Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I have a wonderful old book called "The Hearthstone," or "Life at Home" by Laura C. Holloway, published in 1883. I've quoted from it before. Here's what it has to say about caring for the teeth:
"...If you use any tooth powder (!), you cannot go far wrong in
employing camphorated chalk, to be bought at any chemist's.
Some prefer powdered chalk mixed with castile soap. A teaspoonful
of bicarbonate of soda and a teaspoonful of Eau-de-Cologne, to a
quart of water, make an excellent preservative rinse for the mouth
and teeth at night, and after the taking of acid medicine. If the
gums need hardening use a little borax dissolved in water."
I would think those "tooth powders" could also function as emetics if one had eaten bad food (such as mutton broth)! Yikes!

There's also a helpful section on "How to Give Chloroform in Case No Doctor Can be Had," such as when you happen to be on an ocean voyage and have to amputate somebody's body parts. The first caution is: "Do NOT give chloroform unnecessarily." (I always follow that rule myself.)

Ms. Holloway also cautions against drinking "iced water," which she says is such a shock to the stomach that it can be fatal.

How to make Pepsin: "Cut up very fine half a dozen pigs' stomachs and macerate for ten or twelve hours in a menstruum composed of one part of muriatic acid and thirty-two parts of water; decant and macerate a second time; pour the two products together and add common salt until
no further pepsin is formed. The pepsin will float on the top. Collect it on a muslin strainer and press out the adhering moisture This is the pepsin so much valued in cases of great debility, and which costs so much at the druggist's." So that's how you can save yourself big bucks if you happen to have half a dozen pig stomachs just lying around.

What a clever topic!
Very interesting and very amusing!

What is Borax?
I remember "20-Mule Team Borax" and Ronald Reagan.

And Pepsin is for stomach upset, is it?
They don't still make it that way do they?

Thanks for the laugh, Edisto! I do love those household hint books from the Victorian era, some of the advice is just downright questionable. Take for instance the advice from The Century Cookbook and Home Physician, 1894 for Prussic Acid poisoning: "Dash cold water from a height upon the head, followed by smelling salts and artificial respiration"

Those are fun to read. Thanks for posting them, Edisto.

I've seen antique round tins of tooth powder - cherry flavored. Now why did toothpaste manufacturers wait so long to come out with these neat flavors they recently have (lemon ice, vanilla mint, etc.).

I had read that if one didn't use store-bought tooth powder, one used baking soda. Gee, I wonder what Andrew used ...

I still use baking soda once or twice a week--easily and cheaply removes coffee, tea, cola discolorations from teeth. Unlike the so-called whiteners of today which cause herculon fillings to turn yellow, baking soda doesn't discolor synthetic fillings.

In elementary school, we were taught how to make baking soda toothpaste. They had us put salt in it. I wonder why?

augusta @ Thu Jan 19, 2006 7:20 am wrote:In elementary school, we were taught how to make baking soda toothpaste. They had us put salt in it. I wonder why?

Salt helps kill the germs. I rinse my mouth out with warm salt water before bed, especialy if I have a bum tooth.

-1bigsteve (o:

Edisto--does The Hearthstone have any Victorian remedies for a sinus infection? Modern medicine isn't helping, thusfar.

My grandmother swore by euchalyptus and it is something I find helps when I have a sinus headache. I put a few drops of the oil on the edge of my pillowcase. I also keep some sprigs of it in a vase next to my bed.
If all else fails, I use my dad's favorite remedy! A Hot Toddy!

As for baking soda, I also use this from time to time on my teeth as well as my teapots and coffee pot! Great for getting rid of the caffeine stains!

Baking Soda is also good for getting stink out of a carpet. Sprinkle it all over, wait a day and vacum it up. Put an open box in my fridge works right well. You can even bake with it.

I've never had a sinus infection so don't have any ideas. Sorry Cynthia. Would steaming hot salty water do any good?

Of course there was that time I got a pinto bean stuck up my nose...

-1bigsteve (o:

We use baking soda to cure a stomach ache due to, well, I'll just say needing to burp. A teaspoon mixed with cold water tastes pretty nasty but I have to say it works. We also still mix it into a paste and use it for bee stings.

Allen @ Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:42 pm wrote:We use baking soda to cure a stomach ache due to, well, I'll just say needing to burp. A teaspoon mixed with cold water tastes pretty nasty but I have to say it works. We also still mix it into a paste and use it for bee stings.

Baking Soda for bee stings? I wish I had known that when I was a kid. I was always stepping on bees and my foot would swell up like a football and hurt like you wouldn't believe! You think I would have learned.

When I was about 7 my family was driving into the mountains on a camping trip when a honey bee flew into the car and got inside my Grandmother's bra and stung her. I never saw anyone undress so fast in my life! Being an old pro with bees I just reached up and pulled the stinger out and tossed it out the window. She didn't complain for the rest of the trip but I could tell she was in agony. That bee nailed her good. I felt so sorry for her. I don't think she had anything to put on it. Those things can hurt.

-1bigsteve (o:

I forgot about the bee sting treatment!
That reminded me of something else grandma used it for. A tsp each of cloves and baking soda. She kept this in a little open container. It was good for a paper cut. She would just moisten the area (yes, lick it, it was another time...) and then stick her finger in this. She said it took away the sting. I honestly never tried this!
As for stuck pinto beans.... well the best remedy for that would be don't put them there in the first place!

Well, being a dumb 6 year old kid I just had to find out if that bean would fit. It did. It fit right well! My Grandmother used a pair of tweezers to pull it out. Boy was I thankful for that. I could just see a bean sprout growing out of my nose. My Dad always told me I had enough dirt in my ears to grow potatoes so I didn't need beans growing out of my nose too.

Oil of Cloves is that stinky stuff the Dentist liked to pack into a tooth socket when I was growing up. Do they still use it? Maybe Audrey knows. I never knew what it was until I got into oil painting. Some artists use it to retard the drying time of oil paint. Unfortunately too much makes the paint stringy like that blue water in Fox In Sox.

-1bigsteve (o:

Elizabeth Ann @ Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:16 am wrote:I forgot about the bee sting treatment!
That reminded me of something else grandma used it for. A tsp each of cloves and baking soda. She kept this in a little open container. It was good for a paper cut. She would just moisten the area (yes, lick it, it was another time...) and then stick her finger in this. She said it took away the sting. I honestly never tried this!
As for stuck pinto beans.... well the best remedy for that would be don't put them there in the first place!

You have me curious- what did your grandmother do to get so many paper cuts that she actually devised a remedy and kept it nearby?

Evelyn Wood speed reading maybe? Good question. I think I only got two paper cuts in my whole life. They do hurt though.

-1bigsteve (o:

I didn't mean to sound like she did it all the time! LOL
The reason it stuck in my mind was that she and I would do lots of crafts together when I was little. We were doing scrapbooks long before the current trend and we did paper cuttings too (German Scherenschnitte - pronounced, 'Shar-en-shnit'). So if she got a paper cut when we were doing this, she grabbed her little jar.

Oh gosh! I never thought of that! Thanks!

If I had to guess, with my wild imagination, and addiction to CSI shows, I'd think- counterfeiting?
Lady Forger?

Salt added to the tooth-powder - Salt is a crystal - so it has tiny, sharp edges - making it more abrasive.

Side note - Lavender is Very antibacterial - and bugs (like bed bugs or mites) hate it. A sachet put into a closet or drawer will help to keep moths away and not smell like moth balls.

How many times have we (if you are older ) heard about or been close to an old(er) lady that smells like lavender? Clothes stored in an area with lavender will pick up this scent.

Lavender oil is a wonderful aid for burns and minor cuts - apply "neat" to a fresh burn or cut. I know a couple professional chefs that keep some handy.

I have no idea how true it is, but my husbands grandmother swore that if you laid out a little eucalyptus in strategic areas it would keep the mice away.

I've got a great one. My mother's father swore up and down that if you had warts you have to rub a dried pea on them and then throw it down a well. That would cure the warts. So, what did I find my mother doing one time when I was a girl? She rubbed a dried pea on her wart and then flushed it down the toilet, seeing how we lived in the suburbs and didn't have a well. At that point in my ten year old life I was sure that I had proof that human beings have not evolved one iota from the cave dwellers thousands of years ago, and that we don't stand a chance in hell of survival- we will eventually go the way of the dinosaur.

My grandfather puts raw bacon on infected cuts to 'draw' out the infection and help it to heal.

My grandpa would have my sister and I go down by the railroad tracks and collect little black balls of stuff. We know what they were when we saw them.

He would keep them in a dish on the fireplace mantel. He would grab a couple everyday and put it in his pants pockets. He had terrible arthritis and those little "black nuts" were supposed to his ease pain.

1bigsteve @ Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:38 am wrote: Oil of Cloves is that stinky stuff the Dentist liked to pack into a tooth socket when I was growing up. Do they still use it?

I'm not sure if the dentists are still actively suggesting it, however I don't know of any who use it. In our family we still use clove oil on gum/mouth irritations including wisdom teeth. I gave some to a friend once who found it horrid when applied but took the pain away fairly well.

Walnuts are good not only for the heart but also good for the teeth. It seems that walnuts help prevent tooth decay. I eat them every morning for both reasons.

-1bigsteve (o:

Elizabelle, weren't those "black nuggets", called "coke". It was the small pieces of coal that didn't burn all the way through. Was that what you were picking up? We used to pick that, put it in a dish with laundry blueing, different food colors, and I can't remember what else, but it would grow crystals. I haven't thought of this in years, thats why I can't remember what else we put in the dish. Bee Stings------Even today, my friends from Poland told me to hurry and get a piece of raw onion & put it on the sting. They say it draws it out. They also said for a cold---take a clove of garlic, crush it & put it in warm milk & drink it right down. I told them if I did that it would come right back up. So I modified it====I crush it, put a little pizza sauce on top of an English muffin then the garlic on top. It is powerful, but it made me very warm & I slept all night. It didn't cure it but I felt better.