The following prescription is excellent for sufferers from bronchitis or coughs: Slice a Spanish onion; lay the slices in a basin and sprinkle well with pure cane sugar. Cover the basin tightly and leave for twelve hours. After this time the basin should contain a quantity of juice. Give a teaspoonful every now and then until relief is afforded. If too much be taken it may induce headache and vomiting.
An excellent poultice for the chest may be made by placing one or two English onions in a muslin bag and pounding them to a pulp. This should be renewed every three or four hours, and the chest washed. I have been told that, at the age of six weeks old, I was saved from dying of bronchitis by such an onion poultice applied to the soles of my feet.
The orange possesses most of the virtues of the lemon, but in a modified form. But it has the advantage of being more palatable.
The juice of oranges has been observed to exert such a beneficial influence on the blood as to prevent and cure influenza. Taken freely while the attack is on they seemingly prevent the pneumonia that so often follows. By far the quickest way to overcome influenza is to subsist solely on oranges for three or four days. Hot distilled water may be taken in addition.
The peel of the bitter Seville orange is an excellent tonic and remedy in cases of malaria and ague. A drink may be prepared from it according to the prescription under the heading "Lemon."
The "orange cure" is used with great success for consumptive patients, for chest affections of all kinds, for asthma, and some stomach complaints. Oranges are taken freely at every meal. The "navel" kind are generally used.
Herbalists sell dried orange pips to be crushed to a powder and taken in the proportion of 1 teaspoonful to a cup of hot water. This is a harmless sedative, and useful in hysterical affections.
A drink made with half a pint of hot water poured over a tablespoonful of good, home-made marmalade will often give relief in cases of neuralgia and pains in the head.
Parsley is useful in cases of menstrual obstruction and diseases of the kidneys. The bruised leaves applied to the breasts of nursing mothers are said to cure painful lumps and threatened abscess. It may also be taken with advantage by cancerous patients. In all these cases parsley may be taken in the form of a soup, in common use among members of the Physical Regeneration Society, which consists of onions, tomatoes, celery, and parsley, stewed together in distilled water.
Dr. Fernie remarks that when uncooked parsley has been eaten to excess it has been observed to produce epilepsy in certain bodily systems. The oil of parsley has also been found useful in cases of epilepsy. This would naturally follow on the homeopathic principle of similars.
The pear possesses most of the virtues of the apple. But, unlike the latter, it is credited with producing a constipating effect if eaten without its skin. In an old recipe book I found the following tribute to Bergamot pears. The writer says: "I had for some years been afflicted with the usual symptoms of the stone in the bladder, when meeting with Dr. Lobb's "Treatise of Dissolvents for the Stone and Gravel," I was induced on his recommendation to try Bergamot pears, a dozen or more every day with the rind, when in less than a week I observed a large red flake in my urine, which, on a slight touch, crumbled into the finest powder, and this was the same for several succeeding days. It is ten years since I made the experiment, and I have been quite free from any complaints of that nature ever since. The pears were of the small sort and full of knots."
The pea nut—or monkey nut—is especially recommended as a cure for indigestion. I have not been able to find out why. As a matter of fact it is such a highly-concentrated food that, unless taken in very small quantities, it is liable to upset weak digestions. I suspect the secret to lie in the chewing. Almost any kind of nut will cure the habitual indigestion induced by "bolting" the food, if only it be chewed until it is liquid. Hard biscuits will do instead of nuts, although an uncooked food like the nut is the better. But whatever is taken must be "Fletcherised," that is, chewed and chewed and chewed until it is all reduced to liquid.
Pea nuts contain a good deal of oil, and for this reason are recommended for consumptives. They are the cheapest nuts to buy, for the reason that they are not really nuts but beans.
Pine-apple juice is the specific for diphtheria. This seems to have been first brought to the notice of Europeans by the fact that negroes living round about the swamps of Louisiana were observed to use it with great success. A writer who records this says: "The patient should be forced to swallow the juice. This fluid is of so pungent and corrosive a nature that it cuts out the diphtheria mucous and causes it to disappear."
