How to Improve Hearing, 1658

“For to make a man hear. Take a red Onion and pick out the top, and fill it full of fair hot Hens grease; and lay the top on again, and rost it in the Embers till it be tender, and then quish out the oyl into the ears of the sick man or woman, and then stop the ears with black wooll.”

Thomas Collins, Choice and Rare Experiments in Physick and Chirurgery

Yes, this remedy will make you hear -- if what you want to hear is the sound of hot chicken fat quishing around in your head.

How to Cure Gas, 1685

The Tench
Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler (1653)

"Against the Wind in the Belly. Apply a living Tench to the Patients Navel, the Head being upwards towards the Stomach; and tye it fast on with a Napkin; and there leave it twenty four hours, till it be dead; then bury it in the Dung, and you will see the Wind will vanish." 

Nicolas Lémery, Modern Curiosities of Art & Nature (1685)

If anyone asks why you have a dying fish strapped to your abdomen, just explain that it's for your wind problem. I promise they'll leave you alone.

How to Cure Ear Problems, 1590

Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia universalis (1650)

"Earth Wormes fried with Goose greace, then straind, and a little thereof dropt warme into the deaffe or pained eare, doth helpe the same: you must use it halfe a dosen times at the least. This is true."

Thomas Lupton, A Thousand Notable Things (1590)

This remedy doth helpe the patient to realize that whatever his original problem was, it wasn't as bad as having hot greasy worms dripped into his ear.

How to Cure Cramps, 1739

"For the Cramp. Take of rosemary-leaves, and chop them very small, and sew them in fine linen, and make them into garters, and wear them night and day."

Eliza Smith, The Compleat Housewife (1739)

You know what they say: one person's cramp remedy is another person's herbal undergarment.

How to Cure Seasickness, 1695

Ludolf Backhuysen, Ships in Distress in a Raging Storm, c. 1690

"Dear Past, How do I keep from getting seasick?"

"[O]thers assure me, That the best Remedy is, to keep always, night and day, a piece of Earth under the Nose; for which purpose they provide a sufficient quantity of Earth, and preserve it fresh in a Pot of Clay; and when they have us'd a piece so long till it begins to grow dry, they put it in again into the Pot, and take out some fresh Earth." 

Maximilien Misson, A New Voyage to Italy (1695).

In addition to abating seasickness, the earth treatment will also create the illusion of a handsome mustache. Win!

How to Cure a Headache, 9th century

Ninth-century headache?
St. Gall 904 (ca. 850)

"Headaches you will enchant: take some earth, touch your breast three times and say: My head hurts, why does it hurt? It does not hurt." 

Pseudo-Pliny (9th century)

Good old denial: it's better than ibuprofen.

How to Care for Your Teeth, 13th century

"This is how to keep your teeth: gather the grains of a leek, burn them with henbane, and direct the smoke thereof to your teeth with a funnel, as if smoking a pipe." 

Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum (c. 13th century)

When you can't brush, fumigate! Recommended by nine out of ten medieval dentists.

Ask your dentist about a commemorative tooth-necklace.
BL, MS Royal 6 E.vi (c. 1360-75)

How to Cure Laryngitis, 1579

"Laye a thynne peece of rawe Beefe, to the forehead of them that have lost theyr voyce, and let it lye thereto all nyght unremoved: and it wyll helpe them presently, or at the least within three or fowre severall applications."

Thomas Lupton, A Thousand Notable Things (1579)

After three or four applications the patient will not only be speaking, but also screaming at you to stop plastering him with raw beef. 

How to Sober Up, 1628

"That one shall not be drunke. Drink the iuyce of Yerrow fasting, and ye shall not be drunke, for no drinke; and if you were drunke it will make you sober: or else take the marrow of porke fasting, and ye shall not be drunke; and if you be drunke annoint your privie members in vineger, and ye shall waxe sober." 

The Booke of Pretty Conceits (1628)

It's best when remedies for drunkenness double as hilarious party tricks. Dousing your naughty bits in vinegar will definitely amuse your drinking companions. 

How to Stop Bleeding, 1664

“To Stench a Bleeding Wound: Lay hogs Dung, hot from the Hog, to the Bleeding Wound.”  

Samuel Strangehopes, A Book of Knowledge in Three Parts (166[4])

Stench, indeed.