📜 Description:
Alum, specifically potassium aluminum sulfate, was a true jack-of-all-trades in 19th- and early 20th-century medicine cabinets. Sold as a powder or crystal chunk, this sharp-tasting astringent was rubbed, dissolved, or sprinkled on just about anything you wanted to dry up, tighten, or preserve — human or otherwise.

🩸 Common Uses:

• Nosebleeds: Stuffed up the nostril like an old-school coagulant tampon.
• Canker sores: Rubbed directly onto the ulcer for that signature “good pain.”
• Styptic: Applied to shaving cuts, much like modern styptic pencils.
• Food preservative: Used in pickling recipes (and banned in some countries for that same reason).
• Textiles & leather: Used to fix dye and tan hides. Because who doesn’t want overlap between medicine and animal processing?

⚠️ Warnings (Historical):
Repeated use could irritate mucous membranes or even lead to aluminum toxicity. But back in the day? If it stung, it must be working.

💡 Historical Relevance:
Alum appears in apothecary manuals, Civil War-era field kits, and even school science kits (alum crystals = classroom magic). It was part science, part superstition, and 100% sharp enough to put hair on your chest.

🧠 Another relic from Dr. Bebout’s Cabinet of Medical Curiosities — when healing often shared ingredients with household cleaning supplies.

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