Yesterday was spent garage-saleing. For those unfamiliar with this activity, it is not, as the name suggests, taking garages out on the lake for recreation. Instead, it is largely a process whereby one person transfers her worthless knickknacks and Reader’s Digest Condensed Novels to another person for trivial amounts of currency. One popular variation substitutes baby clothing and used breast pumps for the Condensed Novels.
But sometimes treasures are found. It was at an estate sale* that I saw a pile of books that looked very, very awful. Most of the books looked awful because they were over a hundred years old and were falling apart; the last looked awful because it was by Dan Brown. I purchased one of the former for a quarter.
(*Note: An estate sale is simply a type of garage sale where the person selling her worthless crap is dead.)
This is how I became the proud owner of
The Household Guide
or
Domestic Cyclopedia.
A Practical Family PHysician, Home Remedies
and Home Treatment on
All Diseases.
An Instructor on Nursing, Housekeeping and
Home Adornments.
BY
PROF B.G. Jefferis, M.D., Ph.D.,
AND
J.L. Nichols, A.M.
------------------
ALSO
A Complete Cook Book
by
Mrs. J.L. Nichols
I am thus now in possession of immense practical knowledge of housekeeping, home remedies, etiquette, and sundry other related matters. I am willing to share this knowledge with the world.
There is not a lot of detail specific to discipline techniques. But page 332 lists 14 “Good Rules for the Mistress” for interacting with servants. Number 9 says simply, “When you reprove, do so firmly and decidedly.” Number 10 then states, “Only allow your rules to be broken once; let dismissal, with customary notice, follow the second offense.”
In short, it seems that discipline techniques are not needed, since if a servant is in need of discipline, they are also in need of a new job.
However, it is important to note that, per number 13, one should: “Be kind to your servants when they are ill, and thoughtful of them always; in nine cases out of ten the considerate mistress will be rewarded by faithful service.”
Immediately following this list is another list, this one for the servant. Included in this list are the following items:
Sitcom writers of the world, take note.
It might be best to consider the advice given about servants in general, in order to avoid having the need to discipline them. Thus a special section is headed “The Servant Question”.
What is an appropriate menu for when I have my parents over for dinner or supper?
What is the most a la mode way to decorate my parlour? I am afraid my current home adornments are falling behind the times. Are my printed lithographs and punch-embroidered pillow shams still in vogue?
In the 70’s (1970’s, not 1870’s) I worked for an attorney, a single woman who had a maid/housekeeper. She chastised the housekeeper because she (1) used the front door instead of a side door to enter the house and (2) had the poor judgment to set up the ironing board on the white carpet in the living room, so she could watch TV while ironing. I am not shitting you. The lawyer dictated a letter detailing the housekeeper’s faults, and I typed it.
I have pored over many sections of this wondrous volume, but I’m afraid it seems to be silent on this important matter.
There is an index, so I first looked for the obvious - “left-handed”:
Drat. Ok, how about just “handedness”, or simply “hand”?
Hmm, not exactly what we’re looking for, but let’s see what the good book has to say about caring for hands on page 269:
All very useful, but not what we’re looking for.
For one final attempt, I note from Wikipedia that “sinistral” is a term meaning “left-handed” (and having obvious etymological connotations). Anything?
Alas, no luck.
The closest thing to a mention of handedness that I can find by random perusal of the yellowed pages is part of a list of table manners:
I will continue to absorb the knowledge of the Cyclopedia, and will update you if I find a direct answer to your query.
Let me pause while Firefox’s built-in spell-checker finishes its workout.
Alright, you may be wondering what “homeopathic” means. I looked it up. Homeopathy is an olde-timee set of quack medical ideas believed by simpler people from a simpler time because they were dumb. It was debunked long ago and so nobody knows what it is anymore.
Perhaps I should interject a brief note about the layout of the volume. Here’s an abbreviated table of contents:
**Book I**
**Home and Home Influences**
Home ......................................... 22
Woman, Her Power, Qualities .................... 25
...
**Health**
Sunshine and Health ............................ 29
...
Evils of Window Ventilation ................... 34
...
Tea and Coffee, Why Do We Drink It ............ 45
...
**Disease** ........................................ 74
How to Tell Contagious Diseases .............. 75
The Wonderful Revelation of the Microscope ..... 76
...
**Home Remedies and How to Use Them** ............ 107
Properties of Salt ........................... 108
The Useful Onion ............................ 109
...
Turpentine, Facts About Eggs .................. 112
...
Cayenne Pepper, Catnip, Cinnamon, Dandelion ... 115
...
Pennyroyal, Mandrake, Oakbark, Peach Tree Bark .. 121
...
**Home Remedies and Home Treatment for All Diseases** .. 125
Colic in Adults ...................................125
Cramps and Cramp Colic, Colic in Children ...... 126
...
Dyspepsia, Egyptian Dyspepsia Cure ............ 149
...
Erysipelas and Cancer, Eczema ................. 157
...
**Sick Room Hints**
...
**Care and Feeding of Infants** .................. 210
...
**Book II**
**Figure, Form and Beauty** ...................... 245
...
**Etiquette.**
Hints and Helps on Good Behavior ...... 293
Practical Rules ........................ 296
...
**Invitations.**
How to Write invitations, Forms .............. 312
**Amusements** ......................... 318
How to Amuse Children ................. 319
Ring Games and Frolics for Children's Parties ...... 321
...
**Book III**
**The Housekeeper** ..................... 328
A Model Housewife ........................... 329
How to Manage to be Happy ................. 329
...
**Home Adornments** ............................. 337
...
**The Hygiene of the Bedroom** ............ 345
...
**The Dining Room** ............................. 349
**Kitchen Utensils** ............................. 354
Household Measures and Weights ........... 354
**Household Hints** .................................. 356
...
**Family Receipts** ................. 361
Scientific Method for Removing Stains ............... 362
...
How to Break a String ............... 373
...
How to Raise Canaries ................. 382
How to Keep Flowers Fresh ............. 383
How to Enlarge Portraits and Pictures ..... 384
**Reading the Paper** .................. 398
**Book IV**
**Complete Cook Book** .................. 399
The Art of Cooking ................... 400
Hints for the Cook ................... 401
...
New Ways for Cooking Corn .............. 427
How to Make all Kinds of Catsups, Pickles, Salads, etc. ..... 429
...
**Book V**
**In the Laundry** .................................. 491
How to Make Hard Soap .............. 492
How to Polish Shirt Bosoms .............. 492
...
**How to Destroy House Insects** ....... 497
...
**Yard and Garden.**
worms on Rose Bushes .................... 509
...
**Poultry** ........................... 513
Practical Rules for Keeping Poultry ........... 513
Chicken Cholera, Asthma, Loss of Feathers, Gapes ......... 515
...
**A Complete Medical Dictionary** ........ 522
(I tried to align page numbers nicely, but sadly this is hard to do .)
As you can see, Book I contains most of the information about disease. The section Disease is general information about diseases, including cutting edge knowledge obtained with microscopes. Home Remedies and How to Use Them lists things we all have laying about the house, and lets us know what we can cure with them. Home Remedies and Home Treatment for All Diseases is the inverse - it lists diseases we all suffer from, and let’s us know what to raid from the root cellar to treat them.
However, nuggets of health advice seems to be sprinkled just about everywhere in the volume.
Note: “The Hygiene of the Bedroom” is not as exciting as it sounds.