Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts

Ten thousand receipts from the great Victorian household compendium — cookery, brewing, dyeing, gilding, fireworks, medicine, farriery and the rest of the useful arts, in one volume.

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Prevention, etc

Corns should be secured from pressure by means of a thick adhesive plaster, in the centre of which a hole has been made for the ring the patient to press against it with the teeth of the opposite jaw till the bleeding be stopped, which is almost instantly. This acts as a tourniquet, and gives time to use whatever other means may be deemed requisite; but it is seldom that anything else is required." Solution of persulphate of iron, alum, and powder of tannin are also good styptics.

Remedies for Diseases of the Teeth.

If hollow or decayed, apply compound tincture of benzoin, or some essential oil, on cotton, to the part; or pills with camphor and opium; or reception of the projecting part. This, with fre- chew the roots of pellitory of Spain. Some burn quent immersion in water and occasional paring, the nerve with sulphuric or nitric acid, or a hot has often been found to remove them, and always vs iron. prevents their enlargement. An effectual mode of extirpation is by the application of a small blister, the effect of which will be, generally, to raise them with the skin out of their bed. When rest from labor can be obtained, this is an excellent method. Dress the blister (which need not exceed the size of a silver dime) with hog's lard, or simple wax ointment.

To remove Warts.

Nitrate of silver (lunar caustic) cures those troublesome excrescences called warts in an extremely simple and harmless manner. Caustic potassa is still more certain. The method of using it is to dip the end of the caustic in a little water and to rub it over the warts. After doing so a few times they will be gone. The muriate of ammonia (sal ammoniac) is likewise a very useful remedy. "Out of twenty years' practice," says a medical correspondent in the Monthly Magazine, "I never knew the above remedies to fail."

Ward's Paste for the Piles.

Pulverize finely in an iron mortar 1 ounce of black pepper, 1 ounce of elecampane root and three ounces of fennel seed, and mix them intimately together. Now melt together over a clear fire 2 ounces of sugar and 2 ounces of clarified honey, so as to form a clear syrup, which add to the mixed powder in the mortar, and heat the whole into a mass of uniform consistence. This medicine is to be taken when the irritation of piles runs so high as to threaten fistula. The dose is a piece of the size of a nutmeg, to be taken three times a day: this is to be washed down by a glass of cold water, or white wine.

Extraneous Bodies in the Ear.

These are to be extracted by means of a small forceps, or by syringing the ear with warm or tepid water. But should such means prove unsuccessful, they may be suffered to remain without danger, if they do not produce pain, as in a very short time they will be forced out by the accumulating wax. Insects may be killed by filling the ear with oil and afterwards removed by syringing with warm water. To check Hæmorrhage consequent upon the Extraction of Teeth. A good surgeon recommends the following method for the treatment of the above frequent and sometimes serious accident: "Take a small, fine phial cork, of a size adapted to the socket whence the tooth has been extracted and the hæmorrhage proceeds; then with a small dossil of lint wet with tincture of chloride of iron, and put on the smallest end of the cork, push the cork into the bleeding orifice, pressing it firmly in till it be, as it were, wedged in the socket, and Collyria, or Eye-waters. [See page 125.] Take of extract of lead, 10 drops; rose-water, 6 ounces. Mix, and wash the eyes night and morning.

Another. Take of extract of lead, 10 drops; spirit of camphor, 20 drops; rose-water, a pint.

Mix. This eye-water is extremely useful in ophthalmia, attended with much inflammation. Another. Take of opium, 10 grains; camphor, 6 grains; boiling water, 12 ounces. Rub the opium and camphor with the boiling water and strain. This collyrium abates the pain and irritation attendant on severe cases of inflammation of the eyes.

Another. Take of white vitriol, drachm; spirits of camphor, 1 drachm; warm water, 2 ounces; rose-water, 4 ounces. Dissolve the vitriol in the warm water, and add the spirit of camphor and rose-water. This is a useful collyrium in the chronic state of ophthalmia, or what is generally called weakness of the eyes after inflammation. Another. Dissolve 10 grains of soft extract of opium in 6 ounces of warm distilled water; strain through fine linen, and then add 2 ounces of liquor of acetate of ammonia, Where the pain is great, this collyrium will be productive of great relief.

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