SHERRY-COBBLER. Prep. (Redwood.) Half fill a tumbler with clean pounded ice; add a table-spoonful of powdered white sugar, a few thin slices of lemon with the peel (or some strawberries or other similar fruit, bruised), and a wine-glassful or more of sherry wine; mix them together (lightly), and as the
ice melts, suck the liquor through a straw (or a small tube of silver or glass).
Obs. A favourite American drink; very refreshing in hot weather.
SHIN′′GLES. Syn. Zoster, Herpes zoster, Herpes zona, L. A local variety of herpes or tetter, remarkable for forming a kind of belt round or partly round some part of the trunk of the body, chiefly the waist or abdomen. See Tetters.
SHODDY. The epithet (we believe of American origin) is applied to the old, used-up wool and cloth, fraudulently mixed with fresh woollen fabrics. A plan for the examination of a fabric suspected of containing shoddy has been given by a German chemist, Herr Schlesinger, and is as follows:—Examine it with the microscope and note if it contains cotton, silk, or linen, as well as wool. If so dissolve them by ammoniacal solution of copper. A qualitative examination is thus obtained. Then direct attention to the wool. In shoddy both coloured and colourless fibres are often seen, the fibres having been derived from different cloths which have been partially bleached; the colouring matter, if any, instead of consisting of one pigment, will be composed of two or three different kinds, such as indigo, purpurin, or madder. Again, the diameter of the wool is never so regular as in fresh wool, but is seen to vary suddenly or gradually in diameter, and suddenly widens again with a little swelling, and tapers off again, besides which the cross markings or scales are almost always absent. When shoddy-wool is placed in liquor potassæ it is much more speedily attacked than new wool.
SHOT METAL. Prep. From lead, 1000 parts; arsenic, 3 parts. When the lead is coarse, 6 to 8 parts of metallic arsenic are required to fit it for this purpose.
SHOW BOTTLES. The large ornamental carboys and jars filled with coloured liquids, and displayed in the shop-windows of druggists, may be noticed under this head. They are striking objects when the solutions they contain are bright and of a deep pure tint, especially at night, when they are seen by transmitted light. The following formulæ for the solutions have been recommended by different persons:—
Amber. From dragon’s blood (in coarse powder), 1 part; oil of vitriol, 4 parts; digest, and, when the solution is complete, dilute the mixture with distilled or soft water, q. s.
Blue.—a. From blue vitriol, 2 oz.; oil of vitriol, 1⁄2 oz.; water, 1 pint.—b. A solution of indigo in sulphuric acid, diluted with water, q. s.—c. A solution of soluble Prussian blue in either oxalic or hydrochloric acid, slightly diluted, and afterwards further diluted with water to the proper shade of colour.
Crimson.—a. From alkanet root, 1 oz.; oil of turpentine, 1 pint. Used chiefly for the bull’s eyes of lamps.—b. As PINK (b), below.