Apple, Barley, Elderberry, Grape and Lemon are the best home remedies we could find for someone afflicted with a high fever.

Please read the descriptions below and see if this is the right home remedy for you.

Remember, these home remedies are not meant to be a replacement for your family doctor, please consult your doctor before trying any home remedy.

_Apple._

It is hardly possible to take up any newspaper or magazine now a days
without happening on advertisements of patent medicines whose chief
recommendation is that they “contain phosphorus.” They are generally
very expensive, but the reader is assured that they are worth ten times
the price asked on account of their wonderful properties as nerve and
brain foods. The proprietors of these concoctions seemingly flourish
like green bay trees and spend many thousands of pounds per annum in
advertising. From which it may be deduced that sufferers from nervous
exhaustion and brain fag number millions. And surely only a sufferer
from brain fag would suffer himself to be led blindly into wasting his
money, and still further injuring his health, by buying and swallowing
drugs about whose properties and effects he knows absolutely nothing.
How much simpler, cheaper, and more enjoyable to eat apples!

The apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other
fruit or vegetable. For this reason it is an invaluable nerve and brain
food. Sufferers from nerve and brain exhaustion should eat at least two
apples _at the beginning of each meal_. At the same time they should
avoid tea and coffee, and supply their place with barley water or bran
tea flavoured with lemon juice, or even apple tea.

Apples are also invaluable to sufferers from the stone or calculus. It
has been observed that in cider countries where the natural unsweetened
cider is the common beverage, cases of stone are practically unknown.
Food-reformers do not deduce from this that the drinking of cider is to
be recommended, but that even better results may be obtained from eating
the fresh, ripe fruit.

Apples periodically appear upon the tables of carnivorous feeders in the
form of apple sauce. This accompanies bilious dishes like roast pork and
roast goose. The cook who set this fashion was evidently acquainted with
the action of the fruit upon the liver. All sufferers from sluggish
livers should eat apples.

Apples will afford much relief to sufferers from gout. The malic acid
contained in them neutralises the chalky matter which causes the gouty
patient’s sufferings.

Apples, when eaten ripe and without the addition of sugar, diminish
acidity in the stomach. Certain vegetable salts are converted into
alkaline carbonates, and thus correct the acidity.

An old remedy for weak or inflamed eyes is an apple poultice. I am told
that in Lancashire they use rotten apples for this purpose, but
personally I should prefer them sound.

A good remedy for a sore or relaxed throat is to take a raw ripe apple
and scrape it to a fine pulp with a silver teaspoon. Eat this pulp by
the spoonful, very slowly, holding it against the back of the throat as
long as possible before swallowing.

A diet consisting chiefly of apples has been found an excellent cure for
inebriety. Health and strength may be fully maintained upon fine
wholemeal unleavened bread, pure dairy or nut butter, and apples.

Apple water or apple tea is an excellent drink for fever patients.

Apples possess tonic properties and provoke appetite for food. Hence the
old-fashioned custom of eating an apple before dinner.

_Apple Tea._

The following are two good recipes for apple tea:– (1) Take 2 sound
apples, wash, but do not peel, and cut into thin slices. Add some strips
of lemon rind. Pour on 1 pint of boiling water (distilled). Strain when
cold. (2) Bake 2 apples. Pour over them 1 pint boiling water. Strain
when cold.

_Barley._

Barley is excellent food for the anæmic and nervous on account of its
richness in iron and phosphoric acid. It is also useful in fevers and
all inflammatory diseases, on account of its soothing properties. From
the earliest times barley water has been the recognised drink of the
sick.

_Barley Water._

When using pearl barley for making barley water it must be well washed.
The fine white dust that adheres to it is most unwholesome. For this
reason the cook is generally directed to first boil the barley for five
minutes, and throw this water away. But in this way some of the valuable
properties are thrown away with the dirt. The best results are obtained
by well washing it in cold water, but this must be done over and over
again. Half-a-dozen waters will not be too many. After the last washing
the water should be perfectly clear.

When barley water is being used for curative purposes it should be
strong. The following recipe is an excellent one. A ½ pint of barley
to 2½ pints water (distilled if possible). Boil for three hours, or
until reduced to 2 pints. Strain and add 4 teaspoonfuls fresh lemon
juice. Sweeten to taste with pure cane sugar.

Fine Scotch barley is to be preferred to the pearl barley if it can be
obtained.

_Elderberry._

The elderberry has fallen into neglect of late years, owing to the lazy
and disastrous modern habit of substituting the mineral drugs of the
chemist for the home-made vegetable remedies of our grandmothers.
Nevertheless, the elderberry is one of the most ancient and tried of
medicines, held in such great esteem in Germany that, according to the
German folk-lore, men should take off their hats in the presence of an
elder-tree. In Denmark there is a legend to the effect that the trees
are under the protection of a being known as the Elder-Mother, who has
been immortalised in one of the fairy tales of Hans Andersen.

The berries of the elder-tree are not palatable enough to be used as a
common article of food, but in the days when nearly every garden boasted
its elder-tree few housewives omitted to make elderberry wine in due
season.

It is not permitted to “food-reformers” to make “wine,” but those
readers who are fortunate enough to possess an elder-tree might well
preserve the juice of the berries against winter coughs and colds.

_Preserved Fruit Juice._

The following is E. and B. May’s recipe for preserving fruit juice. Put
the fruit into a preserving-pan, crush it and allow it to simmer slowly
until the juice is well drawn out. This will take about an hour. Press
out the juice and strain through a jelly-bag until quite clear. Put the
juice back into the pan, and to every quart add a quarter of a pound of
best cane sugar. Stir until dissolved. Put the juice into clean, dry
bottles. Stand the bottles in a pan of hot water, and when the latter
has come to the boil allow the bottles to remain in the boiling water
for fifteen minutes. The idea is to bring the juice inside the bottles
to boiling point just before sealing up, but not to boil it. See that
the bottles are _full_. Cork _immediately_ on taking out of the pan,
and then seal up. To seal mix a little plaster of Paris with water and
spread it well over the cork. Let it come a little below the cork so as
to exclude all air.

