Sulphuric acid cut one part in eleven, used for dyspepsia — and as a gargle.
(Diluted.) Sulphuric acid mixed with 11 times its bulk of water. Used in dyspepsia, also to check sweatings, salivation and diarrhea; also as a gargle.
The 20th Century Home Cook Book, 1906. Public domain; transcription unaltered.
A one-in-eleven dilution is still a strong acid, and the recommendation to gargle with it puts it in prolonged contact with the mouth and throat. Enamel does not recover.
This is the same substance as the summer beer elsewhere on this site, presented straight, without the orange syrup. The cookbook is carrying a pharmacopoeia in its back pages.
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Read the original page →The antidote table's advice for opium and laudanum — emetic draught, vinegar and water, “dashing cold water on chest and face, walking up and down for two or three hours.”
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Raw loin beaten in a marble mortar with sweet and bitter almonds and sugar, into a pulp with “a rosy hue, and a very agreeable taste.” Said to keep “even in summer.”
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
One grain of mercury chloride twice a day as an alterative, four to five as a laxative. The book calls it “a most dangerous medicine” and prints the doses anyway.
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906