Tincture of Cinnamon.—(No. 416*.)
This exhilarating cordial is made by pouring a bottle of genuine cognac (No. 471,) on three ounces of bruised cinnamon (cassia will not do).
This restorative was more in vogue formerly than it is now: a tea-spoonful of it, and a lump of sugar, in a glass of good sherry or Madeira, with the yelk of an egg beat up in it, was called “balsamum vitæ.”
“Cur moriatur homo, qui sumit de cinnamomo?”—“Cinnamon is verie comfortable to the stomacke, and the principall partes of the bodie.” “Ventriculum, jecur, lienem, cerebrum, nervosque juvat et roborat.”—“I reckon it a great treasure for a student to have by him in his closet, to take now and then a spoonful.”—Cogan’s Haven of Health, 4to. 1584, p. 111.
Obs.—Two tea-spoonfuls in a wine-glass of water, are a present and pleasant remedy in nervous languors, and in relaxations of the bowels: in the latter case, five drops of laudanum may be added to each dose.
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