Salad, Lobs′ter. Prep. (Soyer.) “Have the bowl half filled with any kind of salad herb you like, as endive, lettuce, &c.; then break a lobster in two, open the tail, extract the meat in one piece, break the claws, cut the meat of both in small slices, about a quarter of an inch thick, and arrange these tastefully on the salad; next take out all the soft part from the belly, mix it in a basin with 1 teaspoonful of salt, half do. of pepper, 4 do. of vinegar, and 4 do. of oil; stir these well together, and pour the mixture on the salad; lastly, cover it with 2 hard eggs, cut into slices, and a few slices of cucumber.” “To vary this, a few capers and some fillets of anchovy may be added, stirred lightly, and then served either with or without some salad sauce. If for a dinner ornament it with some flowers of the nasturtium and marigold.”
SAL′EP. Syn. Salop, Saloop. The tuberous roots of Orchis mascula, and other allied species, washed, dried, and afterwards reduced to coarse powder. That imported from Persia and Asia Minor occurs in small oval grains, of a whitish-yellow colour, often semitranslucent, with a faint, peculiar smell, and a taste somewhat resembling gum tragacanth. It consists, chiefly, of bassorin and starch, is very nutritious, and is reputed aphrodisiac. It is employed in the same way as sago. A decoction of about 1 oz. of this substance in a pint of water was formerly sold at street-stalls. A tea made of sassafras chips, flavoured with milk and coarse brown sugar or treacle, was also sold in the same way, and under the same name.
French salep is prepared from the potato. Dr Ure says that the Orchis mascula of our own country, properly treated, would afford an article of salep equal to the Turkey, and at a vastly lower price.
SAL′ICIN. C13H18O7. A white, crystalline substance discovered by Le Roux and Buchner in the bark and leaves of several species of Salix and Populus. It occurs most abundantly in the white willow (Salix alba) and the aspen (Salix helix), but is also found in all the bitter poplars and willows. From willow bark which is fresh, and rich in salicin, it may be obtained by the cautious evaporation of the cold aqueous infusion.
Prep. 1. (Merck.) Exhaust willow bark by repeated coction with water, concentrate the mixed liquors, and, while boiling, add litharge until the liquid is nearly decoloured; filter, remove the dissolved oxide of lead, first by sulphuric acid, and afterwards by sulphuret of barium; filter, and evaporate, that crystals may form; the crystals must be purified by re-solution and recrystallisation.
2. As No 1, but using a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen, to free the solution from lead.
3. (P. Codex.) To a strong filtered decoction
of willow bark add milk of lime, to throw down the colour; filter, evaporate the liquor to a syrupy consistence, add alcohol (sp. gr. ·847), to separate the gummy matter, filter, distil off the spirit, evaporate the residuum, and set it aside in a cool place to crystallise; the crystals are purified by solution in boiling water, agitation with a little animal charcoal, and recrystallisation.
Prop., &c. Salicin forms white, silky needles and plates; it is intensely bitter; inodorous; neutral; non-basic; fuses at 230° Fahr., with decomposition; burns with a bright flame; is soluble in 51⁄2 parts of water at 60°, and in much less at 212°; dissolves readily in alcohol, but is insoluble in ether. It is tonic, like sulphate of quinine, but less liable to irritate the stomach. It is given in indigestion and intermittent diseases, in from 5- to 10-gr. doses.
Salicin has lately been used with considerable advantage in acute rheumatism.