Before the age of Cialis, Botox, and the Purple Pill, free-thinking Americans in this great nation of ours didn't need a wimpy "prescription drug plan" or visits to the plastic surgeon. In the interest of both health and beauty, they rolled up their sleeves and made their own tonics, lotions, salves, balms, plasters, and so forth. The following six formulae can be found in The American Domestic Cyclopedia (1890), all advocated as effective treatments for the same condition -- still common, though no longer as much a matter of concern:
1. Five grains corrosive sublimate, two ounces alcohol, two ounces water...At night use the following...one ounce of white wax, one teacupful of nice white lard, lump of camphor the size of a chestnut, one teaspoonful glycerine.
2. Take a half-pound of clear ox-gall, half a drachm each of of camphor and burned alum, one drachm of borax, two ounces of rock salt, and the same of rock candy. This should be mixed and shaken well several times a day for three weeks, until the gall becomes transparent; then strain it very carefully through filtering paper, which may be had of the druggist.
3. Another...is made by dissolving three grains of borax in five drachms each of rose water and orange flower water.
4. Take one ounce of lemon juice, a quarter of a drachm of powdered borax, and half a drachm of sugar. Let stand in a bottle for a few days...
5. Rectified spirits of wine, one ounce; water, eight ounces; half an ounce of orange flower water, or one ounce of rose water; diluted muriatic acid, a teaspoonful. Mix.
6. Take grated horseradish and put it in very sour milk. Let it stand four hours...
For what condition are all of these mixtures meant as a curative? (Futher details about how each formula should be employed have been omitted.)
First correct answer to comments wins an empty Ronnybrook Farm Dairy bottle, which can be returned for a $1 deposit. No Googling or consulting the rival volume The House-Wife's Treasury of Improving Facts. Only one guess per comment, please, but you may comment as often as you like.
Posted by BT at February 13, 2004 12:02 AMhusbandlessness
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 10:27 AMBaldness?
Posted by: bootsy on February 13, 2004 10:56 AMFrigidity?
Posted by: bootsy on February 13, 2004 10:57 AMJudging from the sales of Propecia, Viagra for women, and the book Find a Husband After 35 Using What I learned at Harvard Business School, I would say that all three of those conditions are still considered worrisome by 21st-century society. In short, nope.
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 11:16 AMAcne
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:27 AMRheumatism
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:34 AMQuinsy
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:34 AMAndropause
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:35 AMEnnui
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:35 AMOn-base percentage slumps
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:37 AMRing around the collar
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:39 AMNope to all of the above. By the way, the etymology of quinsy is kind of interesting.
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 11:39 AMOkay, but sending you to the dictionary is still worth a quarter of a point, right?
Pneumonia
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:47 AMCoprolalia
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:49 AMSt. Vitas' Dance
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:51 AMSebhorhea
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 11:52 AMscurvy
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 11:53 AMRed hair.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 11:56 AMconsumption
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:11 PMPolio.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:13 PMIt is likely that most everyone who has posted has had __________ crop up at some time or another. It is unlikely that any of you considered treating it with any product whatsoever.
So, for example, it isn't polio, or scurvy.
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 12:16 PMGoing day of issue thematic, let's say "love"
Posted by: Scott on February 13, 2004 12:24 PMpaper cuts
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:26 PMbad hair day
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:27 PMGas.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:33 PMRosy cheeks.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:33 PMDark circles under eyes.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:33 PMBad luck.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:34 PMMother-in-laws. Wait - that's still a problem.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:34 PMMother-in-laws. Wait - that's still a problem.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:35 PMApparently, it's a serious enough problem to deserve two mentions.
Nothing right yet, although there have been one or two guesses of conditions with remedies which are in the same section of the Cyclopedia as the one we are discussing.
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 12:37 PMTruculence
And yo Garthmeister: that would be flatus.
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:37 PMsleepiness
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:39 PMlethargy
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:39 PMHeartsickness
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:39 PMapathy
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:40 PMand to round out my list of synonyms:
sloth
(if this isn't right, I may have to go to the other deadly sins)
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:41 PMAngst
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:41 PMSchadenfreude
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:42 PMVeltanschaungung
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:42 PMProcrastination.
Posted by: Garthmeister J. on February 13, 2004 12:42 PMLebensraum
(this is actually funny, I swear)
Secular humanism
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:44 PMPost-structuralism
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:44 PMpost-modernism
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 12:53 PMThere are a couple of ways to spin this, but let's say "desire."
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 12:55 PMI will add that the thing which these formulae are meant to address is not in any way metaphysical, emotional, or psychological in nature.
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 12:57 PMDrunkenness?
Posted by: Scott on February 13, 2004 01:01 PMnon-metaphysical flatulence
you know, farting
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 01:01 PMHang over?
Posted by: Scott on February 13, 2004 01:05 PMHysteria?
Posted by: bootsy on February 13, 2004 01:11 PMI guess "Gas" covers farting (something I missed on a cursory search), so I respectfully withdraw that guess.
Posted by: teenidol on February 13, 2004 01:13 PMPossession (as in by devils or some such)?
Posted by: bootsy on February 13, 2004 01:14 PMfreckles?
Posted by: Sara on February 13, 2004 01:16 PMDarn you, Memmott, I was just about to guess freckles.
Posted by: Scott on February 13, 2004 01:18 PMPost-holiday flab?
Posted by: Scott on February 13, 2004 01:22 PMAll hail Sara, who has with one guess pierced to the heart of it. Indeed, all that borax seems to have been designed to bleach away the unsightly spotting that would otherwise besmirch the ivory complexions of a nation's womanhood.
My favorite part: in remedy No. 2, the author takes care to assure the reader that "filtered paper" may be acquired at the druggist. But apparently any competent housewife would know how to lay in a supply of "ox-gall."
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 01:23 PMSuntan
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 01:23 PMSorry for the late guess. How embarassing. And all for naught. Oh, the shame!
Posted by: Jonathan on February 13, 2004 01:28 PMTo banish late-answer shame, mix 4 oz. rectified port wine in a hogshead of clear ox-gall, filter through paper (which can be acquired at any well-stocked head shop), and pour over head. Resulting discomfort and odor will sufficiently distract from shame for at least a demi-fortnight.
Posted by: BT on February 13, 2004 01:32 PMChildhood reading wins the prize! I remember Anne of Green Gables complaining about her freckled and unladylike complexion, and I think she also tried to bleach them. Though that could have been the heroine of another girls' book.
Posted by: Sara on February 13, 2004 01:56 PMI seem to remember that Anne was always dabb(l)ing with buttermilk and lemon juice, but she never seemed to try the proto-crystal-meth-lab product. Though she did buy that hair dye from the sketchy peddler, which turned her hair blue.
Posted by: bootsy on February 13, 2004 02:26 PM62 comments? Criminy. This is what happens when you show up late.
Posted by: Gavin on February 13, 2004 05:48 PMRun away! Someone opened a girly book! Cooties!
Posted by: Opus Dark on February 13, 2004 06:04 PM