Onion Cough Syrup: One large onion cut up fine. Put in pan with a little water, about three tablespoons sugar and let simmer for about 30 minutes until it is medium syrup. Take as needed.
Whiskey Cough Syrup: one-tablespoon whiskey, a tsp. sugar. Stir sugar in whiskey until dissolved and swallow.
Chest Colds: Mustard Plaster: Two tablespoons Lard (Hog), 1 tablespoon ground mustard. Mix well. Put on wool red flannel. Put on chest and keep covered up.
Spring Tonic: 4 or 5 pieces of sassafras bark in pan of water. Boil until a good dark color. Take 1/2 cup every morning.
For Upset Stomach: One-tablespoon Watkins Horse liniment in glass of hot water and 1 tsp. sugar.
Flax seed Lemonade Cough Syrup: This is from a doctor's book in 1889. 2 tbsp. flaxseed in a pint of boiling water. Let stand until cool and strain. Add the juice of two lemons and two tbsp. honey. Stir well. Give as needed.
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 62