To dye fine Green Olives.—Take a pound of strawall, put it down with eight quarts of water, and half a pound of fur. Cut your strawall short, and put it down. (You ought to have a frame or wooden crop, and a broad piece of lead, to keep down the stuff, as it takes so very long to give out the dye.) When it has boiled about half an hour, see if it is anything of a fine greenish yellow. Draw then for the first shade. Boil half an hour longer; look at it, and if you like it draw it, as it is not right to have your shades too near. For the next shade give double the time, and so on to about four shades. The last ought to get six hours’ boiling, and you ought, by rights, to divide the time amongst them all. When you have made out four shades, lift out the dye stuff, and put in the size of a small horse-bean of copperas with the liquor; and, when dissolved, put in each shade, and whip it out, and so on with the whole. If not enough of the olive, add a little more copperas with each, and dip each of them over again. Thus you have four very fine green olives. Wash out the copperas immediately.—Old Recipe.
Ombre, s. A game at cards played by three.
Omentum, s. The caul, the double membrane spread over the entrails, called also reticulum, from its structure, resembling that of a net.
Ooze, s. Soft mud, mire at the bottom of water, slime.
Opacity, s. Cloudiness, want of transparency.
Operation, s. Agency; action, effect; in chirurgery, that part of the art of healing which depends on the use of instruments.
Ophthalmy, s. A disease of the eyes.
Opiate, s. A medicine that causes sleep.
Opiate confection is composed of opium, long pepper, and other stimulants. One ounce of the confection does not contain more than fourteen or fifteen grains of opium; it may therefore be given in doses from one to two ounces, though in this quantity it would be a powerful stimulant.
In veterinary medicine, an electuary may be advantageously substituted for the opiate confection of the London dispensatory.