Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/399

Rh and rhubarb- and cranberry-sauce. The habitual use of vinegar in considerable quantities leads to dyspepsia; the form becomes wasted, on account of insufficient nutrition; and death has been known to result.

Vinegar is used in medicine for its astringent action, being employed locally to check haemorrhage. It is also a refrigerant, for sponging the skin with diluted vinegar has a cooling effect. The heat and pain of sprains and bruises are relieved by applying to the place brown paper soaked in diluted vinegar. This use of vinegar is celebrated in the lines of a certain well-remembered lyric:

"And Jill had the job To plaster his nob With vinegar and brown paper."

Aromatic vinegar, called also "Vinegar of the Four Thieves," Marseilles vinegar, or camphorated acetic acid, is strong acetic acid, in which are dissolved certain essential oils, and sometimes camphor. It is said to have been used by a band of four thieves, during a plague at Marseilles, to protect them from infection while plundering the houses and bodies of the dead. It is now used only in smelling-bottles, or vinaigrettes, for cases of fainting, a bit of sponge or some crystals of sulphate of potassium being put into the bottle and moistened with the liquid. Aromatic vinegar is very fragrant and volatile, and must be kept in closely stoppered bottles. A variety of recipes for it are given: that especially recommended in the "United States Dispensatory" is one and a half fluid drachm best oil of rose-geranium, fifteen minims oil of cloves, and four fluid ounces glacial acetic acid.

The tough, leathery substance, commonly called "mother," which forms in vinegar, is one of the many fungi whose spores float in the air, settle as dust on exposed objects, and fall into exposed liquids, ready to grow into a bulky plant when conditions favor. The exact position of the vinegar-plant among the fungi has not been settled. Turpin, Berkeley, and others, say that it is the abnormally developed mycelium, or vegetative part, of Penicillium glaucum, of which common mold is the reproductive part. Pasteur and others maintain that it is a distinct species, calling it by the name Mycoderma aceti, and state that common mold frequently grows on its surface. Under the microscope it has been found to exhibit two forms—the minute, rounded particles called micrococci, and the rod-like forms known as bacilli. The vinegar-plant develops during the process of acetification, and its presence tends to accelerate the operation. Manufacturers get rid of it as soon as possible, for it interferes with the flow of the vinegar through their apparatus. It grows on the surface of the vinegar, and if not disturbed will cover the whole surface, conforming to the shape of the vessel. It has been known to reach a