| Dittany, | Cunila mariana, | |
| Dock, broadleaf, | Rumex obtusifolius, | 50 |
| " yellow, | " crispus, | 30 |
| " water, | " aquaticus, | |
| Dogwood bark, | (See boxwood,) | |
| " round leaved, | (See green osier,) | |
| " swamp, | (See rose willow,)197 | |
| Dragon root, | (See wild turnip,) | |
| Dragon’s claw, | (See crawley,) | |
| Dropsy plant, | (See lemon balm,) | |
| Dwale, | (See deadly nightshade,) | |
| Elecampane, | Inula helenium, | 25 |
| Elder bark, | Sambucus canadensis, | 50 |
| " flowers, | " | |
| " dwarf, | Aralia hispida, | 50 |
| " sweet, | (See alder,) | |
| Elm bark, | Ulmus fulva, | 30 |
| " ground, | " | 30 |
| " flour, | " | 50 |
| " superfine, | " | 75 |
| Emetic herb, | (See lobelia,) | |
| Eve’s cup, | (See side saddle,) | |
| Euphorbia, | (See Am. ipecac,) | |
| False alder, | (See black alder,) | |
| Featherfew, | (See feverfew,) | 50 |
| Fennel seed, | Anethum foeniculum, | 50 |
| Fern, male or shield, | Aspidium filix-mas, | 50 |
| " meadow, | (See sweet gale,) | |
| " sweet, | Comptonia asplenifolia, | 25 |
| Fever bush, bark, | Laurus benzoin, | 50 |
| " leaves, | " | 50 |
| Feverfew, | Chrysanthemum partheium, | 50198 |
| Fever root, | Triosteum perfoliatum, | 50 |
| " twig, | (See bittersweet,) | |
| Fireweed, | Senecio hieracifolius, | 50 |
| Fishmouth, | (See snakehead,) | |
| Fit root, | Monarda uniflora, | 1 00 |
| Five finger, | Potentilla canadensis, | 50 |
| Flag lily, | (See blue flag,) | |
| Fleabane, | Erigeron canadense, | 25 |
| " Philadelphia | (See scabious,) | |
| Flower-de-luce, | (See blue flag,) | 50 |
| Flux root, | (See Samson snake root,) | |
| Foxglove, | Digitalis purpurrea, | 35 |
| Frostwort, | Cistus canadensis, | 40 |
| Fumitory | Fumaria officinalis, | |
| Garantogen, | (See ginseng,) | |
| Garget, | (See poke,) | |
| Garlic, | Allium sativum, | |
| Gay feather, | (See button snake root,) | |
| Gentian, | Gentiana lutea, | 25 |
| " blue or southern, | (See Samson snake root,) | |
| Gill-go-over-the-ground, | (See ground ivy,) | |
| Ginger | Amomum xingiber, | |
| " wild, | (See Canada snake root,) | |
| Ginseng, or ginsing, | Panax quinquefolia, | |
| Gold thread, | Coptis trifolia, | 1 00 |
| Golden rod, sweet, | Solidago odora, | 50 |
| Golden seal, | Hydrastus canadensis, | 50 |
| Goosefoot wormseed, | (See wormseed,) | |
| Goose-grass, | (See cleavers,) | |
| Ground lily, | (See beth root,) | |
| Gravel plant, | Epigæa repens,199 | |
| " root, | (See queen of the meadow,) | |
| Gum plant, | (See comfrey,) | |
| Hardback leaves, | Spiræ tormentosa, | 35 |
| Heal-all, | Prunella vulgaris, | |
| Healing herb, | (See comfrey,) | |
| Henbane, black, | Hyosciamos niger, | 75 |
| Boxwood bark, | Cornus florida, | 37 |
| Hellebore, black, | Helleborus niger, | |
| " fœtid, | (See skunk cabbage,) | |
| " white, | Veratrum viride, | 75 |
| Hemlock bark, ground, | Pinus canadensis, | 20 |
| " bark, flour, | " | 25 |
| " leaves, | " | 25 |
| " poison, | (See cicuta leaves,) | |
| High cranberry bark, | (See cramp bark,) | |
| Horehound, | Marrubium vulgare, | 40 |
| Hollyhock flowers, | Althæa rosea, | 50 |
| Honey-bloom, | (See bitter root,) | |
| Hoodwort, | (See scullcap,) | |
| Hops, | Homulus lupolus, | |
| Horse-balm, | (See stone root,) | |
| Horse-ginseng, | (See fever root,) | |
| Horsemint, | Monarda punctata, | |
| Horseradish leaves, | Cochlearia armoracia, | 25 |
| " root, | " | 50 |
| Hyoscyamus, | (See henbane,) | |
| Hyssop, | Hyssopus officinalis, | |
| Indian arrow wood, | (See Wa-a-hoo,) | |
| " elm, | (See slippery elm,) | |
| " hemp, black, | Apocynum canabinum, | 75 |
| " " white, | Asclepias incarnata, | 75 |
| " tobacco, | (See lobelia,) | |
| " turnip, | (See wild turnip,) | |
| Indigo, wild, | Baptisia tinctoria, | 50 |
| Ipecac, milk, | (See bitter root,) | |
| " wild, | (See fever root,) | |
| Ink root, | (See marsh rosemary,) | |
| Ipecacuanha, Am., | Euphorbia ipecacuanha,200 | |
| Itch weed, | (See white hellebore,) | |
| Ivy, ground, | Glechomo hedracea, | 50 |
| Jacob’s ladder, | Similax peduncularis, | |
| Jamestown, or jimson weed, | (See thorn apple,) | |
| Job’s tears, | Coix lachryma, | |
| Joe-pye, | (See boneset,) | |
| Johnswort, | Hypericum perforatum, | 25 |
| King’s clover, | (See melilot,) | |
| Knob root, | (See stoneroot,) | |
| Knotgrass, | Polygonum aviculare, | |
| Labrador tea, | Ledum latifolium, | 40 |
| Ladies’ slipper, | Cypripedium flavum, | 75 |
| " sorrel, | Oxalis carniculata, | |
| Lamb kill, | (See laurel,) | |
