"Astringent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on this subject, the author has grown cotton under glass, and analyzed it at various stages of its life history. In the early stage of unripeness he has found an astringent substance in the fiber. This substance disappears as the plant ripens, and seems to closely resemble some forms of tannin. Doubtless the presence of this body in cotton put upon the market in an unripe condition may account for certain dark stains ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... at the boom had held her nose up until the weight was too much for it, and, with its parting, the little craft assumed nearly an even keel, while the water rushed forward among the battery jars beneath the deck. Then a strong, astringent odor arose through the seams in the deck, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... mentioned sulphat of alumine as constituting the common alum; it is found in nature chiefly in the neighbourhood of volcanos, and is particularly useful in the arts, from its strong astringent qualities. It is chiefly employed by dyers and calico-printers, to fix colours; and is used also in the manufacture of some kinds ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... a mere sign of debility, usually also connected with a scrofulous habit, but has no further or graver meaning. Locally, constant cold ablution by means of a sponge held above the child, not touching it, is the great remedy, and this may have to be repeated every hour or two if the case is severe. Astringent lotions of different kinds may be used in the same manner; while care must be taken that the child's drawers are large and loose, so as not to irritate her when sitting. General treatment, however, sea air and sea bathing are especially in these ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... is peat of any kind impregnated with sulphate of iron (copperas,) and sulphate of alumina, (the astringent ingredient of alum.) ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... trees being less than thirty years of age, but has already become widely distributed, as well as a favourite fruit amongst many. It is a very showy fruit when well grown, but must be thoroughly ripe before it is eaten, as, if not, it is extremely astringent, and anyone who has tackled an unripe fruit has no wish to repeat the experience in a hurry. There are many varieties of this fruit, some of which are seedless, and others more or less seedy. The seedless kinds are usually preferred, ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... herb (Polygonum bistorta) with cylindrical spikes of pink flowers and a rhizome used as an astringent ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... and salt may be added, or lemon juice and sugar. Barley water is an astringent or demulcent drink used to reduce ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... Raw and astringent as a schoolgirl—of the old order—young May breathed austerely among the budding trees. Vallance buttoned his coat, lighted his last cigarette and took his seat upon a bench. For three minutes he mildly regretted the last hundred of his last thousand that it had cost him when ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... feigned sick and sent for Osmond. That worthy prescribed a pill and a draught, the former laxative, the latter astringent. This ceremony performed, Mr. Hardie gossipped with him; and, after a detour or two, glided to his real anxiety. "Sampson tells me you know more about Captain Dodd's case than he does: he is not very clear as to the cause of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... raw fruit, is considered good for sore throats, and for inflammation of the gums and tonsils. We are also told, that the young green shoots, eaten as salad, will fix teeth which are loose; probably (if it be so) it is from the astringent qualities in the juice strengthening and hardening the gums. The leaves pounded, are said to be a cure for the ringworm; and they are also made into tea by some of the cottagers, which is very useful in some ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... Alcides was really wonderful at turning out pleasant-tasting beverages from the stewed bark or leaves of various trees, and of these decoctions—in which additional quantities of sugar played an important part—my men and myself drank gallons upon gallons. Many of those drinks had powerful astringent qualities and had severe effects upon the bladder, but some were indeed quite ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... beginning with the alleged power of resisting the action of fire, the reader will not need to be reminded of many seemingly well-authenticated cases of escape from the fire-ordeal. It has been usual to ascribe the preservation of those who have walked bare-footed over heated ploughshares to the use of astringent lotions: and where opportunity existed for preparation of that kind, their escape may perhaps be so explained. But in most instances the accused was in the custody of the accusers, and not likely to have access to such phylacteries. The exemption from the effects of fire was not confined ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... zinc sulphate tablets which we had were excellent, but we also found that our tea leaves, which had been boiled twice and would otherwise have been thrown away, relieved the pain if tied into some cotton and kept pressed against the eyes. The tannic acid in the tea acted as an astringent. A snowblind