This was sent to us by Margaret in the US and we thought it may encourage a few of you to take up cooking!! Chris and Caroline This was taken from the newspaper of the day in 1862. It is called every soldier's medical book. Guess you had to march with lots of vinegar. My husband swears by pickle juice for nausea. Editor Enquirer:--Horrified at the rabidity [sic?] with which our soldiers die in camp, we are tempted to give them the following recipes, the result of some experience, in hopes that some may be saved by using remedies simple, safe, and generally sure cures: To Prevent Sickness.-Have a jug of salted vinegar, seasoned with pepper, and take a mouthful just before going to bed. The salt and vinegar make a near approach to the digestive gastric juice of the stomach, and are besides antidotes to many of the vegetable and miasmatic poisons. For Pneumonia, Colds, and Coughs.-Take half a cup or less of salted pepper vinegar, fill the cup nearly full of warm water and then stir in a raw well beaten egg slowly. Take a mouthful every 15 or 20 minutes; in the intervals slowly suck on a piece of alum. If the attack is violent, dip a cloth in halt salted pepper vinegar and apply it round the throat, covering with dry cloths to get up a steam, and do the same to the chest. For Chills.-Put a tablespoonful of salted pepper vinegar in a cup of warm water, go to bed and drink; in two hours drink a cup of strong water-willow bark tea; in two hours more another tablespoonful of the vinegar and warm water, and so on, alternating, until the fever is broken up. After sweating, and before going into the out-door air, the body ought always to be wiped off with a cloth dipped in cold water. Dogwood will do if water-willow cannot be obtained. For Measles.-Put a small piece yeast in a tumbler of warm sweetened water, let it draw, and drink a mouthful every 15 or 20 minutes, and drink plentifully of cold or hot catnip, balson [sic], hoarhound [sic], or alder tea; and use in place of oil or salts, one tablespoonful salted pepper vinegar, melted together and taken warm. Take once a day, if necessary-keep out of the wet and out-door air. For Diarrhoea.-A teaspoonful of the salted pepper vinegar every one or two hours. Take teaspoonful of the puffs that grow round oak twigs, powdered fine; take twice a day in one tablespoonful of brandy, wine or cordial. If these yellow puffs cannot be found, suck frequently on a piece of alum. The quantity of alum depends upon the severity of the attack; take slowly and little at a time. For Camp Fevers.-One tablespoonful of salted pepper vinegar, slightly seasoned, and put into a cup of warm water-drink and often, from 4 to 8 cupfuls a day, with fever or without fever. Pour a cupful more or less of the salted pepper vinegar into cold water, and keep the body, particularly the stomach and head, well bathed with a cloth dipped in it. Give enemas of cold water, and for oil use a tablespoonful molasses, a teaspoonful of lard, and a teaspoonful pepper vinegar, melted together and taken warm. If the pepper is too exciting for delicate patients, leave it out in drinks and bathings, and use simply the salt and vinegar in water, and very little salt. Antidote for Drunkenness: For the Benefit of Officers.-One cup of strong black black [sic?] coffee without milk or sugar, and twenty drops of laudanum. Repeat the dose if necessary. Or take one teaspoonful of tincture lobelia in a tumbler of milk; if taken every ten or fifteen minutes it will act as an emetic; taken in longer intervals, say thirty minutes, it will act as an antidote. The Yankees declared that poisoned liquor was put on the counters to poison their soldiers. No body doubts liquor being poisoned, but it was made of poisons to sell to our own Southern boys; and it is horrifying to think of the liquors now being made down in cellars, of sulphuric acid, strychnine, buckeye, tobacco leaves, coloring matter and rainwater. For this poisoned liquor, the best antidote is an emetic, say lobelia and warm salt and water, and then drink freely of sugared vinegar water. For Snake Bites.-The best thing is one teaspoonful of Lobelia and ten drops of Ammonia, taken every few minutes, and a bottle filled with Lobelia and Ammonia, will answer without the other. Tobacco, Nightshade, or Kurtle Barr [Bark?], or Deer-tongue, (a rough-leafed herb, in flower and appearance like to bog artichoke) stewed in milk; drink the milk, using the rest as a poultice. The last is an Indian remedy, and will cure in the agonies of death. For the Chicken Cholera now Devastating Fowldom.-Put one or two Jamestown weed leaves, properly called Stramonium, into the water trough every day-fresh leaves and fresh water. This is one of the triumphs of Homeopathy, for we were just from a perusal of one of their works, and finding that the chickens died and made no sign of sickness, except holding the head down, we concluded the head must be the seat of the plague, and reading that Stramonium affected the brain with mania and stupor, we tried it, and have not lost a chicken since we have used it. If other papers will copy these recipes, they will save many lives, now sacrificed to the negligence of salaried physicians. The Eastern monarch's plan ought to be adopted, to strike off a certain per cent. of a Doctor's salary every time he loses a patient-that would soon stop the feast of Death. --- All of our Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. And attachments are also scanned before being added. 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