| Larkspur herb, | Delphinium consolidum, | 50 |
| " seed, | " | |
| Laurel leaves, | Kalmia latifolia, | 38 |
| Lavender flowers, | Lavendula spica, | 50 |
| Lavose, | (See lovage,) | |
| Leatherwood bark, | Dirca palustris, | |
| Leopard-bane, | (See arnica,) | |
| Lettuce, garden, | Lactuca sativa, | 50 |
| " wild, | " elongata, | 50 |
| Life-everlasting, | (See sweet balsam,) | 35 |
| Life of man, | (See spikenard,) | |
| Life root, | Senecio aureus, | |
| Lily, white pond, | Nymphæ adorata, | 50 |
| Lily, yellow pond, | Nuphar advena, | 50 |
| Linden flowers, | (See tilia,) | |
| Liquorice root, wild, | (See sarsaparilla,)201 | |
| Liverwort, or liver leaf, | Hepatica triloba, | 1 00 |
| Lobelia herb, | Lobelia inflata, | 40 |
| " seed, | " | |
| Locust plant, | (See senna,) | |
| Lovage leaves, | Ligusticum, levisticum, | 50 |
| " root, | " | 50 |
| " seed, | " | |
| Lungwort, | Variolaria faginea, | 75 |
| Mad weed, | (See scullcap,) | |
| Maiden-hair, | Adianthum pedatum, | 35 |
| Male fern, | Aspidium filix-mas, | 50 |
| Mallow, low, | Malva rotundifolia, | 25 |
| " marsh, leaves, | Althæa officinalis, | 40 |
| " " root, | " | 40 |
| Man root, | Convolvulus panduratus, | |
| Mandrake root, | Podophyllum peltatum, | |
| Maple, ground, | (See alum root,) | |
| " red or soft, | Acer rubrum, | |
| " striped, | Acer striatum, | |
| Marigold flowers, | Calendula officinalis, | 50 |
| Marjoram, sweet, | Origanum marjorana, | 75 |
| " wild, | (See mountain mint,) | |
| Marsh rosemary, | Statice limonium, | 50 |
| " trefoil | (See buckbean,) | |
| Masterwort, | (See cowparsnip,) | |
| May apple, | (See mandrake,) | |
| May weed, | Anthemis cotula, | 25 |
| Meadow cabbage root, | (See skunk cabbage,) | |
| " fern leaves and burs, | (See sweet gale,) | |
| " sweet, | Spiræa salicifolia, | |
| Mealy starwort, | (See devil’s bit,)202 | |
| Melilot, | Melilotus alba, | 50 |
| Mezereon, Am., | (See leather-wood,) | |
| Milfoil, | (See yarrow,) | |
| Milkweed root, | Asclepias syraca, | 50 |
| Misletoe, | Viscum vercitillatum, | |
| Mitrewort, | (See coolwort,) | |
| Mohawk weed, | (See bellwort,) | |
| Moldavian balm, | (See sweet balm,) | |
| Monarda, | (See horsemint,) | |
| Monkshood, | (See aconite,) | |
| Moosewood bark, | (See striped maple,) | |
| Motherwort, | Leonorus cardiaca, | 25 |
| Mountain box, | (See uva ursi,) | |
| " dittany, | (See dittany,) | |
| " flax, | (See Seneca snake root,) | |
| " mint, | Origanum vulgare, | 35 |
| Mouse ear, | Gnaphaleum uliginosum, | |
| Mouth root, | (See gold thread,) | |
| Mugwort, | Artemisia vulgaris, | 40 |
| Mullein herb, | Verbascum thapsus, | 25 |
| Mustard herb, black, | Sinapsis nigrum, | 20 |
| " white, | " alba, | 25 |
| Myrtle leaves, | (See bayberry,) | |
| Nanny-bush, bark, | Viburnum lentago, | 50 |
| Necklace weed, | (See white cohosh,) | |
| Nerve root, | Cypripedium flavum, | 75 |
| " water, | (See white Indian hemp,) | |
| Nettle flowers, | Urtica dioica, | 50 |
| " root, | " | 50 |
| Nightshade, black, | (See garden nightshade), | |
| " bittersweet or woody,203 | (See bittersweet,) | |
| " deadly, | Atropa belladonna, | 75 |
| " garden, | Solanum dulcamara, | |
| Ninsin, | (See ginseng,) | |
| Oak bark, black, | Quercus tinctoria, | 25 |
| " red, | " | 25 |
| " white, | " | 20 |
| Oak of Jerusalem, | Chenopodium botrys, | 50 |
| Old man, | (See southernwood,) | |
| One berry, | (See squaw vine,) | |
| Origanum, | (See horsemint,) | |
| Osier bark, green, | Cornus circinata, | 40 |
| Osier, red, | (See rose willow,) | |
| Oswego tea, | Monarda didyma, | 50 |
| Ox-eye daisy, | (See daisy,) | |
| Pappoose root, | Caulophyllum thalictroides, | 30 |
| Parilla, yellow, | (See yellow parilla,) | |
| Parsley leaves, | Apium petroselinum, | 50 |
| " root, | " | 50 |
| " seed, | " | |
| Patridge-berry, | (See squaw vine,) | |
| Patience dock, | Ramex paitentia, | |
| " garden, | " | |
| Peach bark, | Amygdalus persica, | |
| " leaves, | " | |
| " pits, | " | |
| Pennyroyal, | Hedeoma pulegoides, | 25 |
| Peony flowers, | Pæonia officinalis, | 50 |
| " root, | " | 50 |
| Peppermint, | Mentha piperita, | 25 |
| Pepper, red or American, | Copsicum annuum,204 | |
| " bird, | " baccatum, | |
| " cayenne, | Capsicum baccatum, | |
| Petty-morrel, | (See spikenard,) | |
| Pigeon-berry, | (See poke,) | |
| Pilewort, | Amaranthus hypocondriachus, | 25 |
| Pine bark, white, | Pinus strobus, | 25 |
| Pipe plant, | (See fit root,) | |
| Pipsisseway, | (See prince’s pine,) | |
| Plantain leaves, | Pantago major, | 33 |