man can see practically nothing anyhow and so he is not much worse off if a handkerchief is tied over ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... drachm of alum in eight ounces (half a pint) of water. Use as astringent wash. When twice as much alum and only half the quantity of water are used, it acts as a discutient, but not as ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... itching which accompanies this. If strong acid be used, matters are made worse, and great pain caused. The acid, weak as we have described, at once neutralises the irritating substance exuded from the eruption. It also prepares the way for a cure. If astringent lotions are employed, drying the sore, and driving it in on the brain, serious injury may be caused. But if healing takes place under soaking with weak acid, no such result need be feared, for this simply removes the unhealthy state of the part. Water, especially hard ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... John before the door. The extreme sharpness of the air acted on his nerves like an astringent, and braced them swiftly. Presently, he not relaxing in his disordered walk, the images began to come clearer and stay longer in his fancy; and next the power of thought came back to him, and the horror and danger of his situation rooted him to ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and especially upon the nervous system. But this theory has not led to any effective treatment. Drugs in great variety were tried in the continental hospitals in 1892, but without any distinct success. The old controversy between the aperient and the astringent treatment reappeared. In Russia the former, which aims at evacuating the poison, was more generally adopted; in Germany the latter, which tries to conserve strength by stopping the flux, found more favour. Two methods of treatment were invariably found ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... and with a hide outrivalling in colour and plaits his trimmest saffron robe. At the mention of this indeed, friend Plato, even thou, although resolved to stand out of harm's way, beginnest to make a wry mouth, and findest it difficult to pucker and purse it up again, without an astringent store of moral sentences. Hymen is truly no acquaintance of thine. We know the delicacies of love which thou wouldst reserve for the gluttony of heroes and the fastidiousness of philosophers. Heroes, like gods, must have their own way; ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... astringency in contracting the fibres of the muscles, and so excludes the action of air on the interior of the substance of the meat. The last-mentioned operation of salt as an antiseptic is evinced by the diminution of the volume of meat to which it is applied. The astringent action of saltpetre on meat is much greater than that of salt, and thereby renders meat to which it is applied very hard; but, in small quantities, it considerably assists the antiseptic action of salt, and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... The active principle of tea is called theine; that of coffee, caffeine, and of cocoa, theobromine. They also contain an aromatic, volatile oil, to which they owe their distinctive flavor. Tea and coffee also contain an astringent called tannin, which gives the peculiar bitter taste to the infusions when steeped too long. In cocoa, the fat known as cocoa butter amounts ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... washerwoman's dip. Everyone who is anyone will be here, if not on one night then on another, in a jovial fraternity steeped in the spirit of democracy. Revelry will be sustained on lemonade and a resinous astringent known locally as beer, while a sense of doing the forbidden will be in the air. For commercial reasons it will be needful to keep it in the air, since in the proceedings themselves there will be nothing more occult, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... ancients we find no trace of sentimentalism. Their masculine mood both of body and mind left no room for it, and hence the bracing quality of their literature compared with that of recent times, its tonic property, that seems almost too astringent to palates relaxed by a daintier diet. The first great example of the degenerate modern tendency was Petrarch, who may be said to have given it impulse and direction. A more perfect specimen of the type has not since appeared. An intellectual voluptuary, a moral dilettante, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... unrelated to their causes; he lived in a mist, and opium thickened the mist to a dense yellow fog. Opium might have helped to make Southey a poet; it left Coleridge the prisoner of a cobweb-net of dreams. What he wanted was some astringent force in things, to tighten, not to loosen, the always expanding and uncontrollable limits of his mind. Opium did but confirm what the natural habits of his constitution had bred in him: an overwhelming indolence, out of which the energies that still arose intermittently were no longer flames, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... more minute. You will allow that the rendering skins insoluble in water by combining with them the astringent principle of certain vegetables is a chemical invention, and that without leather, our shoes, our carriages, our equipages would be very ill made; you will permit me to say, that the bleaching and dying of wool and silk, cotton, and flax, are chemical ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy |
