Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers

For Affection of the Kidneys

Boil some onions soft, mash, and apply them where the pain is seated. This has given great relief.

For a Gathering on a Finger

Mix together equal parts of castile soap and chalk; wet it with camphor, and bind it on, or dip the finger in honey and camphorated spirits, as hot as you can bear. A little burnt alum put on lint is good; also a bread and milk poultice, with pounded sassafras root stewed in it, and renewed frequently. Honey and camphor mixed is useful for gatherings that have been of long standing.

Take of the following ingredients a tea-spoonful each: black pepper powdered finely, ginger, spirits of camphor, laudanum, and honey; beat them well with the yelk of an egg, and thicken with rye flour, or if you cannot obtain rye, corn and wheat flour mixed will answer; this will form a soft poultice, and should be applied in sufficient quantity to keep moist, and changed once a day. I have known this to cure several gatherings that threatened to be severe.