Important: Safety Warning
This page gives first-aid or emergency advice that predates modern medicine and can make an emergency worse. Do not follow it. In any medical emergency, call emergency services and follow current first-aid guidance.
In addition, this page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
In addition, this page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Medical › CURE FOR FELON
CURE FOR FELON
When a felon first makes its appearance, take the inside skin of an egg-shell, and wrap it around the part affected. When the pressure becomes too painful, wet it with water, and keep it on twelve hours. Roast or bake thoroughly a large onion; mix the soft inner pulp with two heaping table-spoons of table salt, and apply the mixture to the affected part as a poultice, keeping the parts well covered. Make fresh applications at least twice a day, morning and evening, and a cure will follow in at least a week.
Or, one tea-spoon of scorched salt, one tea-spoon of corn meal, one teaspoon of scraped hard soap, one tea-spoon of beet leaves pounded up, twelve drops of turpentine, and the yolk of one egg. Mix all ingredients together in the form of a poultice, in which bind closely the swollen finger. Or, procure five or six lemons, cut off the end of one, thrust the sore finger into the lemon, and let it stay till the lemon is warm; proceed in the same way till all the six are used. Or, put a piece of Spanish-fly plaster over the spot affected, and that will draw the trouble to the surface; or, on the first appearance, apply a poultice of the common Fleur de Lis root well mashed. It will cure in a short time.