INFUSIONS.
Vegetables yield nearly the same properties to water by infusion as by decoction; and though they may require a longer time to give out their virtues in this way, yet it has several advantages over the other; since boiling is found to dissipate the finer parts of many bitter and aromatic substances, without more fully extracting their medicinal principles.
The author of the New Dispensatory observes, that even from those vegetables which are weak in virtue, rich infusions may be obtained, by returning the liquor upon fresh quantities of the subject, the water loading itself more and more with the active parts; and that these loaded infusions are applicable to valuable purposes in medicine, as they contain in a small compass the finer, more subtile, and active principles of vegetables, in a form readily miscible with the fluids of the human body.
Bitter Infusion.
Take tops of the lesser centaury and camomile flowers, of each half an ounce; yellow rind of lemon and orange peel, carefully freed from the inner white part, of each two drachms. Cut them in small pieces, and infuse them in a quart of boiling water.
For indigestion, weakness of the stomach, or want of appetite, a tea-cupful of this infusion may be taken twice or thrice a day.
Infusion of the Bark.
To an ounce of the bark, in powder, add four or five table-spoonfuls of brandy, and a pint of boiling water. Let them infuse for two or three days.
This is one of the best preparations of the bark for weak stomachs. In disorders where the corroborating virtues of that medicine are required, a tea-cupful of it may be taken two or three times a-day.