Cullen met with a singular practice respecting Tar. A leg of
mutton was put to roast, being basted during the whole process with
tar instead of butter. Whilst roasting, a sharp skewer was frequently
thrust into the substance of the meat to let the juices escape, and
with the mixture of tar and gravy found in the dripping pan, the
body of the patient was anointed all over for three or four nights
consecutively, throughout all this time the same body linen being
worn. The plan proved quite successful in curing obstinate lepra.

A famous liquor called "mum" was concocted by the House of
Brunswick, some of which was sent to General Monk. It was chiefly
brewed from the rind and tops of firs, and was esteemed very
powerful against the formation of stone, and to cure all scorbutick
distempers. Various herbs, as best approved by the maker, were
infused with the mum in concocting it, such as betony, birch, burnet,
brooklime, elder-flowers, horse-radish, [582] marjoram, thyme,
water-cress, pennyroyal, etc., together with several eggs, "the shells
not cracked or broken"! The Germans, especially in Saxony, have so
great a veneration for mum that they fancy their bodies can never
decay as long as they are lined, and embalmed with so powerful a
preserver. The Swedes call the fir "the scorbutick tree" to this day.

Tar is soluble in its own bulk of spirit of wine, rectified, but
separates when water is added. Inhaled, its vapour is very useful in
chronic bronchitis.

Tar water should be made by stirring a pint of tar with half a gallon
of water for fifteen minutes, and then decanting it. From half-a-pint
to a pint may be taken daily, and it may be used as a wash. Or from
twenty to sixty drops of tar are to be swallowed for a dose several
times in the day, whether for chronic catarrhal affections, or for
irritable urinary passages. Tar ointment is prepared with five parts
of tar to two pounds of yellow wax. It is an excellent application for
scald head in a child.

Juniper tar oil is known as "oil of Cade," and Birch tar is got from
the Butcher's Broom. A recognised plaster and an ointment are
made with Burgundy pitch (from the _Picus Picea_) and yellow
wax.

Probably the modern employment of carbolic acid, and its various
combinations--all derived from tar--for neutralising the septic
elements of disease, and for acting as germicides, was unknowingly
forestalled by the sagacious Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Cloyne,
in his _Phi