n may be painted beneficially with oil of Peppermint. For internal
use, from one to three drops of the oil may be given as a dose on
sugar, or in a spoonful of milk; but the diluted essence, made from
some of the oil admixed with spirit of wine, is to be preferred. Put
on cotton wool into the hollow of a carious tooth, a drop or two of
the essential oil will often ease the pain speedily. The fresh plant,
bruised, and applied against the pit of the stomach over the navel,
will allay sickness, and is useful to stay the diarrhoeic purging of
young children. From half to one teaspoonful of the spirituous
essence of Peppermint may be given for a dose with two tablespoonfuls
of hot water; or, if Peppermint water be chosen, the dose
of this should be from half to one wineglassful. Distilled
Peppermint water should be preferred to that prepared by adding the
essence to common water. Lozenges made of the oil, or the essence,
are admirable for affording ease in colic, flatulence, and nausea.
They will also prevent or relieve sea-sickness.

When Tom Hood lay a dying he turned his eyes feebly towards the
window on hearing it rattle in the night, whereupon his wife, who
was watching him, said softly. "It's only the wind, dear"; to which
he replied, with a sense of humour indomitable to the last, "Then put
a Peppermint lozenge on the sill."

Two sorts of this herb are cultivated for the market--black and white
Peppermint, the first of which furnishes the most, but not the best
oil. The former has purple stems, and the latter green. As an
antiseptic, and destroyer of disease germs, this oil is signally
efficacious, [341] on which important account it is now used for
inhalation by consumptive patients as a volatile vapour to reach
remote diseased parts of the lung passages, and to heal by
destroying the morbid germs which are keeping up mischief therein.
Towards proving this preservative power exercised by the oil of
Peppermint, pieces of meat, and of fat, wrapped in several layers of
gauze medicated with the oil have been kept for seven months
sweet, and free from putrescent changes. A simple respirator for
inhaling the oil is made from a piece of thin perforated zinc plate
adapted to the shape of the mouth and nostrils like a small open
funnel, within the narrow end of which is fitted a pledget of cotton
wool saturated with twenty drops of the oil, or from twenty to thirty
drops of the spirituous essence. This should be renewed eac