account of the syrup, extractive mucilage, and water, which cause it to ferment; the yellow peel is an elegant 
aromatic, and is frequently employed in stomachic tinctures and infusions; and yields by expression or dis- 
tillation with water an essential oil, which is much used in perfumery. Fresh lemon juice is truly specific 
in the prevention and cure of scurvy; that is, its effects are certain, and cannot be explained, for the crys- 
tallized acid, and even the rob or inspissated syrup, do not produce the same salutary effects. It is given 
freely mixed with water and sugar, and in a short time the symptoms disappear. 
The juice is also a powerful and agreeable antiseptic. Its powers according to Dr. Wright, are much 
increased, by saturating it with muriate of soda. This mixture he recommends as possessing very great 
efficacy in dysentery, remittent fevers, pains in the bowels, putrid sore throat, and being perfectly specific 
in diabetes and lientery. Citric acid is often used with great success for allaying vomiting; with this in- 
tention it is mixed with carbonate of potass, from which it expels the carbonic acid with effervescence. 
This mixture should be drunk as soon as it is made, or the carbonic acid gas, on which its antiemetic power 
chiefly depends, may be extricated in the stomach itself, by first swallowing the carbonate of potass dis- 
solved in water, and drinking immediately afterwards the acid properly sweetened. The doses are about a 
scruple of the carbonate dissolved in 8 or 10 drachms of water, and an ounce of lemon juice, or an equiva- 
lent quantity of citric acid. Don’s General System of Gardening. 
Lemonade is often made unskilfully by pouring boiling water on sliced lemons, instead of squeezing 
lemon-juice into water. A strong infusion is thus made of the aromatic peel, counteracting in some degree 
the refreshing effects of the juice. This erroneous method seems to have arisen from motives of economy 
when lemons were very dear. A veteran fruiterer once told us that he recollected lemons being half-a-crown 
a piece, and that a still older dealer monopolized lemons during a period of the American war, and sold 
them at 5s. each. ( Penny Magazine, No. 325.) 
The French Pharmacopoeia, after giving a formula for making eau gazeuse simple , simple carbonated 
water, adds, that by putting two ounces of syrup of lemons in each twenty-ounce bottle, before pouring in 
the carbonated water, a very pleasant beverage is formed, called limonade gazeuse, or effervescing lemonade. 
“En variant la nature du sirop, on pent preparer ainsi a volonte un grand nombre de boissons acidules et 
sucrees.” Soda-water will do as well as the plain carbonated water. The following is the method of 
making citric acid given in the London Pharmacopoeia; we borrow the translation, as well as the obser- 
vations on the properties and uses of the remedy, from Dr. A. T. Thomson’s Dispensatory. 
Take of lemon juice, four pints; prepared chalk, four ounces and a half; diluted sulphuric acid, twenty- 
seven fluid ounces and a half; distilled water, two pints. Add the chalk by degrees to the lemon-juice heated, 
and mix them; set by, that the powder may precipitate; then pour off the supernatant liquor. Wash the 
citrate of lime frequently with warm water; then pour on it the diluted sulphuric acid and the distilled 
water, and boil for fifteen minutes; press the liquor strongly through a linen cloth, and filter it. Evaporate 
the filtered liquor with a gentle heat, and set it aside, that crystals may form. To obtain the crystals pure, 
dissolve them in water a second and a third time; filter each solution, evaporate, and set it apart to crystallize. 
Medical properties and uses. The solution of this acid in water, in the proportion of nine 
drachms and a half of the crystals to a pint of water, answers nearly all the purposes of recent lemon-juice 
for forming the common effervescing draught with carbonate of potassa. The following table shows the 
quantity of citric acid required to saturate one scruple of the alkaline salts mentioned in it. 
ALKALINE SALTS. 
CITRIC ACID. 
Bicarbonate of Soda, gr. xx. 
gr. x. 
Carbonate of Soda, gr. xx. 
gr. xij. 
Bicarbonate of Potassa, gr. xx. 
gr. xiv. 
Carbonate of Potassa, gr. xx. 
gr. xvij. 
Sesquicarbonate of Ammonia, gr. xx. 
gr. xxiv. 