| " round leaved, | " | |
| " spotted, | Goodyera pubescens, | |
| Pleurisy root, | Asclepias tuberosa, | |
| Poke berries, | Phytolacca decandria, | |
| " leaves, | " | |
| " root, | " | 25 |
| " Indian, | (See white hellebore,) | |
| Polypody, | Polipodium vulgare, | |
| Pool root, | (See white sanicle,) | |
| Poplar bark, | Populus tremuloides, | 25 |
| " white, | (See whitewood,) | |
| Poppy capsules, | Papaver somniferum, | 30 |
| " flowers, | " | |
| " leaves, | " | 33 |
| Primrose tree, | (See scabish,) | |
| Prince’s pine, | Chimaphilla umbellata, | 38 |
| Puccoon, red, | (See bloodroot,) | |
| " yellow, | (See golden seal,) | |
| Puke weed, | (See lobelia,) | |
| Pyramid flower, | (See columbo,) | |
| Queen of the meadow, herb, | Eupatorium purpureum, | 25205 |
| " " " root, | " | 40 |
| Queen’s delight, | Stillingia sylvatica, | |
| Ragweed, | (See Roman wormwood,) | |
| Raspberry leaves, | Robus strigosus, | 25 |
| Rattlesnake root, | (See spotted plantain,) | |
| Rattleweed, | (See black cohosh,) | |
| Red elm, | (See slippery elm,) | |
| Red-rod, | (See rose willow,) | |
| Red-root, | (See bloodroot,) | |
| Rheumatism weed, | (See prince’s pine,) | |
| Rheumatic weed, | (See cocash,) | |
| Rock brake, | Pteris atropurpurea, | 50 |
| " parsley, | (See parsley,) | |
| " rose, | (See frostwort,) | |
| Roman wormwood, | Ambrosia artemisifolia, | |
| Rose, damask, | Rosa damascena, | |
| " red, | " gallica, | |
| " pink, | (See centuary,) | |
| " willow, | Cornus sericia, | 38 |
| Rosemary leaves, | Rosmarinus officinalis, | 19 |
| Rue, | Ruta graveolens, | 50 |
| Saffron, | Carthamus tinctorius, | |
| Sage, | Salvia officinalis, | |
| Samson snake root, | Gentiana catesbei, | |
| Sanicle root, black, | Sanicula marylandica, | |
| " white, | Eupatorium ageratoides, | 40 |
| Sarsaparilla, American, | Aralia nudicaulis, | |
| " bristly stem, | (See dwarf elder,) | |
| Sassafras bark, | (See sassafras,) | |
| " flowers, | " | 38 |
| " pith, | Laurus " | |
| Savin, | Juniperus communis, | 38206 |
| Scabious, | Erigeron philadelphicum, | 25 |
| Scabious, sweet, | Erigeron heterophyllum, | 25 |
| Scabish, | Œnothera biennis, | 25 |
| Scammony, wild, | (See man root,) | |
| Scoke root, | (See poke,) | 25 |
| Scrofula plant, | Scrophularia marilandica, | 50 |
| Scullcap, | Sentellaria laterifolia, | 75 |
| Scurvy grass, | Cochleria officinalis, | 25 |
| Sea-thrift, | (See marsh rosemary,) | |
| Self-heal, | (See heal-all,) | |
| Senna, Am. or wild, | Cassia marilandica, | 30 |
| Sheep-berry, | (See nanny bush,) | |
| Side-saddle plant, | Sarracenia purpurea, | |
| Silkweed, | (See milkweed,) | |
| Simpler’s joy, | (See vervain,) | |
| Skunk-cabbage root, | Ictodes fœtida, | 35 |
| Smart weed, | (See water pepper,) | 25 |
| Swellage, | (See lovage,) | |
| Snagrel, | (See Virg. snake root,) | |
| Snakehead, | (See balmony,) | 30 |
| Snake root, black, | (See black cohosh,) | |
| " button, | (See button snake root,) | |
| " Canada, | Asarum canadense, | |
| " heart, | (See Canada snake root,) | |
| " rattte, | (See spotted plantain,) | |
| " Seneca, | Polygala senega, | |
| " Virginia, | Aristolochia serpentaria,207 | |
| " white, | (See white sanicle,) | |
| Snake weed, | (See Virginia snake root,) | |
| Snapping hazel-nut, | (See witch hazel,) | |
| Soapwort, | Saponaria officinalis, | 50 |
| Solomon’s seal, | Convallaria multiflora, | 50 |
| Solomon’s seal, small, | Convallaria racemosa, | |
| Sorrel, sheep or fidel, | Rumex acetosellus, | |
| " wood or mountain, | Oxalis abrotanum, | |
| Southernwood, | Artemesia abrotanum, | 50 |
| Spearmint, | Mentha veridis, | 25 |
| Speedwell, Virginia, | Veronica officinalis, | |
| Spice bush, | Laurus benzoin, | 40 |
| " berries, | " | |
| Spignet, | (See spikenard,) | |
| Spikenard, | Aralia racemosa, | |
| " small, | (See sarsaparilla,) | |
| Spindle bush or tree, | (See Wa-a-hoo,) | |
| Spleenwort, | Asplenium ebenum, | |
| Split-rock, | (See alum root,) | |
| Spotted cardus, | (See cardus,) | 50 |
| " plantain, | Goodyera pubescens, | |
| Spurge, | (See Am. ipecac,) | |
| Square stalk, | (See Oswego tea,) | |
| Squaw root, | (See blue cohosh,) | |
| " vine, | Mitchella repens, | 50 |
| " weed, | Senecio obovatus, | 50 |
| Staff-vine, | (See bittersweet,) | |
| Starwort, drooping, | (See unicorn,) | |
| Steeple-bush, | (See hardback,) | |
| Stillingia, | (See queen’s delight,) | |
| Stinking weed, | (See wormseed,) | |
| Stone-root, | Collinsonia canadensis, | 25 |
| Stramonium, | (See thorn apple,) | |
