The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

Take of tar, 2 pints;
water, 1 gallon.

Mix, by stirring them with a wooden rod for a quarter of an hour, and, after the tar has subsided, strain the liquor, and keep it in well corked phials.

Tar-water should have the colour of white wine, and an empyreumatic taste. It is, in fact, a solution of empyreumatic oil, effected by means of acetous acid. It acts as a stimulant raising the pulse, and increasing the discharge by the skin and kidneys. It may be drank to the extent of a pint or two in the course of a day.

DECOCTION OF SARSAPARILLA.

Take of sarsaparilla root, cut, 6 oz.
distilled water, 8 pints.

After macerating for two hours, with a heat about 195 degrees, then take out the root, and bruise it; add it again to the liquor, and macerate it for two hours longer; then boil down the liquor to 4 pints, and strain it. The dose is from 4 oz. to half a pint, or more, daily.

COMPOUND DECOCTION OF SARSAPARILLA.

Take of sarsaparilla root, cut and bruised, 6 oz.
the bark of sassafras root,
the shavings of guaiacum wood,
liquorice root, each 1 oz.
the bark of mezereon root, 3 drams,
distilled water, 10 pints.

Digest with a gentle heat for six hours, then boil down the liquor to one half (or 5 pints) adding the bark of the mezereon root towards the end of boiling. Strain off the liquor. The dose is the same as the last, and for the same purposes.

DECOCTION OF THE WOODS.