The above direction looks satisfactory enough on paper, and it is eminently cheering to read of how the pine-apple juice causes the diphtheria mucous to disappear, but anyone who knows anything about diphtheria knows that to "force" a diphtheria patient to swallow is more easily written about than accomplished. Fortunately I have been able to obtain the following explicit directions from an experienced nurse and mother:
The pine-apple should be cut up and well pounded in a mortar. The juice must then be pressed out and strained through well-scalded muslin. The patient's mouth must be washed out with warm water. The juice may now be given with a silver teaspoon. It is possible that the patient may be quite unable to swallow any of it. If this be so, the juice will serve as a mouth and throat wash. It will gradually dissolve the membrane, and enable it to be scraped gently away with the spoon. The juice should be given, and the throat scraped as far down as the nurse can reach, as often as the patient can bear it. The time will come, sooner or later, when the juice is swallowed. No other food should be given. The nurse may have to work away for some hours before any juice is swallowed, but my friend assures me that if the scraping be done gently and skilfully, even children will bear it patiently. Only a silver or bone spoon should be used, and, needless to say, it must be well scalded in boiling water in the intervals of using.
It is a remarkable fact that while pine-apple juice exercises this remarkable corrosive power upon diseased mucous, its effect upon the most delicate, healthy membrane is absolutely harmless. I have seen sweet pine-apple juice given to six-months-old babies as a supplement to the mother's milk, with excellent results.
Dr. Hillier, writing in the Herald of Health in 1897, says "Sliced pine-apples, laid in pure honey for a day or two, when used in moderation, will relieve the human being from chronic impaction of the bowels, reestablish peristaltic motion, and induce perfect digestion."
"A slice of fresh pine-apple," writes Dr. Fernie, "is about as wise a thing as one can take by way of dessert after a substantial meal." This is because fresh pine-apple juice has been found to act upon animal food in very much the same way that the gastric juice acts within the stomach. But vegetarians should eat fresh fruit at the beginning of meals rather than at the end.
The pine-apple is useful in all ordinary cases of sore-throat.
One pine-apple of average size should yield half a pint of juice.
Tinned or cooked pine-apple is useless for curative purposes.
Pine kernels are recommended to those who find other nuts difficult to digest. They are the most easily digested of all the nuts. They are often used for cooking in the place of suet, being very oily.
The disfavour with which "stone fruits," especially plums, are generally regarded owes its being to the fact that they are too often eaten when unripe. When ripe, they are as wholesome as any other fruit. Unripe they provoke choleraic diarrhœa.
The prune, a variety of dried plum, has been recommended as a remedy against viciousness and irritability. An American doctor declares that there is a certain medicinal property in the prune which acts directly upon the nervous system, and that is where the evil passions have their seat. He reports that he tried the experiment of including prunes in the meals of the vicious, intractable youths of a reformatory, and that by the end of a week they were peaceable as lambs. Most writers who comment on this seem to suggest that any fruit which is mildly aperient would produce the same effect. But the mother of a large family tells me that she has observed that prunes seem to possess a soothing property that is all their own.
Prune tea is an excellent drink for irritable persons. It is made as follows: To every pint of washed prunes allow 1 quart of distilled water. Soak the prunes all night, and afterwards simmer to rags in the same water. Strain, and flavour with lemon juice if desired.
The potato is a cheap and homely remedy against gout, scurvy, and rickets. Dr. Lambe tells how he cured a case of scurvy solely with raw potatoes. One of the favourite dishes of that good old doctor was a salad composed of sliced raw potatoes and olive oil.
In order to preserve the medicinal properties of potatoes when cooked, they must always be steamed in their jackets. The skin may be removed before eating, but care should be taken not to allow a particle of the potato to adhere to it. The valuable potash salts chiefly lie just under the skin.
