206 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
Mother’s slow at figures, so our breakfast’s always late ; 
The proteids, and the hydrates make the task for her too great ; 
We never get a luncheon, since she figures on till noon, 
And finds we’ ve overdone it, and that nearly makes her swoon ; 
Mother’s always tabulating every pennyweight we eat ; 
Except the meals we smuggle from the cook-shop down the street. 
CORDIALS AND RESTORATIVES. 
In olden times the good Elizabethan housewife was the 
doctor’s great ally. In her still-room the lady with the ruff 
and fardingale was ever busy with cooling waters, surfeit waters, 
and cordial waters, or in preparing conserves of roses, spirits of 
herbs, and juleps for calentures, and fevers. Poppy water was 
good for weak stomachs; Mint and Rue waters were efficacious 
for the head and brain; even Walnuts yielded a cordial. Then 
there was Cinnamon water, and the essence of Cloves, Gilli- 
flowers, and Lemon water, Sweet Marjoram water, and Spirit 
of Ambergris (an excrement of the Spermaceti Whale). Respect- 
ing the last mentioned of these restoratives, it should be told 
that Brillat Savarin has quite recently given to the public a 
remarkable recipe: ‘‘ Take six large onions, three carrots, and 
a handful of parsley ; chop them up, and put into a stewpan ; 
heat them with a little, good, fresh butter until they change 
colour; when this is done, put in six ounces of sugar candy, 
twenty grains of ground Ambergris, with a crust of toast, and 
three bottles of water; boil up for three quarters of an hour, 
adding water anew to make up for the loss by evaporation. 
While this is on the fire, kill, pluck, and draw an old cock, and 
pound it up (flesh and bone) in a mortar with an iron pestle. 
Also chop up two pounds of good lean beef. This done, mix the 
fowl and beef together, and season with salt and pepper. Put 
the whole into another stewpan on a quick fire, and add from 
time to time a little fresh butter, so as to keep it from sticking 
to the pan. When it is heated through, pour in the broth from 
the first stewpan little by little, and when all is in give it a strong 
boil for three-quarters of an hour, always adding enough hot 
water to keep it to the same volume of liquid. At the end of 
this time the Restorative is ready, and it exercises a sure effect on 
the invalid if his stomach has but sufficiently retained its diges- 
tive powers. To use the Cordial give a cupful every three hours 
until it is time for the invalid to go to sleep. On the following 
_ day give a good cupful the first thing in the morning, and the 
