This section is from the book "Three Meals A Day", by Maud C. Cooke. Also available from Amazon: Three Meals a Day.
Coffee roasted, ground and sprinkled on live coals or a hot shovel is one of the best known disinfectants, removing instantly all manner of animal and vegetable effluvia.
Simply putting the ground roasted coffee on plates, in rooms to be disinfected is very successful, and sprinkling in drains or sinks.
Onions sliced and put in a sick-room where there is any contagious disease are a valuable antiseptic. Replace every hour with a fresh one, burning the old. It is astonishing the rapidity with which one will shrivel away.
It has been repeatedly observed that an onion-pateh in the immediate vicinity of a house acts as a shield against pestilence, but during an epidemic a confirmed eater should, however, eschew his usual diet, as the germs of the disease are present in the onions and contagion may easily result.
Outside the door of the sick-room' suspend' a sheet so as to cover the entire doorway. This should be kept constantly wet with a solution of chloride of lime. This will keep every other part of the house free from infection.
To Cool A Sick-Room when oppressively warm, hang wet towels or canvas in Windows and doors. This will speedily lower the temperature five or six degrees, besides rendering the air moist and agreeable. Charcoal is an invaluable antiseptic used in sickrooms or crowded sleeping rooms. A dozen pieces the size of hazel-nuts placed in a saucer and daily moistened with boiling water, will, in the course of a week, have gathered their own weight in impurities, when they should be burned and fresh taken.
In cases where the other articles to be used as antidotes are not in the house, give 2 table-» spoonfuls made mustard in a pint of warm water. Also give large draughts of warm milk or water mixed with oil, butter or lard. If possible, give as follows:
Give milk or white of eggs, in large quantities. Wheat flour and water.
Alum and cathartics. Castor oil, Epsom salts. '
Give prompt emetic of mustard and salt, tablespoonful of each; follow with sweet oil, butter or milk. White of eggs, chalk and water for arsenic.
Drink warm water to encourage vomiting. If vomiting does not stop, give a grain of opium in water. Use a tea made of white oak bark or Peruvian bark.
Magnesia or soap, dissolved in water, every two minutes.
Drink freely of water with vinegar or lemon juice in it.
 
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