| Strawberry leaves, | Fragaria vesca, | 50 |
| " vines, | "208 | |
| Succory, wild, | (See centaury,) | |
| Sumach bark, | Rhus glabra, | 25 |
| " berries, | " | 25 |
| " leaves, | " | 25 |
| Summer savory, | Satureja hortensis, | 40 |
| Sunflower, garden, | Helianthus annus, | |
| " wild or rough, | " divaricatus, | |
| Suterberry, | (See prickly ash,) | |
| Swamp sassafras, | (See green osier,) | 50 |
| Sweat root, | (See abscess root,) | |
| Sweet bush, | (See sweet fern,) | |
| " clover, | (See melilot,) | |
| " elm, | (See slippery elm,) | |
| " fennel, | (See fennel,) | |
| " flag, | Acorus calamus, | 25 |
| " gale burs, | Myrica gale, | 50 |
| " " leaves, | " | 50 |
| " rush, | (See sweet flag,) | |
| Tamarack bark, | Pinus microcarpa, | 25 |
| Tanzy, double, | Tanacetum crispum, | 25 |
| Tea-berry plant, | (See wintergreen,) | |
| Thimbleweed, | Rudbeckia lacinata, | 40 |
| Thistle, blessed, | (See cardus, spotted,) | 50 |
| Thoroughwort, | (See boneset,) | |
| Thorn apple leaves, | Datura stramonium, | 30 |
| " root, | " | 40 |
| " seed, | " | 30 |
| Throat root, | (See Aven’s root,) | |
| Thyme, | Thymus serpyllus, | 50 |
| " English, | " vulgaris, | 50 |
| Tilia flowers, | Tylia glabra,209 | |
| Toad lily, | (See white pond lily,) | |
| Toothache tree, | (See prickly ash,) | |
| Tormentilla, | (See cranesbill,) | |
| Traveler’s joy, | (See virgin’s bower,) | |
| Trumpet weed, | (See wild lettuce,) | |
| Tulip tree, | (See whitewood,) | |
| Turnip, wild, | (See wild turnip,) | |
| Umbil root, | (See nerve root,) | |
| Uncum, | (See life root,) | |
| Unicorn root, | Helonias dioica, | |
| Upland sumach, | (See sumach,) | |
| Uva-ursi, | Arbutus uva-ursi, | 25 |
| Valerian, Am., | (See ladies’ slipper,) | |
| " Greek, | (See abscess root,) | |
| Vervian, | Verbena hastata, | 25 |
| Vine maple, | (See yellow parilla,) | |
| Violet, blue, | Viola cuculata, | 50 |
| " canker, | Viola rostrata, | 50 |
| Virgin’s bower, | Clematis virginiana, | 40 |
| Wa-a-hoo bark, | Euonymus atropurpureus, | |
| Wake robin, | (See wild turnip,) | |
| Walnut bark, white, | (See butternut bark,) | 25 |
| " leaves, | Carya alba, | |
| " shucks, | " | |
| Water bugle, | (See sweet bugle,) | |
| " cup, | (See side-saddle plant,) | |
| " horehound, | Lycopus Europœus, | |
| " dock, | (See dock,) | |
| " pepper, | Polygonum punctatum, | 25210 |
| " shamrock, | (See buckbean,) | |
| Wax myrtle, | (See bayberry,) | |
| White leaf, | (See hardhack,) | |
| Whistle-wood, | (See striped maple,) | |
| White root, | (See pleurisy root,) | |
| " wood bark, | Liriodendron tulipifera, | 30 |
| Wickup, | Epilobium spicatum, | 50 |
| Wild tobacco, | (See lobelia,) | |
| " turnip, | Arum tryphyllum, | |
| Willow, pussey, | (See pussey willow,) | |
| " bark, white, | Salix alba, | |
| Winter bloom, | (See witch hazel,) | |
| " clover, | (See squaw vine,) | |
| " berry, | (See black alder,) | |
| Wintergreen, | Gaultheria procumbens, | 40 |
| Witch hazel bark, | Hamamellis virginica, | 40 |
| " leaves, | " | 80 |
| Wolfsbane leaves, | (See aconite,) | |
| Wormseed, | Chenopodium anthelminticum, | 40 |
| Wormwood, | Artemisia absynthium, | 40 |
| Yarrow, | Achillea millefolium, | 25 |
| Yaw root, | (See queen’s delight,) | |
| Yellow broom, | (See indigo,) | |
| " parilla, | Menisperimum canadense, | |
| " wood, | (See prickly ash.)211 | |
| And various kinds indigenous to our country. | ||
| Alder, striped, | see | Witch hazel. |
| Apple, Peru, | " | Thorn apple. |
| Arbutus, trailing, | " | Gravel plant. |
| Arse-mart, | " | Water pepper. |
| Asthma weed, | " | Lobelia. |
| Balm, mountain, | " | Oswego tea. |
| Balm, red, | " | " |
| Basil, wild, | " | Dittany. |
| Bear berry, | " | Uva-ursi. |
| Beccabunga, | " | Brooklime. |
| Bed-straw, | " | Cleavers. |
| Beech drops, | " | Cancer root plant. |
| Bee’s nest, | " | Wild carrot. |
| Belladonna, | " | Deadly nightshade. |
| Bind weed, | " | Man root. |
| Bitter clover, | " | Centaury. |
| Birth root, | " | Beth root. |
| Bitter herb, | " | Snakehead. |
| Balmony, | " | " |
| Bitter worm, | " | Buckbean. |
| Black root, | " | Culver’s root. |
| Black snake root, | " | Cohosh, black. |
| Blue-bells, | " | Abscess root. |
| Blue-berry, | " | Pappoose root. |
| Boneset, purple, | " | Queen of the meadow. |
| Bouncing Bet, | " | Soapwort. |
| 212Box-berry, | " | Wintergreen. |
| Bugloss, common, | " | Borage. |
| Butterfly weed, | " | Pleurisy root. |
| Cabbage, meadow or swamp, | " | Skunk cabbage. |
| Calamus, | " | Sweet flag. |
