How to Cure Your Cough, 1558

BnF, MS Lat. 9471 (15th c.)

A most beautiful and pleasant secret for curing a cough by greasing the soles of the feet. An extremely true thing, and very easy. 

Take two or three heads of garlic and peel them, and crush them very well, and then add pork fat, and crush it together well again. Then, in the evening when you want to go to bed, take your socks off and put the soles of your feet toward the fire, and grease the soles with the mixture of garlic and fat. And keeping the feet always to the fire so that it almost burns you, or as hot as you can endure, let the ointment stay on for a while. Then put on warm socks and go to bed, and in bed have your back massaged a little with the ointment. And after three evenings you will be miraculously cured from any cough.

De’ segreti del reverendo donno Alessio Piemontese

It's cold season and all you really want is a miraculous cure for your cough, succulent feet, and the odor of roasted garlic and bacon wherever you go. Is that too much to ask?

How to Survive Cold Season, 1761

Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides (1646)

Fever: To prevent catching any infectious fever, do not breathe near the face of the sick person, neither swallow your spittle while in the room. 

Cold in the Head: Pare very thin the yellow rind of an orange. Roll it up inside out and thrust a roll up each nostril.  

Cough: Drink a pint and a half of cold water lying down in bed... Or, make a hole thro' a lemon, and fill it with honey. Roast it, and catch the juice. Take a tea-spoonful of this frequently.  

The Country Gentleman, Farmer, and Housewife's Compendious Instructor 

What, you don't want to spend the winter with a cocktail garnish up your nose? Maybe you shouldn't have swallowed your spittle, my friend.

How to Cure Congestion, 1682

Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides (1646)

"For a Cold and stuffing in the Head, to draw Rheum from the Head, and comfort the Brain. Take an Orange, and pare off very thin the yellow Rind; rowl it up conveniently to thrust up into the Nostril, turning the inner moist side outward to be next your flesh within the Nose; put a rowl into each Nostril. It will cause sneesing, and will make much water run down at the Nose, and comfort the Brain."

G. Hartman, The True Preserver and Restorer of Health 

If you like your martini with a twist, try your head cold with a twist!

How to Cure a Stuffy Nose, 1658

Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts

"If any man shall but touch or kiss with his mouth the snowt or nostrils of a Mouse, and be troubled with the disease called the Rhume, which falleth down and stuffeth the nostrils, he shall in very short space be eased of the same." 

Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents

Cold season checklist: Tissues. Hot tea. The quivering snout of the vulgar little mouse.

How to Cure a Cough, 1651

Conrad Gesner, Historiae animalium

"And a little Frog climbing up a tree, if any one shall spit in his mouth, and then let him escape, is said to cure the Cough." 

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Three Books of Occult Philosophy

Yet another benefit of making out with frogs.

How to Cure Head Congestion, 1596

"A Medicine for the stopping of the nose and head, which commeth by reason of colde. Take a good quantity of the iuice of Primrose, and blow it with a quill into the Patients nose, and let him keep himselfe warme after it, and it will cleare both his head and nose." 

A. T., A Rich Store-House or Treasury for the Diseased (1596)

Your stuffy patient may be alarmed when you stick a quill into his nose and pressure-wash his sinuses with primrose juice, but he'll thank you later.