Herb Teas
are made by pouring boiling water over one or two tea-spoonfuls of the herbs, then, after covering well the cup or bowl, allowing it to steep for several minutes by the side of the fire. The tea is sweetened to taste. Camomile tea is quite invaluable for nervousness and sleeplessness; calamus tea, for infants’ colic; cinnamon tea, for hemorrhages; watermelon-seed tea, for strangury.
Boneset for a Cough or Cold (Mrs. General Simpson).
Pour one and one-half pints of boiling water on a ten-cent package of boneset. Let it steep at the side of the fire for ten or fifteen minutes, when strain it. Sweeten it with two and a half coffee-cupfuls of loaf-sugar, then add one half-pint of Jamaica rum; bottle it. A child should take a tea-spoonful before each meal; a grown person, a sherry-glassful.
Botanic Cough Sirup.
This book is not a medical treatise, yet I can not resist the temptation to add the following receipt, given me by Mrs. H——, of Buffalo. Many cases of long and aggravated cough have been entirely cured by its use. If the patient has a tendency to vertigo, the bloodroot may be omitted from the receipt; but for pale persons of weak vitality it will be found a valuable addition.
Ingredients: Elecampane, one ounce; spikenard, one ounce; cumfrey root, one ounce; bloodroot, one ounce; hoarhound tops, one ounce.
Add two quarts of water to these herbs, and steep them five hours in a porcelain or new tin vessel; add more boiling water, as it boils away, to keep the vessel as full as at first. At the end of this time, strain the liquid, add one pound of loaf-sugar, and boil it until it is reduced to one quart.
Dose.—A dessert-spoonful before each meal and before retiring. It should be kept in a cool place; or a little spirits may be added to prevent its spoiling.
ARRANGEMENT OF DISHES FOR INVALIDS.