Conserve of Sloes.
This may be made by boiling the sloes gently in water, being careful to take them out before they burst; afterwards expressing the juice, and beating it up with three times its weight of fine sugar.
In relaxations of the uvula and glands of the throat, this makes an excellent gargle, and may be used at discretion.
Preserves are made by steeping or boiling fresh vegetables first in water, and afterwards in syrup, or a solution of sugar. The subject is either preserved moist in the syrup, or taken out and dried, that the sugar may candy upon it. The last is the most useful method.
Candied Orange Peel.
Soak Seville orange-peel in several waters, till it loses its bitterness; then boil it in a solution of double-refined sugar in water, till it becomes tender and transparent.
Candied lemon-peel is prepared in the same manner.
It is needless to add more of these preparations, as they belong rather to the art of the confectioner than that of the apothecary.
DECOCTIONS.
Water readily extracts the gummy and saline parts of vegetables; and though its action is chiefly confined to these, yet the resinous and oily being intimately blended with the gummy and saline, are in great part taken up along with them. Hence watery decoctions and infusions of vegetables, constitute a large, and not unuseful, class of medicines. Although most vegetables yield their virtues to water, as well by infusion as decoction, yet the latter is often necessary, as it saves time, and does in a few minutes what the other would require hours, and sometimes days, to effect.