Syrupus Liquidambar.—Syrup of Sweet-Gum.
Related entry: Liquidambar.—Sweet-Gum
Preparation.—Take of sweet-gum bark, in coarse powder, 5 ounces; refined sugar, 2 pounds (av.); water, a sufficient quantity. Moisten the bark thoroughly with water, let it stand for 24 hours in a close vessel, then transfer it to a percolator, and pour water gradually on it until a pint of filtered liquor is obtained. To this add the sugar in a bottle, and agitate occasionally until it is dissolved (Dr. C. W. Wright).
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—This is a pleasant medicine, which is not apt to be ejected from an irritable stomach. It is very useful in bowel complaints of children, diarrhoea, chronic cough, and chronic mucous affections generally. The dose for an adult is a fluid ounce, 3 or 4 times a day; and, in diarrhoea, to be repeated after each evacuation from the bowels when they recur too frequently. Probably the sweet-gum, or resinous exudation, dissolved in alcohol, or made into an emulsion, and then added to syrup, would answer the purpose still better.
