How to Cure Bad Breath.—Bad or foul breath will be removed by taking a teaspoonful of the following mixture after each meal: One ounce liquor of potassa, one ounce chloride of soda, one and one-half ounces phosphate of soda, and three ounces of water.
2. Chlorate of potash, three drachms; rose-water, four ounces. Dose, a tablespoonful four or five times daily.
How to Cure Bunions.—A bunion is a swelling on the ball of the great toe, and is the result of pressure and irritation by friction. The treatment for corns applies also to bunions; but in consequence of the greater extension of the disease, the cure is more tedious. When a bunion is forming it may be stopped by poulticing and carefully opening it with a lancet.
How to Cure Burns and Scalds.—Take half a pound of powdered alum, dissolve it in a quart of water; bathe the burn or scald with a linen rag, wetted with this mixture, then bind the wet rag on it with a strip of linen, and moisten the bandage with the alum water frequently, without removing it during two or three days.
Tea Leaves for Burns.—Dr. Searles, of Warsaw, Wis., reports the immediate relief from pain in severe burns and scalds by the application of a poultice of tea leaves.
How to Cure Cancer.—Boil down the inner bark of red and white oak to the consistency of molasses; apply as a plaster, shifting it once a week; or, burn red-oak bark to ashes; sprinkle it on the sore till it is eaten out; then apply a plaster of tar; or, take garget berries and leaves of stramonium; simmer them together in equal parts of neatsfoot oil and the tops of hemlock; mix well together, and apply it to the parts affected; at the same time make a tea of winter-green (root and branch); put a handful into two quarts of water; add two ounces of sulphur and drink of this tea freely during the day.
Castor Oil Mixture.—Castor oil, one dessert spoonful; magnesia, one dessert spoonful. Rub together into a paste. By this combination, the taste of the oil is almost entirely concealed, and children take it without opposition.
How to Disguise Castor Oil.—Rub up two drops oil of cinnamon with an ounce of glycerine and add an ounce of castor oil. Children will take it as a luxury and ask for more.
Castor Oil Emulsions.—Take castor oil and syrup, each one ounce; the yolk of an egg, and orange flower water, one-half ounce. Mix. This makes a very pleasant emulsion, which is readily taken by adults as well as children.
How to Cure Catarrh.—Take the bark of sassafras root, dry and pound it, use it as a snuff, taking two or three pinches a day.