Pa 
340 ORD. XIX. Verticillaie. MENTHA VIRIDIS. 
distilled water proves rather more elegant if drawn from the fresh 
plant in the proportion of ten pints from three pounds. Along 
with the aqueous fluid an essential oil distils, of a pale yellowish 
colour, changing toa red, in quantity near one ounce from ten 
pounds of the fresh herb in flower, smelling and tasting strongly 
of the mint, but somewhat less agreeable than the herb itself. 
Dry mint, digested in rectified spirit, either in the cold or with a 
gentle warmth, gives out readily its peculiar taste and smell, with- 
out imparting the grosser and more ungrateful matter, though the 
digestion be long ‘con tiined: The tincture appears by day-light 
or a fine dark green, by candle-light of a dark red colour:* a tinc-. 
ture extracted from the remaining mint by fresh spirit, appears in 
both lights green: the colour of both tinctures changes in keeping, 
toabrown. On gentle distillation, with proof spirit, the spirituous 
portion which rises at first, discovers little flavour of the mint; but 
as soon as the watery part begins to distil, the virtues of the mint 
come over plentifully with it. Hence the spiritus menthe sativa. 
P. L. which is prepared by drawing off a gallon of proof spirit from 
a pound and a half of the dried plant, proves strongly impregnated 
with the mint.”? 
To spear-mint are tobe ascribed the same medicinal qualities 
which we have noticed of Pepper-mint;+ but the different prepa- 
rations of the former, though more pleasant, are perhaps less effi- 
cacious. ‘* It contains much essential oil, but of an odour some- 
what less agreeable than that of lavender or marjoram. | It is there- 
* Dr. Withering says, ‘¢ the fact is, that a small quantity of this tincture is 
green either by day-light or by candle-light, but a large quantity of it seems im- 
pervious to common day-light: however, when held between the eye and a candle, 
or between the eye and the sun, it appears red; so that if put into a flat Dottle it 
appears green, but when viewed edgeways, red. L. c. 
+ In proof of the emmenagogue power of mint, Linnzus informs us, that a 
woman, by the frequent use of it, became subject to menorrhagia, Vide Diss. de 
Menthe usu, p. 9. 
b Lewis, M, MM. Pp 419. 
