laxative is the only necessary preparative, previous to the use of the water, especially after a journey, by which the body is generally disposed to costiveness. Two or three days rest ought to be taken after great fatigue, before this water can be used with advantage.
Early in the morning, and two hours before breakfast, is the most proper time for employing this water medicinally, when it is usual to take two glasses, spending about half an hour in gentle exercise between each dose. Two glasses are afterwards taken between breakfast and dinner; and these are generally found to be sufficient in one day. The size of the glass varies from a quarter to half a pint: the latter is reckoned a full dose.
Hectical patients, however, should begin their dietetic course with a glass of ass's milk, and gradually increase the quantity from half a pint to a pint.
Those with whom the water disagrees, when taken fasting, should begin with a quarter of a pint at a time, and take from four to six doses in the course of the day; one dose about an hour before, and another an hour after a meal.
If it operate as a cathartic, which is not uncommon in relaxed habits, a small dose of ipecacuanha, or if it occasion costiveness, a quantity of rhubarb and cream of tartar, will be necessary to assist its operation. In every case, it is best to drink it at the fountain-head, as its volatile particles easily escape. The exercise of walking, or riding on horseback, immediately after taking the water, can be recommended to the robust only; for the infirm require more gentle exercise, such as riding in a carriage, sailing in a boat, and the like. Persons of a very irritable habit should sit down for a quarter of an hour, after having taken a draught of the water, which may be increased from a quarter of a pint to a pint, according to circumstances.
The Hotwell, though considerably higher than the river Avon, is, however, so far affected by the spring tides, which rise in that river, that it becomes, in some degree, turbid. It is then not thought to be so efficacious; but, after two hours pumping, the spring generally returns to its original purity.
British Wines.—See Wine.
BROAD-CAST, a term in husbandry, used to denote a particular mode of sowing corn, pulse, turnips, clover, grasses, and most field-plants. When seeds are scattered over the surface of the ground by the hand, they are said to be sown in broad-cast; by which, this method is distinguished from drilling, and horse-hoeing, or the new husbandry.
The comparative merit of the drill and broad-cast has, by several experiments, been determined in favour of the former. One of the most practical details on this subject, was communicated to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufattures, and Commerce, by Mr. Boote, of Atherstone, who, in the year 1789, obtained the gold medal from that patriotic institution, as an acknowledgment of his merit, in ascertaining this interesting point.
Mr. Boote selected a piece of cold clay land of twenty acres, four of which were drilled with four bushels of wheat; and, at the same time, four acres adjoining, of a similar soil, were sown in the broad-cast way, with ten bushels of the same grain.
