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CONFECTIONS FOR THE SICK. 375
milk, flavored with lemon peel, which pour over a spoonful of sponge biscuit, and let it stand for 1-2 hour, then add 3 well whisked eggs, 1-2 oz. of currants, and very little sugor. Pour into a buttered form lined with seedless raisins, for 1 hour.
Brown Caudle or Beer.—If made of corn-meal the gruel should be made very thick, enough so to admit of nearly an equal quantity of good, clear, mild beer, which should be stirred in while the gruel is over the fire, with a pinch of allspice finely beaten. If meal be used, it should be mixed with beer, and stirred into an equal portion of boiling water with pounded allspice a small portion. Then boiled sufficiently, strain it or not; whether corn or oat-meal gruel, to each quart add a large table-spoonful of moist sugar, a rasp or two of nutmeg, 2 glasses of gin, or rather more than one of brandy.
Raisin Gruel for the Sick,—(Dr. G.)—Boil 1-2 lb. of raisins, for one half hour, in one quart of milk and 1 quart of water; then strain and squeeze out, and return the liquid into the sauce pan or vessel and stir in and boil for a minute the article with which you are to thicken the gruel—oat-meal, corn-meal or flour, as the case may be. The raisins make it sufficiently sweet, no salt isrequired, but a little cinnamon or spice may be added ; when patients are fond of eggs or do not object to them, as some do, the yolk of an egg may be beaten well with a little milk, and stirred into any gruel a few minutes before it is done boiling. This renders the article more nutritious, and, when the patient likes it, and can bear it, is a very good addition.
Rice Gruel.—Take a large table-spoonful of rice flour and mix to a stiff paste, with cold water; then stir it into the remainder of a pint of boiling water, and let it boil for 15 minutes with a stick of cinnamon, and a little rasped dried orange peel; strain it off, sweeten with loaf sugar, and add a half glass or more of brandy. This is commonly used when the bowels are in a very relaxed state, and it is desired to check that tendency. Much caution should however, be observed, and, it is seldom safe to venture on the use of anything of a heating astringent nature without proper medical advice.
CONFECTIONS AND CONSERVES FOR THE SICK.
Peppermint.—Gather the peppermint when full grown and before it seeds. Cut it into small pieces, put them in a still and cover them with water; have a good fire underneath and when boiling and the still begins to drop, if the heat is too great, remove a small portion of the fire away, that it may not boil over. The slower the still drops, the stronger will be the water. The next day bottle off, and after standing 2 or 3 days cork well. |
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