A spirituous liquor is made in China from the grain of Rice, and bears the name "arrack."
[463] Rice cannot be properly substituted in place of succulent green vegetables dietetically for any length of time, or it would induce scurvy. The Indians take stewed Rice to cure dysentery, and a decoction of the grain for the purpose of subduing inflammatory disorders.
Paddy, or Paddee, is Rice from which the husk has not been removed before crushing. It has been said by some that the cultivation of Rice lowers vitality, and shortens life.
In Java a special Rice-pudding is made by first putting some raw Rice in a conical earthen pot wide at the top, and perforated in its body with holes. This is placed inside another earthen pot of a similar shape but not perforated, and containing boiling water. The swollen Rice soon stops up the holes of the inner pot, and the Rice within becomes of a firm consistence, like pudding, and is eaten with butter, sugar, and spices.
An ordinary Rice-pudding is much improved by adding some rosewater to it before it is baked.
This grain has been long considered of a pectoral nature, and useful for persons troubled with lung disease, and spitting of blood, as in pulmonary consumption. The custom of throwing a shower of Rice after and over a newly married couple is very old, though wheat was at first the chosen grain as an augury of plenty. The bride wore a garland of ears of corn in the time of Henry the Eighth.
ROSES.
Certain curative properties are possessed both by the Briar, or wild Dog Rose of our country hedges, and by the cultivated varieties of this queen of flowers in our Roseries. The word Rose means red, from the Greek [464] rodon, connected also with rota, a wheel, which resembles the outline of a Rose. The name Briar is from the Latin bruarium, the waste land on which it grows. The first Rose of a dark red colour, is held to have sprung from the blood of Adonis. The fruit of the wild Rose, which is so familiar to every admirer of our hedgerows in the summer, and which is the common progenitor of all Roses, is named Hips. "Heps maketh," says Gerard, "most pleasant meats or banquetting dishes, as tarts and such like, the concoction whereof I commit to the cunning cook, and teeth to eat them in the rich man's mouth."
Hips, derived from the old Saxon, hiupa, jupe, signifies the Briar rather than its fruit. They are called in some parts, "choops," or "hoops." The woolly down which surrounds the seeds within the Hips serves admirably for dispelling round worms, on which it acts mechanically without irritating the mucous membrane which lines the bowels.
When fully ripe and softened by frost, the Hips, after removal of their hard seeds, and when plenty of sugar is added, make a very nice confection, which the Swiss and Germans eat at dessert, and which forms an agreeable substitute for tomato sauce. Apothecaries employ this conserve in the preparing of electuaries, and as a basis for pills. They also officinally use the petals of the Cabbage Rose (Centifolia) for making Rose water, and the petals of the Red Rose (Gallica) for a cooling infusion, the brilliant colour of which is much improved by adding some diluted sulphuric acid; and of these petals they further direct a syrup to be concocted.