By Nigel Bunyan
For years Elizabeth Harfleet wondered how her great aunt Lillie had managed to live to the grand old age of 103.
She believes she has found the answer in a battered book unearthed in a relative's attic.
Covered in faded brown paper,
How to Live 100 Years is a compact manual of herbal remedies and treatments that was compiled by one James Robinson, of Bradford, and sold early in the last century for a shilling.
"I was only a little girl when great aunt Lillie was already very old, although I do remember going to her 100th birthday party," Mrs Harfleet, from Crumpsall, Manchester, said yesterday.
"I remember she had an interest in health and remedies which my dad used to copy. When I had mumps, for example, he put boiled onions on my neck. At the time I wasn't all that interested, but now I find it fascinating."
Details of great aunt Lillie (full name Mary Elizabeth Hogg) extend little beyond knowing that she was born into a wealthy farming family in 1870 and died a spinster in Harrogate, North Yorks.
Mrs Harfleet, 46, a nutritional therapist, even recommends some of the measures in Lillie's book.
Raspberry leaf tablets are recommended to speed up a woman's time in labour, while a cure for PMT is to "take horseradish, half a teacupful, and one pint of good gin. Mix. Take a tablespoon three times a day". The book observes: "Ladies who use this remedy say they have never found anything to equal it."
Other suggestions include applying a paste of mustard and lemon juice to the face for four nights to fade freckles; treating boils and bunions with slippery elm and black haw root tea to treat cramp.
"My dad said Lillie was a very determined lady," said Mrs Harfleet. "She was obviously determined to live to 100 and this is how she did it."
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