Old Fashioned Home Remedies: Health

HEALTH REMEDIES

Because stores are running out of cleansing things, and things in general in places, we thought you might want to see some ‘how to’s’ from a time before we had packaged goods. We found these from cookbooks that are from 1868 and 1906. Some of it, we had to translate to modern-day terms. Have fun reading, take what you can use—but remember, these are last resorts and are before we had modern medicine, too.  

TO PREVENT COLDS

We found an ad folded up in the 1906 cookbook for Listerine that said it killed a specific virus (B. Typhosus) in less than 15 seconds. Given the date of the cookbook and the photos used in the ads, it would have been prior to 1920. The ad said to cleanse your hands with Listerine to avoid that virus: “Your hands are a big carrier of germs, and any chance you get you must cleanse your hands. Listerine is one of the strongest cleaning products there is. It is useful in killing germs, and a good way to fight the spread of illness is washing your hands with Listerine before every meal,” and after every restroom use, and quite honestly when you just think about it.  

A Household Guide: Useful Hints for the Housekeeper

EAR-ACHE (pg. 231) 

Everyone hates an earache. This section of A Household Guide has two remedies to treat this inconvenience. 

First, the book says you can cure an earache by baking a hot griddle cake in plenty of grease and applying it as hot as you can endure it.  (The heat draws out the wax and ‘pain’, much like the candling process that alternative health care providers use today. I wouldn’t recommend this, but it’s fun to look at the old remedies.)

Second, you can also take equal amounts of laudanum and sweet oil and let it sit in your ear to cure minor earaches and soften earwax for easy removal. (We’ve reduced that down, in modern times, to just sweet oil.)

A LAME BACK (pg. 232) 

It’s quite surprising the variety of ways vinegar, specifically, apple cider vinegar can be used in your everyday life, especially to cure an aching back!

Apple cider vinegar and salt can help ease back pain and aches. It’s best to mix 2-3 tablespoons of vinegar with a glass of water, and you can even add honey to make it taste better! The minerals found in the vinegar help with inflammation of the nerves causing pain.

Home Remedies and Household Hints

CLEANSING SORE THROAT - Mix  ½ teaspoon of common salt, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, 1-ounce glycerine, 3 ounces of water. Gargle.  (My mom modified this to ½ teaspoon salt, a tablespoon of vinegar, and 3 ounces of water - it really works!)

PNEUMONIA - Take six onions, chop fine, put into A LARGE SPIDER (pot) over a hot fire (Stove); add vinegar and rye meal to form a thick paste. Stir and simmer ten minutes. Put in cheesecloth or another large cloth bag, large enough to cover lungs, and apply as hot as the patient can bear. (I googled rye meal, to see if there were any medicinal properties - it was an interesting read, and the short answer is, yes - it even helps with wheezing, so yes, you have to use rye meal.)http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=65