A raw potato scraped or powdered to a pulp is an excellent remedy for burns and scalds.
Dr. Fernie recommends the following decoction with which to bathe the swollen and inflamed joints of rheumatic sufferers. Take 1 lb. potatoes, cut each into four, but do not peel them. Boil in 2 pints of water until stewed down to 1 pint. Strain, and use the liquid.
Eaten to excess potatoes are apt to cause dullness and laziness.
The radish is commonly cited as indigestible, but for all that it is commended by old writers as a potent remedy for stone. If not too old, well masticated, and eaten at the beginning of a meal, I do not think it is more indigestible than the majority of vegetables.
A syrup made with the juice expressed from pounded radishes and cane sugar is recommended for rheumatism, bronchial troubles, whooping-cough, and pustular eruptions.
Dr. Fernie notes that the black radish is especially useful against whooping-cough, probably by reason of its volatile, sulphureted oil. "It is employed in Germany for this purpose by cutting off the top, and then making a hole within the root, which hole is filled with treacle, or honey, and allowed to stand thus for two or three days; afterwards a teaspoonful of the medicated liquid is to be given two or three times in the day, with a dessertspoonful of water, when required."
I am not acquainted with the "black radish," but mothers might do worse, in cases of whooping-cough, than give their children the juice of pounded radishes mixed with pure honey.
Raspberries are excellent against the scurvy, and, like the blackberry, good for relaxed bowels. They are a very wholesome fruit, and should be given to those who have "weak and queasy stomachs."
The chief medicinal value of rice lies in the quickness with which it is digested. One authority says that "it can be taken four times a day and the patient still get twenty hours' rest." It is consequently of great value in digestive and intestinal troubles. But it should be unpolished, otherwise it is an ill-balanced, deficient food. It should likewise be boiled in only just enough soft water to be absorbed during the cooking. One cup of rice should be put on in a double saucepan with three cups of cold water and tightly covered. When the water is all absorbed the rice will be cooked.
The large-grained, unpolished rice sold at "Food-Reform" stores at 3d. per lb. absorbs the water and cooks much more easily than a smaller variety sold at 2d. I have found the latter most unsatisfactory.
Rhubarb is a wholesome and cooling spring vegetable, and may well take the place of cooked fruit when the latter is scarce. But it is generally forbidden to rheumatic and gouty patients on account of its oxalic acid. This oxalic acid is supposed to combine with the lime in the blood of the gouty person, and to form crystals of oxalate of lime, which are eliminated by the kidneys. At the same time the general health suffers. "Dr. Prout," writes Dr. Fernie, "says he has seen well-marked instances in which an oxalate of lime kidney attack has followed the use of garden rhubarb in a tart or pudding, likewise of sorrel in a salad, particularly when at the same time the patient has been drinking hard water. But chemists explain that oxalates may be excreted in the urine without having necessarily been a constituent, as such, of vegetable or other foods taken at table, seeing that citric, malic, and other organic acids which are found distributed throughout the vegetable world are liable to chemical conversion into oxalic acid through a fermentation or perverted digestion."
I think the moral of the above is: "Do not drink hard water." Especially do not cook fruit and vegetables in hard water. They are nearly always rendered indigestible by such a process, and "vegetarianism," not the hard water, is often blamed for the sufferings of the consumers.
Rhubarb is apt to be over-valued as a "spring medicine" on account of its association with the Turkey rhubarb of materia medica. It should be thoroughly ripe before eating.
I am not recommending Turkey rhubarb.
Sage is said to promote longevity, to quicken the senses and memory, and to strengthen the nerves.
Sage tea is recommended for pulmonary consumption and for excessive perspiration of the feet. A teaspoonful of dried sage, or rather more if the fresh leaves be used, is steeped in half a pint of water for twenty-four hours. A teacupful is to be taken night and morning.
Sage, like so many of the fragrant herbs, is antiseptic.