| Catchweed, | " | Cleavers. |
| Chamomile, | " | Mayweed. |
| Checkerberry, | " | Squaw vine. |
| Chocolate root, | " | Aven’s root. |
| Christmas rose, | " | Black hellebore. |
| Cinque foil, | " | Five fingers. |
| Cliff weed, | " | Alum root. |
| Clove garlic, | " | Garlic. |
| Clover, sweet, | " | Melilot. |
| Clustered Sol. seal, | " | Sol. seal, small. |
| Coakum, | " | Poke. |
| Cock-up hat, | " | Queen’s delight. |
| Coffee, wild, | " | Fever root. |
| Cohosh, blue, | " | Pappoose root. |
| Coral root, | " | Crawley. |
| Corn snake root, | " | Button snake root. |
| Cough root, | " | Beth root. |
| Crowfoot, | " | Cranesbill. |
| Cuckoo-bread, | " | Wood sorrel. |
| Cure-all, | " | Balm lemon. |
| Devil’s bit, | " | Blazing star. |
| Dogwood bark, | " | Boxwood bark. |
| Dogwood roundwood, | " | Willow rose. |
| " Swamp | " | " |
| Dragon root, | " | Wild turnip. |
| Dragon’s claw, | " | Crawley. |
| Dropsy plant, | " | Balm lemon. |
| 213Dwale, | " | Night shade, deadly. |
| Elder, sweet, | " | Elder. |
| Emetic herb, | " | Lobelia. |
| Eve’s cup, | " | Side-saddle. |
| Euphorbia, | " | American ipecac. |
| False alder, | " | Black alder. |
| Featherfew, | " | Feverfew. |
| Fern, meadow, | " | Sweet gale. |
| Fever twig, | " | Bittersweet. |
| Fishmouth, | " | Snakehead. |
| Flag lily, | " | Blue flag. |
| Fleabane, Philadelphia, | " | Scabious. |
| Fleur-de-lis, | " | Blue flag. |
| Flux root, | " | Samson snake root. |
| Garantogen, | " | Ginseng. |
| Garget, | " | Poke. |
| Gay feather, | " | Button snake root. |
| Gentian, blue or southern, | " | Samson snake root. |
| Gill-go-over-the-ground, | " | Ground ivy. |
| Ginger, wild, | " | Canada snake root. |
| Goose grass, | " | Cleavers. |
| Goosefoot wormseed, | " | Wormseed |
| Ground lily, | " | Bethroot. |
| Gravel root, | " | Queen of meadow. |
| Gum plant, | " | Comfrey. |
| Hellebore, fœtid, | " | Skunk cabbage. |
| Hemlock, poison, | " | Cicuta leaves. |
| Healing herb, | " | Comfrey. |
| High cranberry bark, | " | Cramp bark. |
| Honey bloom, | " | Bitter root. |
| Hoodwort, | " | Scullcap. |
| Horse balm, | " | Stone root.214 |
| " gentian, | " | Fever root. |
| Hyoscyamus, | " | Henbane. |
| Indian arrowwood, | " | Wa-a-hoo. |
| " elm, | " | Elm, slippery. |
| " tobacco, | " | Lobelia. |
| " turnip, | " | Wild turnip. |
| Ipecac, wild, | " | Fever root. |
| " milk, | " | Bitter root. |
| Itch weed, | " | White hellebore. |
| Jamestown weed, | " | Thorn apple. |
| Jimson weed, | " | " |
| Joe-pye, | " | Boneset. |
| King’s clover, | " | Melilot. |
| Knobs grass, | " | Stone root. |
| Lamb kill, | " | Laurel. |
| Lavoise, | " | Lovage. |
| Leopard bane, | " | Amica. |
| Life everlasting, | " | Sweet balsam. |
| Life of man, | " | Spikenard. |
| Linden flowers, | " | Basswood. |
| Liquorice, wild, | " | Sarsaparilla. |
| Locust plant, | " | Senna. |
| Mad weed, | " | Scullcap. |
| Maple, ground, | " | Alum root. |
| Marjoram, wild, | " | Mountain mint. |
| Marsh trefoil, | " | Buckbean. |
| Masterwort, | " | Cowparsnip. |
| May apple, | " | Mandrake. |
| Meadow cabbage, | " | Skunk cabbage. |
| " fern leaves and burs, | " | Sweet gale. |
| Mealy starwort, | " | Blazing star. |
| Megereon, American, | " | Leather wood. |
| 215Milfoil, | " | Yarrow. |
| Mitrewort, | " | Coolwort. |
| Mohawk-weed, | " | Bellwort. |
| Moldavian balm, | " | Balm, sweet. |
| Monarda, | " | Horsemint. |
| Monkshood, | " | Aconite. |
| Moosewood, | " | Maple, striped. |
| Mountain box, | " | Uva ursi. |
| " dittany, | " | Dittany. |
| " flax, | " | Seneca snake root. |
| Mouth root, | " | Goldthread. |
| Myrtle leaves, | " | Bayberry. |
| Necklace weed, | " | Cohosh, white. |
| Noah’s ark, | " | " |
| Nerve root, water, | " | Indian hemp, white. |
| Nightshade, black, | " | Nightshade, garden. |
| " woody, | " | Bittersweet. |
| Ninsin, | " | Ginseng. |
| Old man, | " | Southernwood. |
| One berry, | " | Squaw vine. |
| Origanum, | " | Horsemint. |
| Ozier, red, | " | Rose willow. |
| Ox-eye daisy, | " | Daisy. |
| Partridge berry, | " | Squaw vine. |
| Patience, | " | Dock patience. |
| " garden, | " | " |
| Petty-morrel, | " | Spikenard. |
| Pigeon berry, | " | Poke. |
| Pipe plant, | " | Fit root. |
| Pipsisseway, | " | Prince’s pine. |
| Poke, Indian, | " | White hellebore. |
| Pool root, | " | Sanicle.216 |
| Poplar, white, | " | White-wood. |
| Primrose tree, | " | Scabish. |
| Puccoon, red, | " | Blood root. |
| " yellow, | " | Golden seal. |
| Puke weed, | " | Lobelia. |
| Pyramid flower, | " | Columbo. |
