312 riR. 



tained by making incisions quite through the bark to the wood. 

 The operation is performed from April to September, and the 

 juice concretes in the form of flakes, which are detached by an 

 iron instrument. The flakes are tlien put into large boilers with a 

 suHicient quantity of water, melted, and then strained by a press 

 through coarse cloths. It has a terebinthinate odour and taste, 

 is brittle, opaque, and of a light yellow or reddish brown colour. 

 It is rendered soft and unctuous by a moderate heat, and is 

 very tenacious. Alcohol entirely dissolves it. 



Turpentine, tar, and resin will be described under the article 

 Pi7ie. 



Medicinal Properties and Uses. — Burgundy pitch is never 

 employed internally, but it forms an excellent adhesive and 

 moderately warm stimulating plaster, exciting some degree of 

 irritation, and occasionally a slight eruption and serous exuda- 

 tion from the parts to which it is applied. It is an useful appli- 

 cation to the chest in coughs, pains of the muscular parts of the 

 chest, and dyspnoea, also to the loins in rheumatism and lumbago. 

 It should be renewed every three or four days, and so continued 

 for any length of time. It enters into one or two compound 

 plasters of a stimulant nature. Spruce beer *, or a decoction of 

 the young branches of this tree, has been highly extolled as an 

 antiscorbutic. It is thought to promote urine and perspiration, 

 and for its sudorific property has been prescribed in rheumatic 

 and gouty pains, especially in the complaint called flying gout, 

 and in scurvy f. Ettmuller directs a spirit to be distilled from it 

 immediately after fermentation, which has a very agreeable taste 

 and smell, and may be substituted for the decoction. " When the 

 young tops or cones of the fir cannot be procured, the extract or 

 essence of spruce may be used in the same manner. It is carried 

 out in this form by the ships of the royal navy, and is an excellent 

 preventive of scurvy. "+ The effluvia of the Norway Spruce are 

 supposed to render the air salubrious, on which account it is 

 usual in Sweden to cut the branches into pieces of about half a 

 finger length and strew them on the floors of apartments tenanted 

 by invalids §. 



* It is to be observed that the article often sold in the shops by the name 

 of " spruce beer " is quite inert and worthless. 

 ■y Hermann Cynosura, tom. ii. p. 193. 

 + Waller, Brit. Dom. Herb. p. 150. 

 § Murray, App. Med., tom. 1, p. 40. 



