This recipe for "cold medicine" was found in the wallet of my great-great grandfather Andrew Wells,
after his death on 19 July 1890 in Mt. Carroll, Carroll County, Illinois. This is exactly as it was originally written.
If he used this it apparently worked for him, as he lived to be fairly elderly, but I
personally don't advise experimenting............Charlott Wells Jones
1845
"
.....throat is most common in the winter or spring when persons are most likele to take cole in the neck and
throat it is ----sioned by cold settling in the glands of the throat and obstructing the
salvator juices and is attended with swelling and pain and is often difficult to remove to cure this complaint take it when the
swelling and pain first begins put a poltice of ---- bibby (or libby) root and ginger
wet with half a teaspoon full of cayenne pepper ground fine and put into half pint of strong vinigar steep it strong apply the poltice
to the throat warms take stale strong sage tea and dissolve a small lump of alumn in it and add one teaspoon full of gun poweder cayenne
to one pint drink a swallow once in fifteen or twenty minutes wet the mouth and throat in the intervals an the dessease will soon disapear"
- Andrew Wells