| Pond dogwood, | " | Button bush. |
| Poplar, white and yellow, | " | White-wood. |
| Polecat weed, | " | Skunk cabbage. |
| Rattlesnake’s master, | " | Button snake root. |
| Battle bush, | " | Wild indigo. |
| Raccoon berry, | " | Mandrake. |
| Rose pink, | " | Centaury. |
| Ragweed, | " | Roman wormwood. |
| Rattlesnake root, | " | Spotted plantain. |
| Rattleweed, | " | Black cohosh. |
| Red elm, | " | Elm slip. |
| Red-rod, | " | Rose willow. |
| Rheumatism weed, | " | Prince’s pine. |
| Rheumatic weed, | " | Cocash. |
| Rook parsley, | " | Parsley. |
| " rose, | " | Frostwort. |
| Sarsaparilla, or bristly stem, | " | Elder, dwarf. |
| Scammony, wild, | " | Man root. |
| Scoke root, | " | Poke. |
| Sea-thrift, | " | Marsh rosemary. |
| Self-heal, | " | Heal-all. |
| Sheep-berry, | " | Nanny-bush. |
| Silkweed, | " | Milkweed. |
| Simpler’s joy, | " | Vervain. |
| Smart weed, | " | Water pepper. |
| Smallage, | " | Lovage. |
| 217Snagrel, | " | Virginia snake root. |
| Snake root, black, | " | Black cohosh. |
| " button, | " | Button snake root. |
| " heart, | " | Canada snake root. |
| " rattte, | " | Spotted plantain. |
| " white, | " | White sanicle. |
| Snake weed, | " | Virginia snake root. |
| Snapping hazel-nut, | " | Witch hazel. |
| Spignet, | " | Spikenard. |
| Spikenard, small, | " | Sarsaparilla. |
| Spindle bush, | " | Wa-a-hoo. |
| Split-rock, | " | Alum root. |
| Spotted cardus, | " | Cardus. |
| Spurge, | " | American ipecac. |
| Square stalk, | " | Oswego tea. |
| Squaw root, | " | Cohosh, blue. |
| Staff-tree, or vine, | " | Bittersweet, false. |
| Starwort, drooping, | " | Unicorn. |
| Steeple-bush, | " | Hardhack. |
| Stillingia, | " | Queen’s delight. |
| Stinking weed, | " | Wormseed. |
| Stramonium, | " | Thorn apple. |
| Succory, wild, | " | Centaury. |
| Suterberry, | " | Prickly ash. |
| Swamp sassafras, | " | Green osier. |
| Sweat root, | " | Abscess root. |
| Sweet bush, | " | Sweet fern. |
| " clover, | " | Melilot. |
| " elm, | " | Slippery elm. |
| " fennel, | " | Fennel. |
| " rush, | " | Sweet flag. |
| Scabwort, | " | Elecampane. |
| 218Stonemint, | " | Dettany. |
| Star root, | " | Blazing star. |
| Squawmint, | " | Pennyroyal. |
| Tea-berry plant, | " | Wintergreen. |
| Thistle, blessed, | " | Cardus. |
| Thoroughwort, | " | Boneset. |
| Throat root, | " | Aven’s root. |
| Toad lily, | " | Water pond lily. |
| Toothache tree, | " | Prickly ash. |
| Tormentilla, | " | Cranesbill. |
| Traveler’s joy, | " | Virgin’s bower. |
| Trumpet weed, | " | Wild lettuce. |
| Tulip tree, | " | White-wood. |
| Turnip, wild, | " | Wild turnip. |
| Turmeric, | " | G. celledine. |
| Tetterwort, | " | Blood root. |
| Tick weed, | " | Pennyroyal. |
| Umbil root, | " | Nerve root. |
| Uncum, | " | Life root. |
| Valerian, American, | " | Ladies’ slipper. |
| " Greek, | " | Abscess root. |
| Vine maple, | " | Yellow. |
| Wake robin, | " | Wild turnip. |
| Walnut bark, white, | " | Butternut bark. |
| Water bugle, | " | Sweet bugle. |
| " cup, | " | Side-saddle plant. |
| " horehound, | " | Archangel. |
| Wild lemon, | " | Mandrake. |
| Windwort, | " | Pleurisy. |
| White bay, | " | Swamp sassafras. |
| Water dock, | " | Dock water. |
| " shamrock, | " | Buckbean. |
| 219Wax myrtle, | " | Bayberry. |
| White leaf, | " | Hardhack. |
| Whistle-wood, | " | Striped maple. |
| White root, | " | Pleurisy root. |
| Wild tobacco, | " | Lobelia. |
| Winter bloom, | " | Witch hazel. |
| " clover, | " | Squaw vine. |
| " berry, | " | Black alder. |
| Wolfsbane, | " | Aconite. |
| Yaw root, | " | Queen’s delight. |
| Yellow broom, | " | Indigo, wild. |
| " wood, | " | Prickly ash. |
220
| Common Names. | Botanical Names. | Per lb. |
|---|---|---|
| Aconite | Aconitum napellus | $3 00 |
| Balm Gilead | Populus balsamifera | 2 00 |
| Bittersweet | Solanum dulcamara | 1 50 |
| Bitter-root | Apocynum androsmiæfolium | 3 00 |
| Boneset | Eupatorium perfoliatum | 1 50 |
| Beer, comp. of roots | 1 50 | |
| Burdock | Arctium lappa | 1 00 |
| Butternut | Juglans cineria | 1 00 |
| Borage | Borage officinalis | 2 00 |
| Chamomile | Anthemis nobilis | 3 00 |
| Cicuta | Conium maculatum | 1 00 |
| Clover, red | Trifolium pratense | 1 00 |
| Cowparsnip | Heracleum lanatum | 1 00 |
| Dandelion | Leontodon taraxacum | 1 00 |
| Foxglove | Digitalis purpurea | 2 50 |
| Garget, or poke | Phytolacca decandria | 1 50 |
| Gentian | Gentiana lutea | 1 50 |
| Harkhack | Spiræa tormentosa | 1 50 |
| Henbane | Hyoscyamus niger | 2 00 |
| Hellebore | Helleborus fœtidus | 2 00 |
