Old Fashioned Remedies for a Few Common Respiratory Problems
Old Fashioned Remedies for
a Few Common Respiratory Problems
The changing season's always seems to bring out all the bugs and nasties does it not?
Even though it is summer here many people are battling with cold like symptoms so when I can across this information in one of my very old folders I thought that there might just be one or two things that people could gain from this. So here we go!
Following are various old remedies for the "unknown guests" (ailments) that visit in the respiratory system- that is, in the nose, throat, larynx, trachea, bronchi, and lungs. Also listed are fevers here, since they're often (but not always) a result of respiratory infections. Earaches are treated in this section as well.
Do not be fooled into thinking that the simplest remedies are the least beneficial. Modern science has recently thrown its weight behind the former "old wives’ tales" of hot chicken soup and almost anything containing garlic as effective treatments for cold symptoms. Indeed, some studies suggest that virtually any inhaled steam is beneficial, so a cup of steaming herbal tea should not be dismissed as lacking preventive and restorative powers. Likewise, do not dismiss persistent respiratory ailments as being too minor for expert diagnosis and advice.
Colds
- Make a sandwich of whole-wheat bread, raw yellow onion, a good half inch horseradish, cheddar cheese, and brown mustard. A daily dose will prevent the common cold.
Photo Credit Rina
- Feed a cold, starve a fever.
- Take chicken soup steaming hot seasoned with garlic.
- Feed a cold, starve a fever.
- Take chicken soup steaming hot seasoned with garlic.
Photo Credit Bill Nadraszky
- Ingest raw garlic to stop a sneezing fit. Also, eat a few cloves of garlic to fight an infection, then chew parsley for the breath. Take fennel or ginger tea if the garlic upsets your stomach.
- Ingest raw garlic to stop a sneezing fit. Also, eat a few cloves of garlic to fight an infection, then chew parsley for the breath. Take fennel or ginger tea if the garlic upsets your stomach.
Photo Credit Michele Franzese
- Use garlic, onions, thyme, sage, and vitamin C regularly to help prevent colds and infections.
- Let dishes drip-dry; don't wipe them with a towel, which spreads germs. Wash your hands often. Don't share towels or bathroom cups. Turn the heat down to 68 degrees F or below and humidify the air in winter months. If you humidify with a stovetop pan of water, add cinnamon and cloves to the water regularly.
- Use garlic, onions, thyme, sage, and vitamin C regularly to help prevent colds and infections.
- Let dishes drip-dry; don't wipe them with a towel, which spreads germs. Wash your hands often. Don't share towels or bathroom cups. Turn the heat down to 68 degrees F or below and humidify the air in winter months. If you humidify with a stovetop pan of water, add cinnamon and cloves to the water regularly.
Photo Credit Allison
Hot Buttered Rum: Put 1 teaspoon brown sugar in a mug, sprinkle in some ground cloves and a dab of butter, add a jigger of rum, and fill with boiling water. Stir with a stick of cinnamon stick. Good for colds and chills.
- Drink hot water laced with lemon juice and honey.
Sore Throats:
- Drink any hot liquid.
- Suck on Zinc lozenges.
- Add salt and pepper to apple cider vinegar and gargle the mixture.
- Make a syrup of horseradish, lemon juice, and honey to relieve a sore throat and treat laryngitis. ( CAUTION! This can be hard on the stomach. )
- In Germany, a cool sage tea gargle is used for sore throats.
- Take a decoction of elecampane roots.
- Make a decoction of turnips, sweeten with honey or sugar, and drink before bedtime. Good for coughs and hoarseness.
- Gargle with a warm infusion of agrimony, sage, or rosemary or with a tincture of purple coneflower.
- Apply a chin stay (a band under the chin) of roasted figs. Or snuff a little honey up your nose. Or, live on apples and apple water. Or, for the putrid sore throat, take a lump of sugar in brandy.
- For hoarseness, apply garlic to the feet, apply a mustard plaster to the chest, ingest a conserve of roses, eat powered nettle roots in molasses, or take boiled wheat bran with water and honey.
Asthma:
- Drink chamomile tea, a natural antihistamine. Or, decoct Roman chamomile flowers and inhale the steam.
- If your asthma is allergy based and pollen is the source of your trouble, add honey to any tea and drink it in frequent doses to build up your immunity. Or, dilute honey with an equal amount of water or lemon juice and take by the tablespoon as a remedial syrup. ("The hand that gave the wound must give the cure." )
- Grate some horseradish and sniff it liberally to clear the sinuses and simulate easier breathing.
- Suck horehound candy or make a tea decocted of horehound leaves.
