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Colonial Cure for Insomnia

It was not quite so easy for the victims of insomnia in Colonial times to obtain sleep remedies as it is now. Perhaps there was less need for them then.

But some need there was, and for it the following remedy was prescribed:

Bruise a handfull of anise seeds, and steep them in Red Rose Water. Make it up in little bags, and bind one of them to each nostril, and it will cause sleep.

This “cure” was found in a book entitled The Queen’s Closet Opened, or The Pearl of Practise, published in the year 1656.

If you were deaf, there was a remedy, provided by formula in the same volume, as follows:

Take the Garden Daisie roots, and make juice thereof. Lay the worst side of the head low upon the bolster, and drop three or four drops thereof into the better ear. This do three or four days together.

The telling of this remedy certainly deserved a hearing, and no doubt it wrought by faith some cures. These would be emphasized and failures forgotten.

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