room, near the patient, a mixture of turpentine and tar in a pan or
deep dish. The fumes serve to dissolve the false membrane, and
have helped to effect a cure in desperate cases.

This tree had the Anglo-Saxon name Pimm, from pen, or pin, a
sharp rock,--"_ab acumine foliorum_," or perhaps as a contraction
of _picinus_--pitchy. It furnishes from its leaves an extract, and the
volatile oil. Wool is saturated with the latter, and dried, being then
made into blankets, jackets, spencers, and stockings, for the use of
rheumatic sufferers. There are establishments in Germany where the
Pine Cure is pursued by the above means, together with medicated
baths. Pine cones were regarded of old by the Assyrians as sacred
symbols, and were employed as such in the decoration of their
temples. From the tops of the Norway Spruce fir a favourite
invigorating drink is brewed which is known in the north as spruce
beer. This has an excellent reputation for curing scurvy, chronic
rheumatism, and cutaneous maladies. Laplanders make a bread from
the inner bark of the Pine.

Tar (_pix liquida_) is furnished abundantly by the _Pinus
Sylvestris_, or Scotch Fir, and is extracted by heat. The tree is cut
into pieces, which are enclosed in a large oven constructed for the
purpose: fire is applied, and the liquid tar runs out through an
opening at the bottom. It is properly an empyreumatic oil of
turpentine, and has been much used in medicine both externally and
internally. Tar water was extolled in 1744, by Bishop Berkley,
almost as a panacea. He gave it for scurvy, skin eruptions, ulcers,
asthma, and rheumatism. It evidently promotes the secretions,
especially the urine.

[581] Tar yields pyroligneous acid, oil of tar, and pitch: as well as
guiacol and creasote.

Syrup of tar is an officinal medicine in the United States of America
for chronic bronchitis, and winter cough. By this the expectoration
is made easier, and the sleep at night improved. From one to two
teaspoonfuls are given as a dose, with or without water. Also tar
pills are prepared of pitch and liquorice powder in equal parts, five
grains in the whole pill. Two or three of these may be taken twice or
three times in the day.

Tar ointment is highly efficacious against some forms of skin
disease; but in eczema and allied maladies of the skin, no
preparation of tar should be employed as long as the skin is actively
inflamed, or any exudation of moisture is secreted by it.

Dr.