averygoodun42 | Remember "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"?

Remember the dad in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? How he used Windex as a solution to everything? Well, I found this in one of my mum's cook books:

Uses of Ammonia:

All housekeepers should keep a bottle of liquid ammonia on hand, as it is a most powerful and useful cleaning agent. A few drops of ammonia in water will take grease from dishes, pans, etc., and does not injure the hands as much as the use of soda and strong chemical soaps. A spoonful in a quart of warm water for cleaning paint makes it look like new and so with everything that needs cleaning. In the laundry no bleaching preparation can be obtaied more cheaply. After going over your carpets with the vacuum, a cloth or spong wrung out of water with a few drops of ammonia in it, and wiped over the carpet will brighten the colors considerably. For cleaning hair brushes it is excellent. Put a tablespoonful into the water, having it only tepid, and dip it up and down until clean; then dry with the brushes down and they will be like new ones. When employed in the washing use the water after for your house plants. Ammonia is a fertilizer, and helps to keep healthy the plants it nourishes. Ammonia is used as a household medicine. Half a teaspoonful in half a glass of water is far better for faintness than alcoholic stimulants. it was used freely by Lieut. Greeley's Arctic party for keeping up circulation. It is a relief in nervousness, headache and heart disturbances.

In another book that was with the cookbooks ("Rumford Book on Home Management"):

Bites and Stings of Insects: For mosquito bites, ammonia is the best remedy, as the poison is an acid. The same remedy is also good for other insect bites, including spider's stings.

I find it highly amusing that the cookbook suggests ingesting it...