OCR Text |
Show 8&2 CULTIVATED OAT. bread. Whensimply freed from the husks, this grain gets the name of groats, but it is more frequently ground into oatmeal, Groats are made use of in broths. Oatmeal is baked with salt and water into cakes, or, with the same.additions, is boiled to form porridge. An infusion of the husks in water, allowed to remaintill it becomes acidulous, is boiled down to a jelly, which is called sowins. In all these forms it is nutritious, and easy of digestion. MEDICAL USE. Gruels or decoctions, either of groats or oatmeal, either plain or acidified, or sweetened, form an excellent drink in febrile diseases, diarrhoea, dysentery, &c.; and from their demulcent properties prove useful in inflammatory disorders, coughs, Porridge hoarseness, roughness and ulcerations of the fauces. is also frequently applied to phlegmonous swellings to promote their suppuration. This also may be deemed rather an adjuvant, than an active medicine, and in sickness gruel forms an excellent supper. Mixed with bread and milk it is called porridge, and makes a good breakfast or supper for children, sweetened with a little sugar; others put butter to it. In incipient sore throats pepper is employed, and taken at bed-time, which occasions the swellings to disappear. DYER’S MADDER. RUBIA TINCTORUM. Class IV. Tetrandria. Order I. Monogynia. Esseny. GEN. Cuar. Corolla one-petalled, campanulate: Berries twe one-seeded, Srec, Cuar, : Leaves in whorls: Stem aculeate. ——e DESCRIPTION. Tus plant grows to two feet in height; its stalks are square and rough; its leaves oblong and narrow, and stand four at each joint, in the manner of a star. Its flowers are produced in clusters at the upper part of the stalks, and are very small, and of a pale yellowish-green colour; these are succeeded by.a fruit containing two seeds. HISTORY. Madderis perennial, and is cultivated’ in large quantities in England, from whencethe dyers are principally supplied with it. It has been said to grow wild in the south of England, but the rubia peregrina was mistaken for it. The roots consist of articulated fibres, about the thickness of a quill, which are red throughout, have a weak smell, and a bitG2 |