The book is a history of life at the turn of the 20th century. Some of the recipes called for morphine, cocaine, oil of turpentine, oil of hemlock, tincture of opium, iodine of potassium and every narcotic you can think of.
Many of the tinctures I have never heard of. Lots of different herbs.
One receipe was called "Gold cure for Drunkenness", another was "Pink Pills for Pale People, and Liniment for Man and Beast". Lydia Pinkhams, which even in the 40's was a cure for childless women to get pregnant." It is a fascinating book as to how people took care of themselves and their farm animals before the days of medicine and doctors.
Also has photo's of diseases like Scarlet fever, small pox, etc.
It goes from a chapter on bread making to horse,cattle,sheep,hog and poultry diseases and cures...Also with crude photographs of diseased animals.
The chapter on farm animals was from 1917 Imperial Publishing com. Toronto, Canada..
This book is over 1000 pages and for a history buff of early life it is an eye opener.
Needless to say every narcotic available was for sale at the town pharmacy. Every pain killer was stocked on every farm as there was no doctors out in the boondocks. Don't remember a lot about drug addicts from that period...Drugs were not recreational, they were life saving...And there were no laws against dispensing them, or outlawing guns....
The chapter on home cooking has some great old receipes in it....The interesting thing is, for instance, On the Lady Baltimore Cake, no time or temperature for the over was given...women just knew those kind of things and many probably baked over an open hearth...:O)