Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/537

Rh  erroneously, supposed that the best Cheshire cheese is prepared by their influence. When boiled in alum-water, says Dr., they tinge wool yellow. The roots dye a very fine red, not inferior to madder. They also impart a similar colour to the bones of animals fed upon them. According to the experiments related by, the German chemist, a decoction of the whole plant, when in blossom, on adding vitriol of iron and spirit of salt, produced a fine green colour, which was likewise imparted to wool and silk.

Sheep and goats eat the yellow bed-straw; but it is refused by horses, swine, and cows. In France, the flowers are prescribed in hysteric cases. The juice of the plant has been successfully used in Britain; and, from an account given in the Edinburgh Medical Commentaries, it appears to be an efficacious remedy for the cure of scorbutic complaints.  CHELTENHAM WATER, a mineral spring, rising in the town of that name, in Gloucestershire, and celebrated for its medicinal properties.

This spring issues slowly, and in a scanty stream, from a bed of sand, intermixed with blue clay. The well is sunk about six feet deep, and excluded from communicating with the external air: its sides are covered with a yellow ochre, which indicates the nature of the water.

When fresh drawn, Cheltenham water, though tolerably clear, is not perfectly transparent. It becomes more turbid by standing, and produces a small quantity of air-bubbles, emitting a slight, but easily perceptible smell, which increases on the approach of rain, is divested of any briskness, or pungency, but has a brackish, somewhat bitter, and chalybeate taste. Its temperature is, invariably, from 53° to 55 degrees.

The sensible effects produced by this water, when first taken into the stomach, are, generally, a degree of drowsiness, and sometimes head-ach; which, however, dissipate spontaneously, before it operates on the bowels. A moderate dose acts speedily as a cathartic, causes no griping, and leaves no languor: for this reason, and likewise on account of the salutary operation of the chalybeate, and, perhaps, of the carbonic acid, or fixed air, Cheltenham water may, as Dr. has remarked, be preserved for an indefinite length of time, without being productive of any inconvenience to the body; and the use of it may improve the appetite, strengthen the organs of digestion, and invigorate the whole constitution.

This medicinal spring, when judiciously resorted to, has proved of considerable benefit in a variety of diseases, especially those of the chronic kind; in removing glandular obstructions, particularly such as affect the liver, in the restoration of those persons, whose biliary organs are injured by a long residence in hot climates, and who are suffering under the symptoms, either of excess, or deficiency of bile; and lastly, in dispelling some of the most distressing, and painful cutaneous affections, of the species usually denominated scorbutic eruptions.

Cheltenham water ought, however, to be taken with due precaution; for, though its ferruginous ingredient probably enables the constitution to support, without