Manuscript formulae and receipts book

This nineteenth-century American manuscript contains approximately eighty-five pages of medicinal formulae and household receipts along with notes and sketches of plants and their medicinal properties. The volume dates from approximately 1861 to 1877 and may have been created by a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, resident with a medical or scientific background.

The first twenty leaves of the manuscript include detailed descriptions of plants and their physical properties. These botanical entries include the plants' scientific Latin names as well as their common names; habitat; notes on stem, flowers, and leaves; and medicinal properties. The entries are copied in a neat hand in encyclopedic format and all are dated from November 1865.

The remaining sixty leaves contain household formulae or medicinal receipts followed by blank sheets. Occasionally the verso of a page was used for sketches or to finish an earlier entry. These household and medicinal recipes include instructions for producing sealing wax, silver cleaner, tooth cements, inks, dyes, ale, Fish House (Schuylkill) punch, chilli sauce, glue, liquid waterproofing, matches, and Parisian cologne. Medicinal receipts comprise the majority of the latter portion of the volume and include treatments for "hooping cough," lockjaw, pimples, and hay fever. Many entries reference sources, including the Boston Journal of Chemistry, Universal Almanack, Pradal's A Complete Treatise on Perfumery, and Philadelphia's Public Ledger.

The leather-bound manuscript is in fragile condition, lacking its front cover.