Mustard flour is an infallible antiseptic and sterilising agent. It is a capital deodoriser; and if rubbed thoroughly into the bands and nails will take away all offensive stink when corrupt or dead tissues have been manipulated.
If a tablespoonful of Mustard flour is added to a pint of tepid water, and taken at a draught it operates briskly as a stimulating and sure emetic. Hot water poured on bruised seeds of black Mustard makes a good stimulating footbath for helping to throw off a cold, or to dispel a headache; and meantime the volatile oil given out as an aroma, if not too strong, proves soporific. This oil contains erucic, and sinapoleic acids. When properly mixed with spirit of wine, twenty-four drops of the oil to an ounce of spirit, the essential oil forms, [378] by reason of its stimulating properties and its contained sulphur, a capital liniment for use in rheumatism, or for determining blood to the surface from deeper parts. Caution should be used not to apply a plaster made altogether of Mustard flour to the delicate skin of young children, or females, because ulcers difficult to heal may be the result, or even gangrenous destruction of the deeper skin may follow. The effects of a Mustard bath, at about ninety degrees, are singular; decided chills are felt at first throughout the whole body, with some twitchings at times of the limbs; and later on, even after the skin surface has become generally red, this sense of coldness persists, until the person leaves the water, when reaction becomes quickly established, with a glowing heat and redness of the whole skin.
For obstinate hiccough a teacupful of boiling water should be poured on a teaspoonful of Mustard flour, and taken when sufficiently cool, half at first, and the other half in ten minutes if still needed. For congestive headache a small roll of Mustard paper or Mustard leaf may be introduced into one or both nostrils, and left there for a minute or more. It will relieve the headache promptly, and may perhaps induce some nose bleeding.
Admixture with vinegar checks the development of the pungent principles of Mustard. This used to be practised for the table in England, but is now discontinued, though some housewives add a little salt to their made Mustard.
Claims for the introduction of Mustard at Durham in 1720, have been raised in favour of a Mrs. Clements, but they cannot be substantiated. Shakespeare in the Taming of the Shrew makes Grumio ask Katherine "What say you to a piece of beef and Mustard?" and speaks, in Henry IV., of Poins' wit being "as thick [379] as Tewkesbury Mustard"; whilst Fuller in his Worthies of England, written only a very few years after Shakespeare's death, says "the best Mustard in England is made at Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucester." Coles observes (1657), "in Gloucestershire about Teuxbury they grind Mustard seed and make it up into balls, which are brought to London and other remote places as being the best that the world affords." George the First restored the popularity of Mustard by his approval of it. Prior to 1720 no such condiment as Mustard in its present form was used at table in this country. It is not improbable that the Romans, who were great eaters of Mustard-seed pounded and steeped in new wine, brought the condiment with them to our shores, and taught the ancient Britons how to prepare it. At Dijon in France where the best mixed continental Mustard is made, the condiment is seasoned with various spices and savouries, such as Anchovies, Capers, Tarragon, Catsup of Walnuts, or Mushrooms, and the liquors of other pickles. Philip the Bold granted armorial ensigns (1382) to Dijon, with the motto moult me tarde (I wish for ardently). The merchants of Sinapi copied this on their wares, the middle word of the motto being accidentally effaced. A well-known couplet of lines supposed to occur in Hudibras (but not to be found there), has long baffled the research of quotation hunters:
"Sympathy without relief
Is like to Mustard without beef."
Mustard flour moistened with a little water into a paste has the singular property of dispelling the odours of musk, camphor, and the fetid gum resins. For deodorising vessels which have contained the essences of turpentine, creasote, assafetida, or other such drugs, it [380] will answer to introduce some bruised Mustard-seed, and then a little water, shaking the vessel well for a minute or more, and afterwards rinsing it out with plenty of water.
The white Mustard grows when uncultivated on waste ground with large yellow flowers, and does not yield under any circumstances a pungent oil like the black Mustard. It is a hirsute plant, with stalked leaves and hairy seed pods; and when produced in our gardens its young leaves are eaten as a salad, or as "Mustard, with Cress."
"When in the leaf," says John Evelyn in his Acetaria, "Mustard, especially in young seedling plants, is of incomparable effect to quicken and revive the spirits, strengthening the memory, expelling heaviness, preventing the vertiginous palsy, and a laudable cephalic, besides being an approved antiscorbutic." He tells further that the Italians, in making Mustard as a condiment, mingle lemon and orange peel with the (black) seeds. "In the composition of a sallet the Mustard (a noble ingredient) should be of the best Tewkesbury or else of the soundest and weightiest Yorkshire seed, tempered a little by the fire to the consistence of a pap with vinegar, in which some shavings of the horseradish have been steeped. Then, cutting an onion, and putting it into a small earthen gally-pot, pour the Mustard over it and close it very well with a cork. Note.—The seeds should have been pounded in a mortar, or bruised with a polished cannon bullet in a large wooden bowl dish."
The active principle of white Mustard is "Sinapin," and the seed germinates so rapidly that it has been said a salad of this may be grown while the joint of meat is being roasted for dinner. Seeds of the white Mustard have been employed medicinally from early times. [381] Hippocrates advised their use both internally, and as a counter-irritating poultice made with vinegar. When swallowed whole in teaspoonful doses three or four times a day, they exercise a laxative effect mechanically, and are voided without undergoing any perceptible change, only the outer skin being a little softened and mucilaginous. An infusion of the seed taken medicinally will relieve chronic bronchitis, and confirmed rheumatism: also for a relaxed sore throat a gargle of Mustard seed tea will be found of service.