Hectic Cough (tar-and-port cordial)

Egg yolks, honey and a tablespoonful of tar, warmed into half a pint of port.

From: The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor
Published: 1851
Yikes Scale: Big yikes

Exactly as printed, 1851

Mix the yolks of three eggs, a gill of honey, and a table-spoonful of tar together, then add to them half a pint of Port wine. Place them over a slow fire about three minutes, stirring the compound well; then bottle it. Use a teaspoonful of the mixture three times a day, before each meal; and at night, on going to bed, take a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper in half a pint of hot water. Great relief will be found from the practice of rubbing the breast with a coarse towel every morning on rising, until warmth is produced by the friction.

Pain in the Breast or Side. - The Indian remedy for this is, two pounds of fir boughs, a quarter of a pound of spikenard, half a pound of red clover, and a gallon of sweet cider, boiled to three pints. Drink half a gill of the mixture each night on going to bed, and morning, on getting up.

The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor, 1851. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Tar again, this time suspended in fortified wine and taken three times a day. The same polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, on a schedule.

“Hectic cough” meant the persistent cough of tuberculosis, so the intended patient has a chronic lung infection, and the prescription is tar, alcohol and raw-ish egg.

Notes from the 21st century

Three minutes over a slow fire. Not enough to cook three yolks in half a pint of liquid. The eggs stay effectively raw.
A gill is half a cup. So the honey is doing most of the volume, and most of the palatability.
Cayenne in hot water at bedtime. The chaser. It is warming and harmless, and the only part of the regimen that would not hurt.

Also in this book

Bilious Cholic (opium-turpentine cordial) — Opium, camphor and turpentine dissolved in spirits, and pronounced an excellent remedy.
Canker in the Mouth (frog butter) — Four green frogs stewed in a pound of butter until dry, with an ounce of alum stirred in.
Rattlesnake's Bite — For the most deadly bites: horehound juice, a tablespoonful three times a day, before meals.

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