Take of verdigrease, finely powdered, five ounces; honey, fourteen ounces; the best white wine vinegar, seven ounces; mix and boil them over a gentle fire to the consistence of treacle or honey.
This article, which has so long passed under the denomination of an ointment, and was so called in the London Dispensatory of the College of Physicians, produces, without any additional process, (but merely by standing, and depositing its sediment,) another name for a part of the same preparation in this way: the grosser parts subsiding, constitute a more substantial consistence at the bottom, which is the article termed ÆGYPTIACUM: the fluid or thinner part, floating upon the surface, is the mildest in its effect, and called, by medicinal practitioners, MEL ÆGYPTIACUM. The property of both (one being a degree stronger than the other, and may be used separately, or shaken together, according to the effect required) is to assist in cleansing inveterate and long-standing ulcers; to keep down fungous flesh; and to promote the sloughing off of such foul and unhealthy parts of the surface, as prevent new granulations from arising to constitute the incarnation necessary to a sound and permanent restoration of parts. They are articles of acknowledged utility in the hands of judicious and experienced practitioners; but the furor of folly has sometimes rendered them medicines of mischief with those who have never heard, or do not condescend to recollect, the trite but expressive adage, that "the shoemaker should never go beyond his last." This is the case when the lower classes of farriers, smiths, coachmen, and grooms, attempt to cure the grease, cracked heels, &c. with the articles described, constituting to a certainty, "the remedy worse than the disease."
AIR
—is the element in which we breathe; a floating (or fluctuating) fluid, with which we are imperceptibly surrounded, and by whose elastic property we are enabled to exist. A philosophic enquiry into, or definition of, the very air itself, is not to the purpose here; nor, indeed, without a demonstrative and practical apparatus, can its wonderful properties be perfectly understood.
Its various effects upon both the body and the mind of man, as well in sickness as in health, cannot be lost even upon the least sensible and least ruminative observer; who is in the constant enjoyment of those great blessings, air, health, and exercise; for he finds himself affected (and frequently like Pope's rustic hero, who "whistled as he went for want of thought") in different ways, and by every breeze, without knowing why: he meltingly submits one day to the SUN; he shrinks another from the cold: he is depressed, even to melancholy, with the heavy gloom and dense atmosphere to day; and elated, almost beyond the power of expression, by the exhilarating, temperate, clear and lucid sky of to-morrow. If then the spirits are thus not only fairly considered, but fully proved, the thermometer of mental sensations, upon which the air (or rather its change) is found to operate with so much palpable effect; who shall presume to doubt its physical influence upon the human frame, so far as is applicable to the introduction of disease, or the re-establishment of health?
Thus much it has been unavoidably necessary to introduce by way of proof, that the human frame being so affected by the extremes of heat and cold, damps or dryness, such proportional effects (though not probably in directly the same way) may be produced by the same means upon the ANIMAL world, who possessing no power of communication, we cannot derive information but by means of observation upon the original cause and relative effect. As for instance; if the air is too much impregnated with cold, moist, damp particles between the chilling showers of hazy weather, the body (particularly of invalids and valetudinarians) is much more disposed to, and susceptible of, morbidity, than in a more temperate and settled state of the atmosphere. This, proceeding from a collapsion of the porous system, occasions slight indisposition with thousands, who are sensibly affected by lassitude and disquietude, not reaching disease; whilst in others more irritable, it is soon productive of coughs, sore throats, fevers, inflammations of the lungs, and various other disorders. North winds are considered bracing, healthy, and invigorating, to good, sound constitutions; though they are always complained of by those of delicate and tender habits; and there can be no difference of opinion upon the fact, that dry seasons are more conducive to health and spirits than those of a contrary description.
AIR
,—a technical term in the MANEGE, which can be but little explained in theory; a perfect knowledge of these terms can only be acquired in the practice of the schools.
AIRING
;—the taking of horses from the stable to the enjoyment of AIR and EXERCISE.