B I T 



473 



B I T 



tended to prohibit mothers while nursing from making a 

 moderate use of them, since at that time there is a domain 

 upon the system for an extraordinary quantity of high!) 

 nutritive blood, and the infant generally removes any super- 

 fluous quantity ; but an excessive use of very strong beer 

 is not less hurtful to the mother than the child. 



Bitters may be advantageously employed by the inha- 

 bitants of cold and damp regions to prevent the action ol 

 these causes of disease. These agents generally injure the 

 function of digestion, hoth by their immediate action on the 

 skin, and also, from abstracting the animal heat, on the 

 nervous system : hence the prevalence of intermittent fevers 

 or agues in such districts. Now these may be warded oft 

 by maintaining a healthy action of the digestive organs and 

 of the skin. Some preparation of a pure bitter, such as 

 gentian, or of an aromatic and bitter united, such as chamo- 

 mile with sweet flag-root, or infusion of milfoil or yarrow, 

 may be had recourse to for this purpose ; hut if there he 

 obstruction of the liver with ague-cake, which is the en- 

 larged and hardened spleen, dandelion, having beef-tea 

 poured upon it, and used as a soup, is preferable, in which 

 way it is extensively employed by the Dutch. The Swiss 

 peasant, inhabiting high stations on the Alps, which are 

 almost constantly wrapped in a thick and penetrating mist, 

 uses a spirit distilled from gentian, called 'bitter snaps.' 

 In the West Indies, where languor of the system, with 

 weakness of the digestive organs, is produced by the ex- 

 cessive heat, the appetite is restored and the stomach invigo- 

 rated by taking before dinner a few drops in a glass of 

 water, of Stoughton's elixir, which is made of gentian, ser- 

 pentaria, orange-peel, and sweet flag-root; and in America, 

 the infusion or tincture of serpentaria is sometimes taken 

 every morning in damp aguish situations to prevent inter- 

 mittents. Such employment of bitters, within certain limits, 

 is wise and proper. 



During spring and autumn, when the sources of inter- 

 mittent fevers are most abundant, the use of such bitters as 

 those above mentioned would be very serviceahle in the case 

 of weak and feeble persons residing in aguish districts ; but 

 there may be weakness of the digestive organs, and general 

 debility, accompanied with a state of stomach which forbids 

 the employment of bitters or any other tonic. Inflammation 

 of the stomach, from its slightest to its most intense degree, 

 is always attended with a sense of weakness, which prompts 

 many persons to betake themselves to hitters or other sti- 

 mulating articles, which never fail to aggravate the dis- 

 ease. Such cases demand a widely opposite course of treat- 

 ment. 



There is another malady to which feeble persons are sub- 

 ject, the evils of which are much lessened by the use of 

 bitters. Worms are rarely developed except in persons with 

 impaired digestion, in which case bitters form, along with pro- 

 per dietetical means, the most appropriate instruments of 

 cure. [SeeANTHKLMiNTics.] Much diversity of opinion exists 

 with respect to the propriety of using bitters by persons sub- 

 ject to gout. Of late years the once famous Portland gout- 

 powder has fallen greatly into disuse, partly because a more 

 certain remedy has been discovered, and partly because one 

 of the charges brought against it had some foundation in 

 truth. It was said to cure the gout, but in a short time to 

 carry off the patient hy apoplexy. Now such a result was 

 certainly the indirect effect of this tonic powder ; for, as by 

 the immunity from paroxysms of gout, which the use of it 

 for a time conferred upon the patients, they were enabled 

 to indulge their increased appetites, a plethoric state of the 

 system was brought on, which in many cases induced apo- 

 plexy, in which disease gout has a tendency to terminate. 

 This powder consisted of serpentaria, gentian, germander, 

 and lesser ccntaury. 



Where the disposition to gout is very strong, some of the 

 most experienced practitioners condemn the use even of ale. 

 Still it must lie allowed that many persons who have no dis- 

 po-ition to excessive indulgence in the good things of the 

 table, have such slow and troublesome digestion as to render 

 tonic and aromatic stimulants useful ; but it is best to unite 

 these with some gentle laxative, by which the plethoric ten- 

 dency is lessened. For this purpose, orange-peel, rhubarb, 

 and magnesia, united in equal portions, form a fitting com- 

 bination. Gout and stone in the bladder are so closely allied, 

 and the means which are useful in repelling them are so 

 similar in many instances, that they are naturally treated of 

 together : the origin of both is depraved digestion. In full 

 livers this is accompanied with deficient secretion of urine, 



and a tendency to the formation of lithic acid, by which red 

 gravel is voided. Here bitters with alkalies are eminently- 

 useful, such as quassia with lime-water, or colchicum with 

 magnesia. In very feeble persons, and also after the long 

 continuance of the lithic acid diathesis, and the irritation or 

 a stone in the bladder, an opposite state prevails, viz., an 

 alkaline state of urine, in which it is excessive in quantity, 

 pale, and on standing some time becomes covered with an 

 iridescent pellicle, or lets fall a white, generally amorphous, 

 sediment. In such a case bitters are extremely useful, 

 especially infusion of quassia with phosphate of iron, or in- 

 fusion of quassia with nitric acid ; the extract of Arclosta- 

 phylos Uva Ursi (bear-berry). 



