To Prevent Contagion from Eruptive Diseases

Saucers of sliced raw onion kept in the sickroom, replaced as fast as they discolour.

From: The Home Cook Book
Published: 1887
Yikes Scale: Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1887

constantly, in plates or saucers, sliced raw onions ick room, if possible. As fast as they become discoloured, replace by fresh ones. During any epidemic of skin diseases that are eruptive, onions, except those taken fresh from the earth, are unsafe, as they are peculiarly sensitive to disease. TO RESTORE FROM STROKE OF LIGHTNING.-Shower with cold water for two hours; if the patient does not show signs of life, put salt in the water, and continue to shower an hour longer.

FOR TOOTHACHE. -Of powdered alum and fine salt, equal quantities; apply to the tooth and it will give speedy relief.-MRS. BARTLETT.

FOR HEADACHE. - Pour a few drops of ether on one half ounce of gum camphor and pulverize; add to this an equal quantity of corbonate ammonia pulverized ; add twenty drops peppermint; mix and put in an openmouthed bottle and cork. - MRS. A. M. GIBBS. SALVE FOR CHILBLAINS. - Fry out nicely a little mutton tallow; into this, while melted, and after it is nicely strained, put an equal quantity of coal oil; stir well together while it is cooling.

TO REMOVE DISCOLOURATION FROM BRUISES.-Apply a cloth wrung out in very hot water, and renew frequently until the pain ceases. Or, apply raw beefsteak.

CURE FOR WASP STING. -Apply a poultice of saleratus water and flour, and bind on the sting. Apply slices of raw onion for a bee sting.

CURE FOR SUMMER COMPLAINT. - Two ounces tinct rhubarb, one of paregoric, one-half of essence

The Home Cook Book, 1887. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Onions absorb nothing but odours. The discolouration the book reads as disease captured is simply cut onion oxidising, which it does on any kitchen counter.

The harm is what it displaces. Believing the room is being purified is a reason not to do the things that work — isolation, handwashing, clean linen, ventilation.

Notes from the 21st century

The belief is remarkably persistent. The onion-absorbs-illness idea long predates this book and still circulates online. It has been tested and it does nothing.
Eruptive diseases meant the rashes. Measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, chickenpox. All genuinely contagious, several of them lethal.
The same page prescribes a three-hour cold shower. For lightning strike. The chapter's confidence is not proportional to its accuracy.

Also in this book

Brine That Preserves Butter' a Year — Butter kept twelve months under a salt brine strong enough to float an egg.
Cough Mixture — A lemonade of gum arabic and sugar candy, carrying an ounce of opium tincture.
Gardner (Cholera Remedy &c.) — Laudanum, capsicum, camphor and spirits of nitre — two to ten drops for children, every fifteen minutes.

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Meat for Invalids

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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.

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The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906