Photo Credit Pepper Jess
- Inhale eucalyptus in a bouquet, from a scented pillow sachet, or from a heat ring treated with a couple of drops of the essential oil.
- Make tea of equal parts decocted Vervain ( verbena ), horehound, and elecampane roots. Simmer for about 20 minutes, strain, and cool. Drink about one pint three times a day.
- Drink a decoction of apples ( boiling water poured over sliced apples ). Or, keep your feet warm, promote perspiration, and exercise. Or, drink mullein or sweet marjoram tea.
- Drink a tea made of horehound, hyssop, sage, or yarrow. Or, sip a potion made by steeping 4 quarts huckleberries for 4 days in 2 gallons good gin.
- Take the root of skunk cabbage, and boil it until very strong, then strain off the liquor; to which add, one table-spoon of garlic juice to one pint of the liquor, and simmer them together. Dose, one table-spoonful, three times a day.
- Take a table-spoonful of English or white mustard seed, in molasses or water, morning and evening.
Asthma Alleviator
1 pint Irish moss jelly ( Irish moss- Chondrus crispus )*
1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup honey
Combine the Irish moss jelly, onion, and garlic in a saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain through a sieve and add the honey. Take 1 tablespoon every couple of hours as needed.
* Irish moss is a North Atlantic seaweed. The jelly is available at health food stores and some pharmacies.
Coughs:
- Take a phlegm-reducing infusion made with hyssop, anise, elder, or goldenrod.
- Make a tea of horehound, ground ivy, angelica, red clover, wild cherry, or elecampane roots. Add lemon and honey if desired.
- Drink an infusion of honey-suckle leaves and flowers.
- Cough Elecampane: Make a syrup by slicing the fresh root[s], covering them with sugar, and baking them for an hour or two.
- Inhale eucalyptus in a bouquet, from a scented pillow sachet, or from a heat ring treated with a couple of drops of the essential oil.
- Make tea of equal parts decocted Vervain ( verbena ), horehound, and elecampane roots. Simmer for about 20 minutes, strain, and cool. Drink about one pint three times a day.
- Drink a decoction of apples ( boiling water poured over sliced apples ). Or, keep your feet warm, promote perspiration, and exercise. Or, drink mullein or sweet marjoram tea.
- Drink a tea made of horehound, hyssop, sage, or yarrow. Or, sip a potion made by steeping 4 quarts huckleberries for 4 days in 2 gallons good gin.
- Take the root of skunk cabbage, and boil it until very strong, then strain off the liquor; to which add, one table-spoon of garlic juice to one pint of the liquor, and simmer them together. Dose, one table-spoonful, three times a day.
- Take a table-spoonful of English or white mustard seed, in molasses or water, morning and evening.
Asthma Alleviator
1 pint Irish moss jelly ( Irish moss- Chondrus crispus )*
1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup honey
Combine the Irish moss jelly, onion, and garlic in a saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain through a sieve and add the honey. Take 1 tablespoon every couple of hours as needed.
* Irish moss is a North Atlantic seaweed. The jelly is available at health food stores and some pharmacies.
Coughs:
- Take a phlegm-reducing infusion made with hyssop, anise, elder, or goldenrod.
- Make a tea of horehound, ground ivy, angelica, red clover, wild cherry, or elecampane roots. Add lemon and honey if desired.
- Drink an infusion of honey-suckle leaves and flowers.
- Cough Elecampane: Make a syrup by slicing the fresh root[s], covering them with sugar, and baking them for an hour or two.
Photo Credit John Winings
- Decoct quince seeds, about 1 ounce to 1 cup boiling water. Let sit for 1 hour, strain, and take with an equal amount of honey as a cough syrup or for hoarseness or a sore throat.
- Decoct quince seeds, about 1 ounce to 1 cup boiling water. Let sit for 1 hour, strain, and take with an equal amount of honey as a cough syrup or for hoarseness or a sore throat.
Photo Credit Tara
- Make a pectoral (chest plaster) of sage, barley, and turnips.
- Make a chest poultice of boiled onions.
- Make a mustard plaster with egg whites and flaxseed meal, applied over a piece of gauze. Check at regular intervals to avoid burning or irritating the skin.
- Native Americans decocted pine pitch or dried balsamroot to make a strong tea.
- Induce sweating.
- Take a hot bath with eucalyptus in the water. (CAUTION! Check first to be sure it doesn't irritate your skin. And never take eucalyptus oil internally; it's highly poisonous.)
- Make a pectoral (chest plaster) of sage, barley, and turnips.
- Make a chest poultice of boiled onions.
- Make a mustard plaster with egg whites and flaxseed meal, applied over a piece of gauze. Check at regular intervals to avoid burning or irritating the skin.