The juice of the elderberry is famous for promoting perspiration, hence
its efficacy in the cure of colds. Two tablespoonfuls should be taken at
bed-time in a tumbler of hot water.

The juice of the elderberry is excellent in fevers, and is also said to
promote longevity.

_Elderberry Poultice._

“The leaves of the elder, boiled until they are soft, with a little
linseed oil added thereto,” laid upon a scarlet cloth and applied, as
hot as it can be borne, to piles, has been said to be an infallible
remedy. Each time this poultice gets cold it must be renewed for “the
space of an hour.” At the end of this time the final dressing is to be
“bound on,” and the patient “put warm to bed.” If necessary the whole
operation is to be repeated; but the writer assures us that “this hath
not yet failed at the first dressing to cure the disease.” If any reader
desires to try the experiment I would suggest that the leaves be steamed
rather than boiled, and pure olive oil used in the place of linseed oil.
It must also be remembered that no outward application can be expected
to effect a permanent cure, since the presence of piles indicates an
effort of Nature to clear out some poison from the system. But if this
expulsion is assisted by appropriate means the pain may well be
alleviated by external applications. (Pepper should be avoided by
sufferers from piles.)

_Grape._

The special value of the grape lies in the fact that it is a very quick
repairer of bodily waste, the grape sugar being taken immediately into
the circulation without previous digestion. For this reason is grape
juice the best possible food for fever patients, consumptives, and all
who are in a weak and debilitated condition. The grapes should be well
chewed, the juice and pulp swallowed, and the skin and stones rejected.

In countries where the grape cure is practised, consumptive patients are
fed on the sweeter varieties of grape, while those troubled with liver
complaints, acid gout, or other effects of over-feeding, take the less
sweet kinds.

Dr. Fernie deprecates the use of grapes for the ordinary gouty or
rheumatic patient, but with all due deference to that learned authority,
I do not believe the fruit exists that is not beneficial to the gouty
person. One of the most gouty and rheumatic people I know, a vegetarian
who certainly never over-feeds himself, derives great benefit from a few
days’ almost exclusive diet of grapes.

Cream of tartar, a potash salt obtained from the crust formed upon
bottles and casks by grape juice when it is undergoing fermentation in
the process of becoming wine, is often used as a medicine. It has been
cited as an infallible specific in cases of smallpox, but I do not
recommend its use, as it probably gets contaminated with other
substances during the process of manufacture. In any case its value
cannot be compared with the fresh, ripe fruit. I have little doubt but
that an exclusive diet of grapes, combined with warmth, proper bathing,
and the absence of drugs, would suffice to cure the most malignant case
of smallpox.

Sufferers from malaria may use grapes with great benefit. For this
purpose the grapes, with the skins and stones, should be well pounded in
a mortar and allowed to stand for three hours. The juice should then be
strained off and taken. Or persons with good teeth may eat the grapes,
including the skins and stones, if they thoroughly macerate the latter.

In the absence of fresh grapes raisin-tea is a restoring and nourishing
drink. Dr. Fernie notes that it is of the same proteid value as milk, if
made in the proportions given below. It is much more easily digested
than milk, and therefore of great use in gastric complaints. Sufferers
from chronic gastritis could not do better than make raisin-tea their
sole drink, and bananas their only food for a time.

_Raisin Tea._

To make raisin-tea, take half a pound of good raisins and wash well, but
quickly, in lukewarm water. Cut up roughly and put into the
old-fashioned beef-tea jar with a quart of _distilled_ or boiled and
filtered _rain_ water. Cook for four hours, or until the liquid is
reduced to 1 pint. Scald a fine hair sieve and press through it all
except the skins and stones. If desired a little lemon juice may be
added.

_Lemon._

Lemons are invaluable in cases of gout, malaria, rheumatism, and scurvy.
They are also useful in fevers and liver complaints.

I have found the juice of one lemon taken in a little hot water remove
dizzy feelings in the head, accompanied by specks and lights dancing
before the eyes, consequent upon the liver being out of order, in half
an hour.

The juice of a lemon in hot water may be taken night and morning with
advantage by sufferers from rheumatism. In the “lemon cure” for gout and
rheumatism, the patients begin with one lemon per day and increase the
quantity until they arrive at a dozen or more. But I think this is
carrying it to excess. Dr. Fernie recommends the juice of one lemon
mixed with an equal proportion of hot water, to be taken pretty
frequently, in cases of rheumatic fever.

A prescription for malaria, given in the _Lancet_, is the following:
“Take a full-sized lemon, cut it in thin transverse slices, rind and
all, boil these down in an earthenware jar containing a pint and a half
of water, until the decoction is reduced to half a pint. Let this cool
on the window-sill overnight, and drink it off in the morning.”

A Florentine doctor discovered that fresh lemon juice will alleviate
the pain of cancerous ulceration of the tongue. His patient sucked
slices of lemon.

A German doctor found that fresh lemon juice kills the diptheria
bacillus, and advises a gargle of diluted lemon juice to diptheric
patients. Such a gargle is excellent for sore throat.

Dr. Fernie recommends lemon juice for nervous palpitation of the heart.

Lemon juice rubbed on to corns will eventually do away with them, and if
applied to unbroken chilblains will effect a cure.

Lemon juice is also an old remedy for the removal of freckles and
blackheads from the face. It should be rubbed in at bedtime, after
washing with warm water.