POULTICES made of linseed powder and milk, with the addition of a small quantity of olive oil, is the leading step to a cure of CRACKED HEELS of the _worst_ description: they are also, from their EMOLLIENT property, the best possible _external_ application to legs affected with GREASE, either in an _early_ or more _advanced_ stage; in which disorder it is too much the custom to rely implicitly upon the medicinal power and effect of _internals_, without considering that, by striking industriously at the very root of disease, it might often be completely cured in half the time by the assisting effects of both.
LIOUORICE ROOT.—This is an article so much in use with HORSES, (in a pulverized state,) that it is absolutely necessary it should undergo some degree of elucidation; to prevent, if possible, a part of the medical _deception_, and _adulteration_, which so universally prevails. Liquorice root is plentifully produced in most countries of Europe, and is in all held in the same degree of estimation for its utility. What is grown in England is preferable to what is brought from abroad; the latter being generally mouldy, and in a perishing state, which it will always soon become, if not kept in a dry place, or buried in sand. It is remarkable for its peculiar property of allaying thirst, particularly as it is the almost only sweet known so to do: it is in constant use as an article of much medicinal efficacy with the human species, both as a most excellent PECTORAL and DETERGENT, as well as to soften _acrimonious_ humors, reduce glandular irritability in colds, and promote expectoration.
The article called SPANISH LIQUORICE is an extract prepared from the root in Spain, and other countries, where it is cultivated in large quantities; but it is rarely to be met with in the shops in a state of purity and perfection; those who are the makers being either very slovenly in the preparation, or interested in the event, constantly mixing it with sand, (or other impurities,) to enlarge the weight, and increase the profit; under which disadvantages it is universally known as, and experimentally proved to be, a pectoral balsamic of general utility. In respect to what is dispensed at the shops, under the name of LIQUORICE POWDER, it is only necessary to observe, that it may be purchased at any for little more than _half_ what the real dried root can be bought and powdered for by the first wholesale houses in the Metropolis. The deception is clear, and self-evident; as it is an article of great consumption, so it becomes the more properly appropriate to the _pecuniary_ purpose of adulteration: those who _best know_ the advantage arising from such practice, best _can tell_, that two pound weight of GENUINE LIQUORICE ROOT, ground in the _drug mill_, and there incorporated with the customary proportions of _bean meal_ and wheat flour, will make _fourteen pounds_ of _most excellent_ liquorice powder for _retail_; and is the very article with which the public are supplied as a substitute for a medicine of so much efficacy, that it is to be regretted it should so easily become a matter of such general prostitution. See ADULTERATION.