How to Cure Hiccough.—A convulsive motion of the diaphragm and parts adjacent. The common causes are flatuency, indigestion, acidity and worms. It may usually be removed by the exhibition of warm carminatives, cordials, cold wafer, weak spirits, camphor julep, or spirits of sal volatile. A sudden fright or surprise will often produce the like effect. An instance is recorded of a delicate young lady that was troubled with hiccough for some months, and who was reduced to a state of extreme debility from the loss of sleep occasioned thereby, who was cured by a fright, after medicines and topical applications had failed. A pinch of snuff, a glass of cold soda-water, or an ice-cream, will also frequently remove this complaint.
How to Cure Hoarseness.—Make a strong tea of horseradish and yellow dock root, sweetened with honey and drink freely.
Remedies for Hoarseness.—Take one drachm of freshly scraped horse-radish root, to be infused with four ounces of water in a close vessel for three hours, and made into a syrup, with double its quantity of vinegar. A teaspoonful has often proved effectual.
How to Cure Humors.—Take equal parts of saffron and seneca snake root, make a strong tea, drink one half-pint a day, and this will drive out all humors from the system.
How to Cure Hysterics.—Take the leaves of motherwort and thoroughwort, and the bark of poplar root; equal parts. Mix them in molasses, and take four of them when the first symptoms of disorder are felt, and they will effectually check it.
How to Cure Barber's Itch.—Moisten the parts affected with saliva (spittle) and rub it over thoroughly times a day with the ashes of a good Havana cigar. This is a simple remedy, yet it has cured the most obstinate cases.
Itch Ointment.—1. Take lard, one pound; suet, one pound; sugar of lead, eight ounces; vermillion, two ounces. Mix. Scent with a little bergamot. 2. Take bichloride of mercury, one ounce; lard, one pound; suet, one pound; hydrochloride acid, one and a half ounces. Melt and well mix, and when perfectly cold, stir in essence of lemon, four drachms; essence of bergamot, one drachm. 3. Take powdered chloride of lime, one ounce; lard, one pound. Mix well, then add essence of lemon, two drachms. 4. Take bichloride of mercury, one part; lard, fifteen parts. Mix well together. 5. Take white precipitate, one part; lard, twelve parts. Mix. A portion of either of these ointments must be well rubbed on the parts affected, night and morning.
How to Cure Seven-Year Itch.—1. Use plenty of castile soap and water, and then apply freely iodide of sulphur ointment; or take any given quantity of simple sulphur ointment and color it to a light brown or chocolate color with the subcarbonate of iron, and then perfume it. Apply this freely, and if the case should be a severe one, administer mild alteratives in conjunction with the outward application. 2. The sulphur bath is a good remedy for itch or any other kind of skin diseases. Leprosy (the most obstinate of all) has been completely cured by it, and the common itch only requires two or three applications to completely eradicate it from the system. 3. Benzine, it is said, will effect a complete cure for scabies in the course of half to three-quarters of an hour, after which the patient should take a warm bath from twenty to thirty minutes.
How to Cure Jaundice.—1. Take the whites of two hen's eggs, beat them up well in a gill of water; take of this a little every morning; it will soon do good. It also creates an appetite, and strengthens the stomach. 2. Take of black cherry-tree bark, two ounces; blood root and gold thread, each half an ounce; put in a pint of brandy. Dose, from a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful morning and night.
How to Cure Stiffened Joints.—Take of the bark of white oak and sweet apple trees, equal parts; boil them down to a thick substance, and then add the same quantity of goose-grease or oil, simmer all together, and then rub it on the parts warm.