| Hops | Humulus lupulus | 2 00 |
| Horehound | Marrubium vulgare | 2 00 |
| Lettuce, garden | Lactuca sativa | 1 00 |
| " wild | " elongata | 1 00 |
| Motherwort | Lenorurus cardiaca | 1 00 |
| Mullein | Verbascum thapsus | 1 50 |
| 221Mandrake | Podophyllum peltatum | 2 00 |
| Nightshade, deadly | Atropa belladonna | 2 00 |
| " garden | Solunum dulcamara | 2 50 |
| Oak bark | Quercus alba | 1 00 |
| Peach | Amygdalus persica | 2 00 |
| Poplar | Populus tremuloides | 1 00 |
| Poppy | Papaver somniferum | 2 00 |
| Prince’s pine | Chimaphilla umbellata | 1 50 |
| Rue | Ruta graveolens | 1 50 |
| Sarsaparilla | Aralia nudicaulis | |
| " comp. | " &c. | 1 50 |
| Savin | Juniperus sabina | 1 50 |
| Snakehead, or balmony | Chelone glabra | 1 50 |
| Senna | Cassia marilandica | 1 50 |
| Sorrel | Rumex acetosa | 2 00 |
| Tomato | Solanum lycopersicum | 1 50 |
| Thorn apple | Datura stramonium | 1 00 |
| Uva-ursi | Arbutus uva-ursi | 2 00 |
| Water pepper | Polygonum punctatum | 1 00 |
| Wintergreen | Gaultheria procumbens | 2 00 |
| White walnut | Juglans cineria | 1 00 |
| Wormwood | Artemesia absinthium | 1 50 |
| Yellow dock | Rumex crispus | 1 00 |
| Yarrow | Achillea millefolium | 1 00 |
222
| Per gallon. | |
|---|---|
| Rose, | $1 25 |
| Peach, | 75 |
| Cherry, | 75 |
| Sassafras, | 75 |
| Peppermint, | 50 |
| Spearmint, | 50 |
| Elder Flower, | 50 |
Also, any other kinds distilled to order.
| Common Names. | Botanical Names. |
|---|---|
| Bittersweet, | Celastri. |
| Cicuta, | Conii. |
| Cocculus indicus, | Cocculi. |
| Elder, | Sambuci. |
| Hellebore, | Veratri albi. |
| Hallow marsh, | Althæa. |
| Meadow fern, | Myrica. |
| Poplar, | Populi. |
| Savin, | Sabinæ. |
| Thorn-apple, | Stramonii. |
| Tobacco, | Tabaci. |
| Yellow dock, | Rumex. |
I am prepared to furnish any of the foregoing medicines, extracts, etc., on short notice. Address, “St. Vincent de Paul, Lower Canada." They may also be had of Peck & Co., New-York.
223
225
We, the undersigned, have employed Madame Young, in our families, and for ourselves, and have been witnesses of many cures effected by her treatment in various diseases, which had baffled eminent physicians. We cheerfully recommend her to all afflicted.
Rochester, March 2d, 1854.
This is to certify, that my daughter Maria, aged nine years, was so afflicted with scrofula that her ears were eat through into her head, and her face, neck, and head, was a mass of corruption; she became blind, and had fits. I had employed every skillful physician in this city, and elsewhere, and patent medicine, to no avail. When Madame Young came into this city, we were prevailed upon to try her medicine, as she had wrought so many wonderful cures here. We employed her, and, thanks be to my Heavenly Father, in two months my beloved daughter was healed. Madame Young is a true Christian—skillful in the healing art. We recommend her to all afflicted, as the only sure way to health.
W. H. Spring.
Rochester, N. Y., Sept. 6, 1854
226
I hereby certify, that the treatment of Mrs. Young, with roots, has done me much good; my stomach has been weak for a great many years. Only fifteen days since, I commenced using roots given me by said lady, and I am impelled to-day to testify, that within twenty years I have not been as well—so easy, so refreshed through my whole system. If I so testify, it is because of my hope that many of the Rochesterians will probably experience, as I do, the unutterable pleasure of finding themselves, in a few days, restored from a weakly condition of body, to the freshness of health. This reminds me of what I was often told—namely, that the men of long bygone days lived so long, because their thorough knowledge in using these roots of the earth—simple, natural physics from our bountiful God.
Rev. A. Saunier, French Priest,
Ely Street, Rochester, N. Y.
This may certify, that we, the subscribers, have employed Madame Young in our families, in the treatment and cure of various diseases; and that her management—particularly in chronic diseases which had baffled the skill of the most distinguished physicians—has been eminently successful, and highly satisfactory. For several years we have been acquainted with her character, and, knowing her to be worthy of confidence, we cheerfully recommend her to those who may stand in need of her services, as a truly devoted Christian and skillful physician. For seven years she was presiding physician over the Shakers’ Society at New Lebanon, N. Y.
Petersham, Mass., March 5, 1850.
