Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 2, 1802).djvu/240

210] dyed, we can from experience recommend three parts of alum to be used to one of tartar: if more of the former be employed, the colour will be pale; if a greater quantity of the latter, it will acquire an orange-shade.—M. informs us, in the 29th vol. of the Transactions of the Swedish Academy, that be found the following proportion of ingredients to be the most practically successful in making the preparatory lixivium: viz. for one pound of wool, two ounces of alum, six drams of cream of tartar, to be dissolved in three gallons of water, to which are to be added two handfuls of wheaten bran. After remaining twelve hours in this decoction, the wool is to be taken out, rinsed, then half-dried, and afterwards boiled together with one pound of dyer's green-weed, in four gallons of water; and after it has been some time over the fire, the plants should be removed, and half an ounce of the purest pot-ash (which must contain no , like the Essex ashes) added to the liquor; when the wool must be gently agitated, till it acquire the proper shade of yellow. The colour may be heightened by an additional portion of pearl-ashes, or salt of tartar; but its durability will thus be affected.—If silk or linen are to be dyed, both the tartar and bran must be omitted, and the colouring matter fixed with alum and pot-ash: but, in woollen cloth or yarn, the permanency of the colour is remarkably promoted by the addition of wheaten bran.  DYSENTERY, or, an infectious disease, attended with a discharge of blood and purulent matter by stool; violent gripings; a continual inclination to go to stool; pains in the loins; fever, &c.

Unwholesome night-air, damp places, and a suppression of insensible perspiration, may be considered as the principal causes of this disease; which is also, though rarely, occasioned by the immoderate eating of unripe, acrid fruit.—The opinions of practitioners, on the cure of the dysentery, being at great variance; one class of them proposing to cure it by bleeding and emetics (considering it as a "rheumatism of the bowels"); another by purgatives and astringents; a third by violent sudorifics (treating it as a "fever of the intestines"), we shall not detain the reader with their different notions, but briefly observe, that the treatment of the disorder chiefly depends on two circumstances: 1. Whether it be accompanied with fever; and, 2. Whether the patient be of a sanguineous temperament, and plethoric habit,—or the contrary. In both the former cases, we advise the reader not to attempt the cure of a disease which has often baffled the talent of the most learned and experienced, but immediately avail himself of medical advice, especially as the malady is contagious.

If, however, the dysentery be unattended with febrile symptoms, and the patient of a phlegmatic rather than choleric temperament, he may then take, at the commencement of the disease, a brisk emetic of a scruple or half a dram of the ipecacuanha-root in powder, and afterwards one grain of it every four or six hours: such medicine having, by experience, been found singularly efficacious. Hence, we do not venture to suggest either opium, antimonial tartar, rhubarb, or