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Children's diarrhea cordial

A pint of brandy and an ounce of paregoric, dosed until the discharge shows the colour of the medicine.

From
The Dixie Cook-Book
Published
1883
Yikes Scale
Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1883

ITCH OINTMENT. - Two table-spoons lard, one of black pepper, one of ground mustard; boil all together, and when taken off and nearly cold add one tablespoon sulphur. Anoint with this three evenings successively just before going to bed. Do not change bed clothes or wearing clothes during the time. After this, wash with castile soap suds, and change all the clothing that has been worn or touched.

CHOLERA MIXTURE. -Take one ounce each of the following ingredients: tincture opium, capsicum or red pepper, rhubarb, peppermint and camphor; put in large bottle, with a pint best brandy. Dose is ten to twenty drops in twenty drops in two or three tea-spoons water. Good in any case of diarrhea. CONSTIPATION. - Two ounces of senna, simmer the strength out in one quart of water, strain the tea; one pound of prunes, cooked soft, with half tea-cup of white sugar. Several times a day take, first, one table-spoon of the senna tea, then eat one prune, fasting as much as possible. SURE CURE FOR CHOLERA INFANTUM. - One ounce pulverized rhubarb, one ounce peppermint herb, one ounce soda. Pour one pint of boiling water on these three and let stand on the hearth two hours. Strain, and add one pint best brandy, one-half pound best white sugar, and one ounce paregoric. Dose-one tea-spoon every half hour until the discharge shows the color of the medicine; then only every three or four hours. Good also for adults, in diarrhea. This is the allopathic treatment.

GOLDEN OINTMENT. - One pound lard, eight ounces beeswax, one ounce camphor gum in five ounces alcohol, one ounce origanum, one ounce laudanum; let all dissolve while melting the lard and beeswax, then stir together until cold, or the camphor will go off in a steam. Do not mix too hot. This will cure pain in the side by applying as a plaster. For enlarged neck or goitre, dilute with one-fourth iodine. For salt-rheum, apply externally, and take cathartics to cleanse the blood. For scald-head, rub together one ounce golden ointment and three drachms of red precipitate; remove the hair and rub with this twice a day, each day washing with castile soap suds. For catarrh, rub the ointment up in the nose profusely, and let it remain all night. In the morning draw cold water up the nose and throw it back two or three times to clean the tubernated bones. Also bathe the face and ears with cold water. CHRONIC INFLAMMATION OF THE STOMACH. - This is known by a pain in the stomach, increased by the presence of food, by belching up gas, by vomiting, fickle appetite, seasons of thirst, tongue white in the center and red at tip, or sometimes red and smooth-is a disease which soon ends in ulceration of stomach, and death. Counter-irritants over the stomach, such as mustard draughts, followed by hot fomentations of hops; frequent warm or cool baths, according to patient's constitution; a tepid compress worn over the stomach at night; and the most careful diet, consisting mostly of gum water, rice water, slippery-elm water and gruel, arrowroot gruel, toast without butter, gluten mush, etc., and in two or three weeks the disease will yield under this persistent starving and cooling system.


The Dixie Cook-Book, 1883. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

The endpoint is the alarming part. You are told to keep dosing a child with opium until you can see the medicine coming out the other end — a stopping rule with no relationship to how much opioid the child has absorbed.

Paregoric does stop diarrhoea, by paralysing the gut. In a dehydrated child that hides the fluid loss without addressing it, and the opioid does the rest.

Notes from the 21st century

  • Paregoric is camphorated tincture of opium. Containing morphine, sold over the counter for most of the period, and given routinely to infants.
  • Rehydration is the whole treatment. Clean water with the correct salt and sugar. It costs almost nothing and it is what saves children from diarrhoeal illness.
  • Every half hour, indefinitely. No maximum number of doses is given anywhere in the entry.

Also in this book

  • French Remedy for Consumption — Raw beefsteak, powdered charcoal, sugar and rye whisky, steeped overnight and spooned down before meals.
  • Opossum, roasted whole — Scald with lye, scrape, and roast whole with the head and tail left on.
  • Peach Jelly — Crack a third of the kernels into the jar with the fruit, for flavour.

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