'Ill phthisis pulmonalis bitters are sometimes of service, 

 such as the bear-berry and the Iceland moss (Celraria 

 Islandica), in which the hitter principle should be re* 

 tained. 



In some cases of diarrhoea, from loss of tone of the intes-* 

 tines, bitters arc of the greatest service, provided no inflam- 

 matory condition of the mucous membrane exist, such as 

 quinia, infusion of cusparia, or even strychnia, perhaps 

 the most intensely hitter substance with which we 'are 

 acquainted. 



The most eligible form for exhibiting bitters is in powder 

 or infusion, but where the taste is objected to, an extract 

 may be given formed into pill. Decoction is a bad form, 

 especially for aromatic bitters. Aromatic principles fre- 

 quently conceal the disagreeable taste of bitters. 



BITU'MEN, a Latin word used by Tacitus, Pliny, and 

 other Roman writers. A considerable number of combus- 

 tible mineral substances are sometimes arranged under the 

 head of bitumens; but their properties vary greatly in somu 

 respects, as, for example, with regard to solidity, fluidity, 

 and colour. The term bitumen is however usually applied 

 to two varieties, namely asphaltum, a harder one, already 

 treated of, and a softer kind called elastic bitumen, which 

 we shall now describe. As to other bituminous bodies, see 

 HATCHETINE, MALTHA, NAPHTHA, and PETROLEUM. 



Elastic bitumen, sometimes called fossil caoutchouc, is a 

 rare mineral product, which has hitherto been found in 

 three places only: 1st. in the Odin mine, near Castleton 

 in Derbyshire, in a secondary limestone, accompanied by 

 asphaltum, calcareous spar, fluor, blende, galena, and 

 pyrites ; 2dly. in a coal-mine of Montrelais, a few leagues 

 from Angers in France, it occurs among quartz and calca- 

 reous crystals, in the veins of grit of the coal formation ; 

 3dly. in a coal-mine near South Bury in Massachussets, 

 United States. 



Elastic bitumen possesses the following characters : it is 

 brown, or blackish brown, and translucent in small portions 

 it is soft and elastic like caoutchouc, but sometimes it is as 

 bard as leather : it has the property like caoutchouc of 

 effacing pencil marks. Its density varies from 0'9053 to 

 T233. It fuses readily, and at a higher temperature it 

 takes fire and burns with a sooty flame : it sometimes 

 leaves l-5th of its weight of ashes, composed chiefly of 

 silica and peroxide of iron. If the Derbyshire elastic bitu- 

 men be subjected to distillation, it yields acidulous water, 

 and volatile oil, resembling that of naphtha in smell : the 

 oil is neither acid nor alkaline, slightly soluble in alcohol, 

 jut readily so in Bother ; after the distillation of the water 

 and oil, a brown viscid mass remains in the retort, which 

 s insoluble in water or alcohol, but is dissolved by sother 

 ind by potash. If the distillation be longer continued, an 

 empyreumatic oil resembling that of amber is obtained, 

 and a black shining coal remains. 



When the elastic bitumen of Montrelais is similarly 

 treated, there is obtained a yellow, bitter fetid oil, which is 

 ighter than water and insoluble in alcohol, but it dissolves 

 n the alkalis. 



Elastic bitumen swells when put into oil of turpentine or 

 of petroleum ; collier and oil oi' turpentine when boiling 

 extract a kind of soft resin from the English and French 

 jitumen, and this remains after the evaporation of the 

 solvent : this resin is of a brownish-yellow colour, is bitter 

 and inelastic ; its weight is nearly half that of the bitumen 

 employed. 



It is but slightly soluble in alcohol, but readily in potash- 

 _t is inflammable, and burns with a smell of petroleum 

 that portion of the bitumen which is insoluble in the cother 

 and oil of turpentine, is a grayish dry mass, resembling 

 paper ; it burns with difficulty, and carbonizes; potash dis- 

 solves only a part of it. If alter separating these two print- 



NO. 264. 



[THE PENNY CYCLOPEDIA.] 



VOL. IV.-3 P 