- Native Americans decocted pine pitch or dried balsamroot to make a strong tea.
- Induce sweating.
- Take a hot bath with eucalyptus in the water. (CAUTION! Check first to be sure it doesn't irritate your skin. And never take eucalyptus oil internally; it's highly poisonous.)
Photo Credit Roger Jennings
- Drink mullein flower tea.
- Treat the "pneumony fever" with a tea of onions and wild lobelia. ( CAUTION! If it's a cough, you might try this. If it's pneumonia, see your doctor. )
Horehound Lozenges:
1 cup horehound leaves
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup or honey
Boil the horehound leaves in the water for 20 minutes. Cool well. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth, reserving the decocted liquid and discarding the dregs ( good compost ). Add the sugar and corn syrup or honey to the liquid. Boil again, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook, stiring
constantly, untill the syrup reaches the hard-crack stage (300 d. F). Butter a baking sheet and pour in the syrup. When the candy has cooled slightly, score and break into drop-size pieces. Roll in granulated sugar if desired. Use as cough lozenges ( an expectorant ). ( CAUTION! In large doses, horehound acts as a purgative and may precipitate an irregular heartbeat. )
Catarrh:
Catarrh is generally defined as the overproduction of mucus, often resulting from an infection or inflammation.
- Make a tea of boneset, peppermint, elder flowers, and yarrow to help break up the mucus congestion and reduce fever.
- Decoct ginger, cinnamon stick, cloves, and coriander seed. Make it into a tea and sweeten with honey.
- Eat raw garlic.
- Drink mullein flower tea.
- Treat the "pneumony fever" with a tea of onions and wild lobelia. ( CAUTION! If it's a cough, you might try this. If it's pneumonia, see your doctor. )
Horehound Lozenges:
1 cup horehound leaves
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup or honey
Boil the horehound leaves in the water for 20 minutes. Cool well. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth, reserving the decocted liquid and discarding the dregs ( good compost ). Add the sugar and corn syrup or honey to the liquid. Boil again, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook, stiring
constantly, untill the syrup reaches the hard-crack stage (300 d. F). Butter a baking sheet and pour in the syrup. When the candy has cooled slightly, score and break into drop-size pieces. Roll in granulated sugar if desired. Use as cough lozenges ( an expectorant ). ( CAUTION! In large doses, horehound acts as a purgative and may precipitate an irregular heartbeat. )
Catarrh:
Catarrh is generally defined as the overproduction of mucus, often resulting from an infection or inflammation.
- Make a tea of boneset, peppermint, elder flowers, and yarrow to help break up the mucus congestion and reduce fever.
- Decoct ginger, cinnamon stick, cloves, and coriander seed. Make it into a tea and sweeten with honey.
- Eat raw garlic.
Photo Credit Ellen van Deelen
- Make a footbath with powdered mustard.
- Add cayenne pepper to your cooking to break up congestion.
- Inhale the steam of chamomile tea.
- Make a tea or syrup of decocted elecampane.
Fever:
High body temperatures or alternating chills and fever are the body's way of responding to an infection. A very high fever ( 102 F and up ) or a prolonged fever indicates the need for professional advice. Children's fevers often require professional care, since they may result from streptococcal or other bacterial infections that can be dangerous if not properly treated. For nonbacterial fevers, remedies are either cooling, such as boneset or peppermint ( to encourage sweating ), or warming, such as cayenne pepper or ginger ( to maintain body heat ).
- Drink chamomile tea or warm lemonade to reduce a fever.
- Make a footbath with powdered mustard.
- Add cayenne pepper to your cooking to break up congestion.
- Inhale the steam of chamomile tea.
- Make a tea or syrup of decocted elecampane.
Fever:
High body temperatures or alternating chills and fever are the body's way of responding to an infection. A very high fever ( 102 F and up ) or a prolonged fever indicates the need for professional advice. Children's fevers often require professional care, since they may result from streptococcal or other bacterial infections that can be dangerous if not properly treated. For nonbacterial fevers, remedies are either cooling, such as boneset or peppermint ( to encourage sweating ), or warming, such as cayenne pepper or ginger ( to maintain body heat ).
- Drink chamomile tea or warm lemonade to reduce a fever.
Photo Credit Cliff
- A Drink for a Fever:
Take a quart of spring water, an ounce of burnt harts horn, a nutmeg quartered, and a stick of cinnamon; let it boil a quarter of an hour; when it is cold, sweeten it to your taste with syrup of lemons, or fine sugar, with as many drops of spirit of vitriol as will just sharpen it. Drink of this when you please.
