FROM THE SCRAPBOOK
January 1997
By Dr. Bill Randall
Grandpa’s Medicine
Here we go again — already using up almost a month of the New Year!
It is also a time of winter’s recurring ills — so I thought you might take an interest in a very special book “The Doctor Book” prepared a hundred years ago “in the late 1890’s.”
This item was preserved in one of Dora Hunter’s scrapbooks, and was written by Nell Lister. I can’t connect her to any of the Lister family names I have here in the Harvey Historical Association’s, but maybe you can, please let me know if you do.
Grandpa Knew How To Take His Medicine
By Nell Lister
In Grandfather’s day, every up and coming family owned a Doctor Book. It was a weighty tome, embodying (it said) “the wisdom and experience of prominent and enlightened physicians and professors, upon the simplest and most effectual methods of promoting health, overcoming disease, and prolonging life.”
It was intended chiefly for those living in the country who were “desirous of being useful to their families and friends, and charitable to the poor in the relief of their disorders.”
Its readers were cautioned against the poisonous and deleterious effects of store-bought drugs, and advised that the use of these tried home remedies would enable them “to dispense, in a great measure, with the costly services and nauseous drugs of the apothecary.”
At the first sign of an ailment in the family, the Doctor Book was consulted. When some unfortunate had a sore throat, directions for treatment were “Four to twenty drops of kerosene on a teaspoonful of sugar, to be taken every two hours.” As well, cloths wrung out of kerosene were to be found about his throat with the assurance that “those who have used it say they have never found a remedy that will so speedily cure.”
A teaspoonful of kerosene oil in a tumblerful of milk was reputed to be a positive cure for fever and ague; and a testimonial from Mr. S. Brown of Los Angeles asserted that he had cured himself with one dose of it, after having been afflicted with chills and fever for two years. Kerosene was also good for: burns, poison ivy, sunstroke, snakebite, dandruff, appendicitis, asthma, piles, and corns.
The Doctor Book devoted several pages to an “Easy and Accurate Method of Diagnosing and Determining Diseases.” By checking a list of symptoms, the reader was referred to a section which pointed out the cause of the illness, and furnished an index to the proper method of treatment, and the remedy required. Symptoms, listed alphabetically, began with “Appetite … loss of,” continued through “Kidney … shooting pain in” and “Stomach … uneasiness of right down to “Yellow tinge in white of eye,”
TO CURE HIS CORNS once and for all, Grandfather was advised: “Dissolve three or four pearl buttons in the juice of a lemon, then add half as much water as there is juice. Shake well before using. Apply night and morning, and use perseveringly.”
In cases of indigestion, one half – teaspoonful of the inner peeling of the gizzard of a chicken or turkey, dried and pulverized, was to be taken after every meal. “Those not acquainted with the curative powers of it, will be surprised at its prompt action.”
For frostbite, it was recommended to “anoint the part once or twice a dau with rabbit fat. During the day, a piece of fresh rabbit’s skin should be worn next to the affected part, flesh side inward.”
Getting a fresh rabbit was undoubtedly as simple a matter as collecting the spider webs which were required frequently. These were used externally to check the bleeding of wounds; but their real ‘virtues’ were utilized, according to the Doctor Book, by internal use.
“The cobweb of the spider is said to be almost a specific for fever and ague. When rolled into an ordinary sized pill, two or three will generally be sufficient to effect a cure. In treating consumption, it is said to have produced some surprising effects. It is recommended in wakefulness, nervous excitement, and spasms; generally producing the most delightful state of bodily and mental tranquility. The brown or black spider produces the best web; and it is usually found in cellars, barns, and dark out-houses,”
IN THE LATE 1890’s, many new medical discoveries were being made, and in the book the doctors frankly admitted having previously held some mistaken theories. They brought Grandfather up to date in telling him “almost all modern doctors have abandoned the idea that a grape seed or a toothbrush bristle were responsible for appendicitis. It is now asserted that it is due to the habit of some people sitting with the right leg crossed over the left. The appendix is on the right side, and this position cramps and constricts this little sac, causing the inflammation which is termed appendicitis.”
To facilitate Grandfather’s diagnosis, the Encyclopedia of Health and home was sprinkled with illustrations and color pictures of the human body and its organs, in various states of disease and decay. The one most frequently poured aver was a fascinating human figure built up of several layers.
The skin peeled back to disclose the muscle structure and below that were more layers of tubes and pouches and inner workings, arranged in their approximate positions and numbered for easy identification. However disturbing the insight may have been, it was invaluable in determining whether Grandmother suffered from “Kidney … shooting pain in” or “bowels … acute inflammation of.”
NO TREATMENT seemed to distasteful, severe, or hazardous for the hardy pioneers. Ringworm was cured by applying a mixture of boiled tobacco, vinegar, and lye. A polypus could be destroyed by swabbing the growths with nitric acid. Cramp colic was treated with a dose of a half-teaspoonful of gunpowder, taken in milk.
For speedy relief of toothache, an electric current of “eight to ten elements,” was used; the negative pole applied to the cheek near the aching tooth, the positive pole to the back of the neck. A cold could be cured in an hour or two by holding under the nose an open bottle containing equal parts of camphor and chloroform, and sniffing frequently.
In some cases, Grandfather and his friends may have enjoyed the remedies. Those suffering rheumatism were directed to “fill a quart jar with sliced lemon, and put in as much alcohol as it will hold. Take one tablespoonful before each meal and at bedtime,” A very good remedy for biliousness was one half teaspoonful of bicarbonate of potash in a tumblerful of cider; and the “Rock and Rye” cure for bronchitis, made by dissolving rock candy in whiskey, was well recommended..
P.S. Watch out for that electric current relief? That’s shocking. W.L.R.
Source: Rev. Bill Randall’s “From The Scrapbook Vol. One.”
