Cures for Dysentery.—Tincture rhubarb, tincture of capsicum, tincture of camphor, essence of ginger and laudanum, equal parts. Mix; shake well and take from ten to twenty drops every thirty minutes, until relief is obtained. This is a dose for an adult. Half the amount for a child under twelve years of age. 2. Take some butter off the churn, immediately after being churned, just as it is, without being salted or washed: clarify it over the fire like honey. Skim off all the milky particles when melted over a clear fire. Let the patient (if an adult) take two tablespoonfuls of the clarified remainder, twice or thrice within the day. This has never failed to effect a cure, and in many cases it has been almost instantaneous. 3. In diseases of this kind the Indians use the roots and leaves of the blackberry bush—- a decoction of which, in hot water, well boiled down, is taken in doses of a gill before each meal, and before retiring to bed. It is an almost infallible cure. 4. Beat one egg in a teacup; add one tablespoonful of loaf sugar and half a teaspoonful of ground spice; fill the cup with sweet milk. Give the patient one tablespoonful once in ten minutes until relieved. 5. Take one tablespoonful of common salt, and mix it, with two tablespoonfuls of vinegar and pour upon it a half pint of water, either hot or cold (only let it be taken cool.) A wine glass full of this mixture in the above proportions, taken every half hour, will he found quite efficacious in curing dysentery. If the stomach be nauseated, a wine-glass full taken every hour will suffice. For a child, the quantity should be a teaspoonful of salt and one of vinegar in a teacupful of water.
Dropsy.—Take the leaves of a currant bush and make into tea, drink it.
Cure for Drunkenness.—- The following singular means of curing habitual drunkenness is employed by a Russian physician. Dr. Schreiber, of Brzese Litewski: It consists in confining the drunkard in a room, and in furnishing him at discretion with his favorite spirit diluted with two-thirds of water; as much wine, beer and coffee as he desires, but containing one-third of spirit: all the food—the bread, meat, and the legumes are steeped in spirit and water. The poor devil is continually drunk and dort. On the fifth day of this regime he has an extreme disgust for spirit; he earnestly requests other diet: but his desire must not be yielded to until the poor wretch no longer desires to eat or drink: he is then certainly cured of his penchant for drunkenness. He acquires such a disgust for brandy or other spirits that he is ready to vomit at the very sight of it.
Cure for Dyspepsia.—1. Take bark of white poplar root, boil it thick, and add a little spirit, and then lay it on the stomach.
2. Take wintergreen and black cherry-tree bark and yellow dock: put into two quarts of water; boil down to three pints; take two or three glasses a day.
Here are two remedies for dyspepsia, said by those who "have tried them" to be infallible. 1. Eat onions. 2. Take two parts of well-dried and pounded pods of red pepper, mixed with one part of ground mustard, and sift it over everything you eat or drink.
How to Cure Earache.—Take a small piece of cotton batting or cotton wool, make a depression in the center with the finger, and then fill it up with as much ground pepper as will rest on a five-cent piece; gather it into a ball and tie it up; dip the ball into sweet oil and insert it in the ear, covering the latter with cotton wool, and use a bandage or cap to retain it in its place. Almost instant relief will be experienced; and the application is so gentle that an infant, will not get injured by it, but experience relief as well as adults. Roast a piece of lean mutton, squeeze out the juice and drop it info the ear as hot as it can be borne. Roast an onion and put into the ear as hot as it can be borne.
How to Cure Erysipelas.—Dissolve five ounces of salt in one pint of good brandy and take two tablespoonfuls three times per day.
Cure for Inflamed Eyes.—Pour boiling water on alder flowers, and steep them like tea; when cold, put three or four drops of laudanum into a small glass of the alder-tea, and let the mixture run into the eyes two or three times a day, and the eyes will become perfectly strong in the course of a week.