The strawberry is exceptionally wholesome on account of its being so easily digested. It is recommended for gout, rheumatism, and the stone. Also for anæmic patients on account of the iron it contains.
H. Benjafield, M.B., advises anæmic girls to take 1 quart of strawberries per day, and when these are not obtainable several ripe bananas.
Professor Bunge declared that iron should never be taken in its mineral form, but that those who are in need of an iron tonic should take it as it exists in vegetables and fruit. To this end he especially commends spinach.
Dr. Luff puts spinach first on a list of vegetables recommended to those who suffer from gouty tendencies.
Spinach is very easily digested, and so juicy that no added water is needed in which to cook it.
The tomato, according to an American physician, is one of the most powerful deobstruents (remover of disease particles, and opener of the natural channels of the body) of the materia medica. It should be used in all affections of the liver, etc., where calomel is indicated.
The superstition that tomatoes are a cause of cancer is absolutely without foundation. Vegetarian cancer patients who have recovered after being given up as "hopeless" by the orthodox faculty eat tomatoes freely. Another belief, strongly supported by some otherwise "advanced" scientific men, is that tomatoes are bad for those who suffer from a tendency to gout, or uric acid disease. But this has been contradicted by others. The evil agency in the tomato is supposed to be the oxalic salt which it undoubtedly contains. But it has been shown by experiment how certain chemical compounds as obtained from plants act quite differently to the same compounds artificially prepared in the laboratory. So that the contention of those who assert that the tomato is not only harmless, but even beneficial to gouty subjects, is not unreasonable. Speaking from experience, I can only say that one of the goutiest subjects I know eats tomatoes nearly every day of his life, and continues to progress rapidly towards health.
A tomato poultice is said to cleanse foul ulcers, and promote their healing. It should be renewed frequently, and applied hot.
Turnips are anti-scorbutic.
An old remedy for chronic coughs was turnip juice boiled with sugar. The turnips were grated, the juice pressed out, and 2½ ozs. candied sugar were allowed to 1 pint of juice. This was boiled until it slightly thickened. A teaspoonful to be taken several times a day.
The green turnip tops, steamed until tender, are a good "spring medicine."
The common garden thyme, used for flavouring, is credited with many virtues. It is said to inspire courage and enliven the spirits, and for this reason should be taken by melancholy persons. It is good against nervous headache, flatulence, and hysterical affections. It is antiseptic.
The walnut has been called vegetable arsenic because of its curative value in eczema. An oil obtained from the kernel has been found of great service when applied externally in cases of skin diseases. The leaves of the walnut tree are also used for the same purpose, both externally and internally. One ounce of the leaves to 12 tablespoonfuls of boiling water make a tea, half a tea-cup of which may be taken several times a day. The affected parts should also be washed with it.
Walnuts, to be well masticated, have been given to gouty and rheumatic patients with great success. About one dozen per day is the quantity prescribed. It is possible that herein lies the secret of the fact that our ancestors invariably took walnuts with their wine.
The green, unripe walnut is useful for expelling worms.
Whole wheat is a perfect food. In the form of white flour, however, it is an imperfect, unbalanced food, on account of its deprivation of the valuable phosphates which exist in the bran. Rickets and malnutrition generally are the outcome of the habitual use of white flour, unless the loss of mineral matter is counter balanced by other foods.
Only the very finest wholemeal, such as "Artox," for example, should be used for making bread, etc. The ordinary coarse wholemeals are apt to produce intestinal irritation.
Cracked wheat, soaked overnight in water and boiled for a couple of hours, is a favourite prescription of American writers for habitual constipation. It may be obtained at most large "Food-Reform" stores.
Nervous or anæmic persons will derive great benefit from a course of bran tea. It is made as follows:—To every cup of bran allow 2 cups distilled water. Well wash the bran in cold water; it is generally full of dust. Put in a saucepan with the cold distilled water, cover tightly, and boil for thirty minutes. Strain, and flavour with sugar and lemon juice to taste. Take a teacupful night and morning.