Diseases > Domestic medicine

than those of the thinner. All sweet wines contain
a glutinous substance, and do not pass off freely.
Hence they will heat the body more than an equal
quantity of any other wine, though it should con¬
tain fully as much spirit From the obvious qualities
of wine, it must appear to be an excellent cordial
medicine. Indeed, to say the truth, it is worth all
the rest put together. But to answer this character,
it must be sound and good. No benefit is to be ex¬
pected from the common trash that is often sold by
the name of wine without possessing one drop of the
juice of the grape. Perhaps no medicine is more
rarely obtained genuine than wine. Wine is not only
used as a medicine, but is also employed as a mens¬
truum for extracting the virtues of other medicinal
substances; for which it is not ill adapted, being a
compound of water, inflammable spirit, and acid; by
which means it is enabled to act upon vegetable and
animal substances, and also to dissolve some bodies
of the metallic kind, so as to impregnate itself with
their virtue, as steel, antimony, &c.
Anthelmintic Wine.—Take of rhubarb, half an
ounce; worm-seed, an ounce. Bruise them, and
infuse without heat in two pints of red Port wine for
a few days, then strain off the wine.
As the stomachs of persons afflicted with worms
are always debilitated, red wine alone mil often prove
serviceable. It must, however, have still better
effects when joined with bitter and purgative ingre¬
dients, as in the above form.—A glass of this wine
may be taken twice or thrice a-day.
Antimonial Wine.—Take glass of antimony, re¬
duced to a fine powder, half an ounce; Lisbon wine
eight ounces. Digest, w ithout heat, for three or four
da vs, now and then shaking the bottle; afterw ards fil¬
ter the wine through paper.