got
from mineral sources, and saturated by the chemist with soda, forms the
medicinal " Borax " which doctors use commonly now-a-days. Some of this
being dissolved in water, (and sweetened with honey,) makes a gargle
which is curative of ulcerated sore throat, and mouth. When swallowed,
borax produces its constitutional effects without being absorbed into
the system ; seeing that it can be detected passing unchanged out of
the body in the excretions. Powdered Borax, when mixed with unsalted
lard, is found to allay the pain produced by inflamed piles! Seeing
that doses given medicinally of one-tenth of a grain of our Borax will
cure the " thrush " of infants, as rapidly as an application of the
same Borax, powdered, and mixed with honey, made directly to the sore
surfaces inside the mouth, it may be readily believed that the action
of the mineral here is dynamic rather than medicinal ; and would
equally follow a personal employment as an ornament, of this, or that,
Precious Stone known to possess Borax as one of its constituents.
Quaintly enough, M. Pomet, in his History of Druggs, quoting
Tournefort (1712) remarks, " The Ancients were not out when they said
there was a ' greenish natural borace,' of the colour of a leek ; any
more than was Agricola, who rightly enough observes that he had seen a
fossil nitre, solid and hard, like a stone, of which the Venetian
Borace is made. But the same Author is very much mistaken when he says
that then no horace was in use other than the factitious, or
artificial, made of the urine of boys, (who drank wine,) of brass rust,
and sometimes nitre, beaten together in u bell-metal mortar to the
consistence of an oyntment ; which is far from truth, since the borace
he means is
