A family herbal: or, Familiar account of the medical properties of British and foreign plants, also their uses in dying, and the various arts, arranged according to the Linnaean system / [Robert John Thornton].

  • Thornton, Robert John, 1768?-1837.
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A family herbal: or, Familiar account of the medical properties of British and foreign plants, also their uses in dying, and the various arts, arranged according to the Linnaean system / [Robert John Thornton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    943/954 (page 911)
    ]VIALE ORCHIS. of the root of our common field orchis, which was first sug¬ gested by Mr. J. Miller, and different methods of preparing it have been since proposed and practised : of these: the latest and most approved is that by Mr. Mault, of Rochdale, which we shall transcribe from the words of Dr. Percival, who follows Mr. Mault in recommending the cultivation of a plant in Britain which promises to afford so useful and wholesome a food as the Salep. Dr. Percival says, u Mr. Mault has lately favoured the public with a new manner of curing the orchis root, and as I have seen many specimens of his salep at least equal, if not superior, to any brought from the Levant, I can recommend the following, which is his process, from my own knowledge of its success:— The new root is to be washed in water, and the fine brown skin which covers it is to be separated by means of a small brush, or by dipping the root in hot water and rubbing it w ith a coarse linen cloth. When a sufficient number of roots have been thus cleaned, they are to be spread on a tin plate, and placed in an oven heated to the usual degree, where they are to remain six or ten minutes, in which time they will have lost their milky white¬ ness, and acquired a transparency like horn, without any dimi¬ nution of bulk. Being arrived at this state, they are to be re¬ moved, in order to dry and harden in the air, which will require several days to effect; or by using a very gentle heat they may be finished in a few hours.” Salep, considered as an article of diet, is accounted extremely nutritious, as containing a great quantity of farinaceous matter in a small bulk, and hence it has been thought fit to constitute a part of the provisions of every ship’s company, to prevent a fa¬ mine at sea. For it is observed by Dr. Percival, that this powder and the dried gelatinous part of flesh, or portable soup, dissolved in boiling water, form a rich thick jelly, capable of supporting life for a considerable length of time. An ounce of each of these articles, with two quarts of boiling water, will be sufficient sub¬ sistence for one man a day. Dr. Percival not only recommends the use of salep as other authors have done in diarrhoea, dysen¬ tery, dysury, and calculous complaints; but he thinks “ in the symptomatic fever, which arises from the absorption of pus, from ulcers in the lungs, from wounds, or from amputations, salep used plentifully is an admirable demulcent, and well adapted