It has turned out to be a medicinal weekend here, somewhat by chance. So we will turn to other things in the week to come.I noticed this morning that the London Times reports that honey and lemon works as a children's cough and cold remedy much better than over-the-counter medicines. This reminded me of the "delightful elixir" Aspirinol and the more traditional, often whiskey-based, curatives that were given to children and adults alike in earlier days.
Dr. A.W. Chase, author of Dr. Chase's Recipes; Or Information For Everybody (1866), listed several recipes for cough drops and "Cough Candy" [pp 171-2] which partake of the traditional widsom. For example, one of Chase's cough syrups consists of equal parts of linseed oil, honey and Jamaica rum. Don't forget to shake well before using (the bottle, not you).
His Cough Candy is a little bit more complicated. Take the following ingredients:
2 oz. tincture of squills [often used in cough medicines, also see here]
1/4 oz. camphorated tincture of opium
1/4 oz. tincture of tolu
1/4 oz. wine of ipecac [still used in syrup form, to induce vomiting]
4 drops oil of gaultheria [wintergreen flavoring]
3 drops oil of sassafras
2 drops oil of anise-seed
Mix all the above and "put into 5 lbs of candy which is just ready to take from the fire, continuing the boiling a little longer, so as to form into sticks." Chase notes that many druggists had confectioners make up batches of "common [hard] candy" to which the former added the medicinal ingredients. The Cough Candy sounds rather more powerful than honey and lemon, though. I think I'll stick to the latter (or ginger and honey, which is also quite efficacious).
The image is from Dr. Chase's Recipes; Or Information For Everybody and shows Dr. Chase's medical building in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He says he built it so that he had the facilities to test all his Recipes and write the book - although I'm sure he enjoyed the extra space in a more general sense, too. He also printed his own books there: it says "Dr. Chase's Publication and Book Bindery" at the top of the building.
******
A thousand thanks to Don over at the very funny Beyond Left Field for the shout out for both my blogs! He is one of my daily reads and, well, I am quite honored. So do go over there right now and check him out, OK?
4 comments:
Ha! Just think of all this as your contribution to the amelioration of flu season.
I remember clearly my grandmother talking about Dover's tablets, which contained both ipecac and tincture of opium. They were an excellent cold remedy, I was told.
Well, you'll be able to set yourself up as a home-remedy queen yourself with all this delving into old medicines! Perhaps a little side business run out of Kitchen Kitsch?
Phyl - I was sort of thinking that!
A. - I can imagine that they were.
bellanta - I might do that. Am actually thinking about a little E Bay store, so that could be one of my specialties...
Post a Comment