1877 Registry List of Second District of 19th Ward Pittsburg / Commonplace Book

"1877 Registry List of Second District of 19th Ward Pittsburg." Saddle-stitched booklet, 7 x 4.25 inches, [24] pages. Good with heavy soil and some staining/discoloration. Originally containing an alphabetical voting register for the 19th Ward in Pittsburgh, roughly covering the areas of modern East Liberty, Garfield and Highland Park. Repurposed as a pocket commonplace book, the inner wraps were used for pencil calculations and rhe first six pages are pasted over with a handful of news clippings. A rather eclectic variety, particularly given the modest number of examples, several are related to health and medicine, plus a few picks from the crime blotter amongst the miscellany. Partial list: "A Certain Cure for Diptheria" (gargling sulphur, or filling the room "almost to suffocation" and inhaling the fumes), "A Queer Way to Harden Butter," the announcement of a new German embalming process, a handwritten "Universal Cure All" recipe using alcohol, sulphuric ether, lavender oil, and laudenam; Herschel's weather table (moon-based forecasting); a clipping about a stabbing in East Liberty, and a rather charming report: "Two fast and not very fastidious you women of East Liberty had a prize fight on last Saturday, a result of calling bad names. The way calico, percales, muslin and jute flew around for a few minutes was a terror to all such fabrics and their wearers."