382 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



prove excellent medicines, when prudently 

 given, in distempers attended with an indo- 

 lent, watery, or cold phlegmatic humour, no 

 way saline, where acrid humours are lodged 

 in the f st passages ; where the bile is slug- 

 gish, and where no alkaline, foetid, or oily 

 putrid matter is lodged; but the body re- 

 mains cold, torpid, and swelled all over ; as 

 on the other hand, mustard proves hurtful 

 where the body is hot and feverish, the bile 

 sharp, the juices putrid, the parts inflamed, 

 or wasted ; or where the putrid scurvy 

 abounds. 



Mustard-seed, by chemical analysis, gives 

 a much greater indication of an acrid than 

 of an acid salt ; but it affords a considerable 

 quantity of oil, very little fixed salt simply 

 saline, a great deal of earth, a little urinous 

 spirit, and no volatile concrete salt. 



When mustard is calcined, it leaves very 

 little salt in the ashes, because the salt is vo- 

 latile, and flies off in the calcination.* 



On the whole, mustard may be considered 

 a wholesome condiment, when taken in mo- 

 deration and with due consideration of the 

 state of the body ; but we are too apt, gene- 

 rally, to accustom ourselves to the same re- 



# James. 



