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 the 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.
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, a wine glass of the remainder cold, as it is a tonic in all cases of general debility.