This manuscript recipe book appears to have begun its life in England where it served as a practice book for handwriting, mathematics and money conversions. It then continues in a small but neat hand to document various medical and household receipt for both humans and animals, including a 'Reliable Cure for Dyptheria,' 'Excellent for Strains and Bruises in Bullocks and Horses,' 'To Purify the Blood' and many others. Ingredients range from rhubarb to oyster shell, burdock and danelion to opium and laudanum.

The second part of the book proceeds from the rear forward and is concentrated more on human remedies with cures for corns, toothaches, pimples, rheumatism and more, including a section called "Medicine Aanalized" with nearly twenty patent medicines identified and their recipes revealed or approximated. The analysis is credited to Dr. Paris.

This is followed by additional medical and household recipes, including ones "To Sweeten Stinking Barrels," " To Destroy Ants," "A Good Imitation of Port Wine," "To Cure a Bad Leg," "Sir John SInclair's Receipt Recommended as a Good Diet for Invalids," and "A Good Diet to Promote Health," along with many more.

A good number of the recipes are attributed and multiple cures for single diseases are limited. A number of hands seem to have recorded the recipes in various parts of the book.

It's possible that some of the recipes were recorded in the United States after the book crossed the Atlantic, but that remains unclear. A few of the early pages with mathematics practice appear to have been torn out and small sections of a few pages have either been cut away or crossed out. A few receipts clipped from newspapers or books are pasted down to the insides of the boards, including cures for Scarlet Fever and Small Pox, and recipies for soap.