Healthy Home Guide

Herbal Treatments for Epilepsy, Chorea, Lockjaw, Rabies and Hiccups

It is likely that you may not have experience in diagnosing and treating the following medical conditions, so if in any doubt do not hesitate to contact a doctor as soon as possible

What is Epilepsy?

A sudden deprivation of the senses, with a violent convulsive motion of the whole body, which after a certain duration passes off, leaving a degree of stupor and weakness. The causes are various, and care must be used to discriminate between it and hysteria. The nerves are affected. In children worms will occasion it, and I believe it generally depends on a great and rapid flow of blood in the vessels of the brain.

Herbal Treatment

Give a strong tea of Vervain, Burdock Seeds, and Capsicum and plunge the feet in hot water, rubbing the legs with Camomile Tea. If a child, give Pennyroyal and Ginger Root, and restore the equilibrium as soon as possible. If costive, give active purgatives. After the fits have abated give antispasmodics and tonics, as decoction of Peruvian Bark, 10 drams; Tincture of the same, 2 drachms; Tincture of Valerian, 30 drops. Mix, and take this three times a day.

What is Chorea Disease?

This disease is marked by convulsive actions, generally confined to one side, affecting the arm and leg; there is an unsteadiness in the fingers, twitchings in the muscles of the face, changes in the appetite, paleness, costiveness, flatulency, cold sensation running through the spine, noises in the ear, giddiness, and convulsive motions, palpitations, and the time of life is from twelve to fifteen years of age.

Herbal Treatment

Rectify checked perspiration, administer strong tonics, and dried Orange Peel, Valerian Root, and Quassia, of each 2 drachms; Buckbean, Centaury, and Calumba Root, of each 1 ounce.

Boil the whole in 1 quart of water and strain, to which add a teaspoonful of Capsicum. Dose: Two tablespoonfuls three times a day. For the bowels take equal parts of Rhubarb, Extract of Camomile and make them into small pills with liquor of Gum Arabic. Dose: Two pills at night. Keep the feet warm, and give a vapour bath to promote perspiration.

Mixed medicines made of herbs which are tonic, stimulant, and antispasmodic will serve for a cure. Black Snake Root is the best; Wormwood, Valerian, and Gentian are good.

Lockjaw Herbal Treatment

For a locked jaw, give some hot stimulants, such as a teaspoonful of Capsicum in a glass of sweetened hot water, poured into the mouth gently; place the sufferer in a vapour bath for fifteen minutes, and then put to bed, and apply hot bricks in wet cloths to the feet, and in less than an hour this will cure.

What is Rabies?

State of being poisoned  by the bite of a cat, or dog, or any rabid animal. Symptoms of rabies include anxiety, timidity, sighing, pain in the abdomen and stomach, dislike to liquids, a sense of suffocation, a discharge of viscid saliva from the mouth, shuddering, and paleness of the lips.

Herbal Treatment

(1) Take a vapour bath and give a strong tea of Capsicum.

(2) While in the bath administer a teaspoonful of Lobelia Seeds, half as much Capsicum and Valerian Root in half a cupful of Raspberry Leaves for an emetic.

(3) Give an injection of the above in a pint of Raspberry Leaf Tea, and keep up perspiration for two days; stimulating teas of Valerian, Raspberry Leaves, and Capsicum; anoint the wound with Tincture of Lobelia.

Hiccups are spasmodic affections of the stomach and diaphragm, arising from some peculiar irritation.

Herbal Treatment

Take a little Peppermint Water and Lemon Juice; If it arises from acidity in the stomach give Oil of Anise.

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Herbal Treatments

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