- Native Americans took boneset tea, once used for "break bone fever" ( an acute, infectious tropical disease ). This can upset your stomach.
- Make a tea of yellow angelica, mulberry leaves, barberry berries, elder flowers, ground ivy, peppermint, catnip, or vervain (verbena). Catnip helps reduce mucus.
- A Drink for a Fever:
Take a quart of spring water, an ounce of burnt harts horn, a nutmeg quartered, and a stick of cinnamon; let it boil a quarter of an hour; when it is cold, sweeten it to your taste with syrup of lemons, or fine sugar, with as many drops of spirit of vitriol as will just sharpen it. Drink of this when you please.
- Native Americans took boneset tea, once used for "break bone fever" ( an acute, infectious tropical disease ). This can upset your stomach.
- Make a tea of yellow angelica, mulberry leaves, barberry berries, elder flowers, ground ivy, peppermint, catnip, or vervain (verbena). Catnip helps reduce mucus.
Photo Credit Finn Frode
- Take cayenne pepper ( in food, broth, or tea ) to warm the body, promote sweating, and enhance the body's infection-fighting ability.
- To avoid fall fevers, eat moderately, drink sparingly, lie not down on the damp earth, nor overheat yourself; but keep your temper, and change your clothes as the weather changes.
- Fever and Ague:
Take of cloves and cream of tartar, each half an ounce, and one ounce of Peruvian bark, mix in a little tea, molasses or honey, and take it on the well days in such quantities as the stomach will bear.
Earache:
Never drop anything in the ear if there is evidence ( such as fluid or a waxy discharge emanating from the ear ) that the eardrum has been punctured. In this case, consult your health practitioner, perhaps using dry heat in the meantime.
- Many earaches are often offshoots of colds, flu, or other congestion. If this is the case, reduce the mucus and phlegm with a tea of goldenseal, purple coneflower, eyebright, or elder flowers.
- In mild cases or while you are waiting for a medical treatment to take effect, try using a hair dryer, on its coolest setting and held a good six inches away, to blow warm air into a child's ear. Both the white noise of the dryer and the dry heat will help ease the symptoms and calm a fussy child.
- A warm heating pad on the pillow can ease mild earaches.
- Many of the older generation recall their parents boiling an onion and placing pieces of the warm onion on the affected ear. Some used warmed "sweet oil" (olive oil) as eardrops.
- Make an infusion or tincture of mullein and use it cold as eardrops.
- Use oil of fennel or bruised fennel seeds, applied externally, to ease an earache.
- Take cayenne pepper ( in food, broth, or tea ) to warm the body, promote sweating, and enhance the body's infection-fighting ability.
- To avoid fall fevers, eat moderately, drink sparingly, lie not down on the damp earth, nor overheat yourself; but keep your temper, and change your clothes as the weather changes.
- Fever and Ague:
Take of cloves and cream of tartar, each half an ounce, and one ounce of Peruvian bark, mix in a little tea, molasses or honey, and take it on the well days in such quantities as the stomach will bear.
Earache:
Never drop anything in the ear if there is evidence ( such as fluid or a waxy discharge emanating from the ear ) that the eardrum has been punctured. In this case, consult your health practitioner, perhaps using dry heat in the meantime.
- Many earaches are often offshoots of colds, flu, or other congestion. If this is the case, reduce the mucus and phlegm with a tea of goldenseal, purple coneflower, eyebright, or elder flowers.
- In mild cases or while you are waiting for a medical treatment to take effect, try using a hair dryer, on its coolest setting and held a good six inches away, to blow warm air into a child's ear. Both the white noise of the dryer and the dry heat will help ease the symptoms and calm a fussy child.
- A warm heating pad on the pillow can ease mild earaches.
- Many of the older generation recall their parents boiling an onion and placing pieces of the warm onion on the affected ear. Some used warmed "sweet oil" (olive oil) as eardrops.
- Make an infusion or tincture of mullein and use it cold as eardrops.
- Use oil of fennel or bruised fennel seeds, applied externally, to ease an earache.
Photo Credit abrowntable
- Take a table-spoon of fine salt, and tie it up in a little bag, heat it quite hot, and lay it on the ear, shifting it several times; and it will afford a speedy relief.
- Combine equal parts white vinegar and rubbing alcohol and put one or two drops in each ear three times a day as an antiseptic to prevent ear infections or so-called swimmer's ear.
- Take a table-spoon of fine salt, and tie it up in a little bag, heat it quite hot, and lay it on the ear, shifting it several times; and it will afford a speedy relief.
- Combine equal parts white vinegar and rubbing alcohol and put one or two drops in each ear three times a day as an antiseptic to prevent ear infections or so-called swimmer's ear.
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