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Don't Cook That

Worms in Children

Witch-hazel bark, powdered sage, and sweetened milk with alum, dosed by the child's age.

From
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor
Published
1851
Yikes Scale
Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1851

Worms in Children. - Steep or boil in a pewter vessel, over a moderate fire, very strong, the bark of spotted alder or witch-hazel. For a year old, a table spoonful; increase the dose according to age. Give four or five times a day, for several days. It is sure and safe. Or fine powdered sage, mixed with honey; a teaspoonful for a dose. Sweetened milk, with the addition of a little alum, will turn the worms. Flour of sulphur, mixed with honey, is very good. Heat very hot, in a smith's furnace, a piece of steel; lay on it a roll of brimstone, melt the steel, let it fall into water, and it will be in round lumps. Pound them very fine, mix the dust with molasses. Give half a teaspoonful night and morning, fasting. Or, give as much as will lie on a six-pence, of dried mandrake roots, powdered and mixed with honey, in the morning, three or four times successively. If a child have fits proceeding from worms, give as much paragoric as it can bear; it will turn the worms and ease the child. To prevent worms, let children eat onions, raw or cooked. Raw are the best. Salt and water will turn worms, and a dose or two of flour of sulphur after, will bring them away, without any other medicine.


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

So what happens if I make it?

The pewter is the problem the author never mentions. Period pewter is a tin alloy that commonly carried lead, and boiling an astringent bark in it for a long time is an efficient way to pull metal into the liquid you are about to give a one-year-old.

The alum is a second helping of the same idea. It is an aluminium salt, given here in sweetened milk, four or five times a day, for several days.

Notes from the 21st century

  • Dosing by age, not weight. “For a year old, a table spoonful; increase the dose according to age” is the whole instruction. No weight, no concentration, no ceiling.
  • The same page escalates. If fits follow, the book advises giving as much paregoric — opium in tincture — as the child can bear.
  • Witch-hazel bark itself is the mild part. It is astringent and tannin-rich. Taken as a strong decoction it upsets the stomach; it is the least alarming thing in the receipt.

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