227
This is to certify, that my husband has been afflicted for nine years with the asthma, and several physicians who have attended him gave him over as past help, and must die of consumption. He has been obliged to spend several hours, on a cold winter’s night, with his breast upon the sill of the open window, to get his breath. I have called my friends and neighbors, as I supposed, to see him die. But, through the instrumentality of Mrs. Young, and the blessing of Providence, he has been restored to a comfortable state of health. “The wind bloweth where it listeth; we hear the sound thereof, and we cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of God.” And this seems the case with Madame Young.
Rochester, N. Y.
Ann Nurse, Francis Nurse.
This may certify, that I was afflicted nine years with scrofula, diseases of the throat and glands, in breathing—called by physicians bronchitis, asthma, neuralgia, and six years with tic doloreaux. Consulted twenty-two physicians, and have been under the immediate care of fifteen, and I obtained no permanent cure, but a little partial relief, which was not of long continuance. All gave me up as incurable, and prescribed only opium, internally and externally. At this time, my friends concluded that before another year they must convey me to an Insane Hospital for life, at the age of 32.
Thanks to my Heavenly Father, we heard of the many blessings that had been conferred through the instrumentality of Madame Young. As the last recourse we sent for her, and she, with her indefatigable zeal for the relief of suffering humanity, soon removed the cause, by renovating the blood; and I am, after following her prescriptions three months, perfectly well, and have not taken any medicine for one year. I write this rather long testimonial, to encourage invalids to put entire confidence in Madame Young, as she is truly pious, and a skillful physician.
Given under my hand, at Spencer, Mass., February 20th, 1850.
Eleanor P. Bush.
228
I certify, that my wife has been in a feeble state of health for eight years; was at first attacked with typhus fever, and brought very low. Since, according to the opinion of many noted physicians, who have attended upon her, she has been afflicted with the spinal disease, neuralgia, &c., which baffled their skill, and yielded not to their medicine. Six weeks since she was again taken down with the typhus fever, and was very much reduced, when she employed Madame Young. She now enjoys a very good degree of health. The disease which has so long afflicted her, with its attendant difficulties has been made to yield, and she now enjoys the greatest of temporal blessings—good health.
Petersham, Mass., March 1, 1850.
Rev. J. Shepardson.
This is to certify, that my wife has been in a state of ill health for four years, with pains and a cough, and scrofula internally and externally. Eminent physicians and patent medicines were tried, to no avail. Finally, as medicine rather irritated, we gave up, and concluded she must die. Hearing of the many remarkable cures of our friends by Madame Young’s syrups, we employed her, and I can in gratitude thank my Heavenly Father that my wife is well, and can attend to the duties of our family.
Jonathan Ring.
Chesterfield, April 20, 1847.
With feelings of gratitude toward God, and for the benefit of my own sex, I publish the following: In the year 1840, I was taken with a pain in my spine, and faintness, had fits, and my bowels were in a constipated state. I grew worse daily, and new diseases came upon me—scrofula, chronic rheumatism, with prolapsus uteri. Year 1848, I was unable to help myself in the least. In March, 1848, I was recommended to Madame Young, and as physicians had given me up as incurable, I sent for her, as the last resource; and I can say with truth, in less than five months I could go about and attend to the duties of my family.
Given under my hand, at Chesterfield, Jan. 25, 1849.
Sarah Barnard.
229
It is with pleasure that I am permitted to add my testimony to the many in favor of Madame Young, as possessed of skill in determining the character of diseases and in applying the remedy, especially such diseases as are common to females. My wife was troubled with the prolapsus uteri, and scrofula and dropsy for a number of years, and spent much time and money in seeking relief from physicians, but found it not, until, in the Providence of God, she was permitted to see Madame Young, in whom she found a friend and physician indeed, and was soon constrained to feel that there was “balm in Gilead” for the afflicted. Suffice it to say, that she was restored to that degree of health, which for years she had been a stranger to. I can heartily recommend Madame Young to all the afflicted of Adam’s race.
Petersham, March 6, 1850.
Thomas T. Jenks.
This may certify: I was afflicted with dropsy, was given up by physicians as incurable; having had the canker rash and measles four years previous, which had settled in my joints, so that I could not bend them; pronounced by physicians, rheumatic gout. I was also afflicted with shortness of breath, spasms, &c. At this time, I had a son troubled much with diabetes. I was in despair of ever seeing my son well. When Madame Young came to this village, Sept. 12th, I applied to her; she attended my family three months, and I can say in truth I have laid aside crutches and cane, and am able to do a good day’s work on my farm; my son is restored to health, thanks be to my Heavenly Father.
I recommend this truly good Samaritan to old and young, as she never lost a child placed under her medical care, after the physicians gave them up to die.
John How.
Barre, Mass., March 2, 1850.
This certifies, that my daughter, Phebe A. Jones, aged four years, has been severely afflicted with scrofulous affections in the neck, so that her head was drawn on one side, thereby causing much pain and suffering; and after being doctored230 and operated upon by the best physicians and surgeons in this city, was given up by them as incurable, they not being able to afford her the least relief.
I was recommended to Madame Young, who, in less than eight weeks, cured her of every vestige of disease, and she now enjoys the most perfect health. This certificate is given in the hope that others afflicted may know where to find relief.
John Jones.
Albany, Feb. 16, 1849.
We, the subscribers, hereby certify that we have employed the bearer, Madame Young, personally in our families, in the treatment and cure of diseases; that her course has been entirely satisfactory, especially in chronic complaints. We recommend her to the afflicted, as possessing much skill in the healing art.
Greenfield, Franklin Co., Mass., Oct., 1849.
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Hyphenation has been standardised to ensure compatibility between the various lists and index.
The following changes have been made:
Sodorific and sudorific are used indiscriminately in the book, and has been Standardised on the accepted spelling of sudorific..
On pages 17, 21 and
46
Hooping cough corrected to Whooping cough
page 60
and keep hot niac hours, niac has been changed to nine
page 153
never do have the parson’s wife, changed to never do to have the
parson’s wife
Alternative spellings are used for various herbs e.g. hoarhound and horehound. These remain together with all other variations in spelling.
The Erratum has been implemented.