Did You Know? ~ Vintage Recipes for Ears, Cough, and Rheumatism

Old time recipes for what ails you.

Ear-ache

Soak the feet in warm water, roast an onion, and put the heart of it into the ear as warm as can be borne. Heat a brick, and wrap it up, and apply it to the side of the head. When the feet are taken from the water, bind roasted onions on them. Lard or sweet oil [olive oil] dropped in the ear, as warm as can be borne, is good. 

(Onions contain the antibiotic/antiviral, and anti-fungal ingredient called allicin. They are also supposed to contain a natural anti-inflammatory.)

General Taylor’s celebrated cough syrup

One quart in bulk of horehound to one quart of water and boil down to a pint; add three sticks of liquorice, and a tablespoonful of essence of lemon. One tablespoonful five times a day, or as often as the cough may be troublesome. This has been sold for one dollar a bottle.

(Horehound has been used as an expectorant and purgative, for stomach complaints, tea for a cold, and to help wounds.) 

To cure rheumatism

Put an ounce of cayenne pepper in ½ pint of brandy, and take from a tea to a teaspoonful three times a day, or blister the affected parts.