"Astringent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... showed it to be a combination of two weak, commonly used drugs, one a very mild antiseptic and the other a mild astringent. These were held together with cocoa butter into which a drop of carbolic acid may have been put. There is nothing unusual in the combination, nor has it any wonderful qualities which would justify the claims made in behalf of it. The remedy contains ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... Tannin is an astringent of vegetable origin which exists in tea, is also found in coffee and wines, and is very injurious. Tea is a preparation made from the leaves of a shrub called Thea. The difference between black and green tea is due to the mode of preparation, and not to separate species of plant. Green tea contains ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... rather to bind it after it has been loosed. That is our task to-day. In the person of Wagner I recognise one of these anti-Alexanders: he rivets and locks together all that is isolated, weak, or in any way defective; if I may be allowed to use a medical expression, he has an astringent power. And in this respect he is one of the greatest civilising forces of his age. He dominates art, religion, and folklore, yet he is the reverse of a polyhistor or of a mere collecting and classifying spirit; for he constructs ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... below. Clusters medium to large, loose, with long peduncle. Berries numerous and small, black, shining, little or no bloom. Seeds medium in size, broad, beak short; chalaza oval or roundish, elevated, very distinct; raphe a distinct, cord-like ridge. Fruit sour and astringent and frequently consisting of little besides skins and seeds. Leafing, flowering and ripening ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... of the pear form, and dark-brown in color. The rind is tough and elastic, but not very thick. The edible substance, which is soft and green, encloses a kernel resembling a chestnut in form and color. This fruit is very astringent and bitter, and on being cut, a juice flows from it which is at first yellow, but soon turns black. The taste is peculiar, and at first not agreeable to a foreigner; but it is generally much liked when the palate becomes accustomed to it. The fruit of the Palta ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... resulting from incomplete coitus to both parties has been made evident to all who are willing to be convinced. It should require but a moment's consideration to convince any one of the harmfulness of the common use of cold ablutions and astringent infusions and various medicated washes. Simple and often wonderfully salutary as is cold water to a diseased limb, festering with inflammation, yet few are rash enough to cover a gouty toe, rheumatic knee, or erysipelatous head with cold water.... Yet, when in the general state of ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... is obtained tolerably pure in commerce in colorless transparent crystalline masses, having an acid, sweetish, astringent taste. It is soluble in 18 parts of water at 60 deg. F., and in its own weight of water at 212 deg. F.; but the excess crystallizes out upon cooling. The solution reddens litmus paper, and, when impure, usually contains traces of oxide of iron. Upon the addition ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face; read Wordsworth's astringent yet depressing ode to that Deity; committed herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... fifty yards of both of them, mysterious and withdrawn as ever, busy at something or other. And it was naught to Johnnie! By the thought of all this the woe in him was strengthened and embittered. Nevertheless his youth, aided by the astringent quality of the clear dawn, still struggled sturdily against it. And he ate six times more breakfast than his suffering and ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... other dramas were being successfully acted. People were discussing his theories, denouncing or approving his conception of life. The struggle was past, his royalties were making him rich. And here he was this night, drinking the cup of bitterness, of unhappiness, the astringent draft of things that might and should have been. The coveted grape was sour, the desired apple was withered. Those who traverse the road with Folly as boon ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... individual law, which is just as sacred and unalterable as the general law. All the art of the gardener cannot transform the oak to a willow, or produce the blue dahlia, though by its aid the sour crab has become a mellow apple, and the astringent pear, the luscious Bartlett. We need to study the great subject of education more, and to talk less about the special peculiarities of woman's education, and we shall find that the greater includes the less, and that the more thoroughly we develop all the powers of mind, the more eminently will ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... 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 ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... through forests and past vegetable banks, takes up a large quantity of albuminous matter, which is so great in quantity that the atmosphere, or the oxygen in the air, cannot purify it by the time it reaches us, so that if any astringent matter like oak, or birch, or beech, or even alum, is put in the water it will cause the albumen to precipitate. In the district of La Gironde, France, the waters of the Landes are naturally very impure from these causes, but since the cutting and floating down of the immense oak ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... idiosyncrasies. Why has he not lifted up his voice? He, the book clerk, that lives among countless volumes of confessions! Whose daily task is to wrestle hour by hour with a living Comedie Humaine! Has the constant spectacle of so many books been astringent in its effect upon any latent creative impulse? Or has he been dumb in the colloquial sense, forsooth; a figure like Mr. Whistler's guard in the British Museum? Sundry "lettered booksellers" of England have, indeed, given us some reminiscences of bookselling and its ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... "garnacha dulce," that it is coloured with plastered must and fortified with brandy, before it is shipped. Let us leave him in blissful ignorance. We tasted many samples before we left, but I own I have no liking for sherries, simple or doctored. Among Spanish wines I far prefer the full-bodied astringent sub-acidity of the common Val de Penas, beloved of Cervantes. But the Queen of wines is sound Bordeaux. To that Queen, however, a delicate etherous Amontillado might be admitted as Spanish maid-of-honour, preceding the royal footsteps, while the syrupy Malaga from ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... an infusion should be made by adding boiling water to the leaves, and permitting them to steep for a few minutes only, for a concentrated decoction, made by boiling for a long time, liberates the astringent and bitter principles and drives off the agreeable aroma which ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... their shape and form. Thurston was country bred, and, lifting high his feet to clear bramble trailer and fallen twig, he walked by feeling instead of sight. The beck moaned a little more loudly, and there was a heavy astringent odor of damp earth and decaying leaves. When beast and bird were still again it seemed as if Nature, worn out by the productive effort of summer, were sinking under solemn silence ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... for him not a sedative but a stimulant, he had little doubt as he went slowly on his way to the gallery: but of the astringent nature of that mixture he had equally small idea, until he turned the last corner, and came in sight of the Countess's face. There was an aspect of the avenging angel about Lady Oxford, as she stood up, tall and stately, in that corner of the gallery, and held ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... world does not know how the other half lives. Noticing a pot of areca nut toothpaste on a chemist's counter, I asked him what the peculiar properties of the areca nut were—in short, what was it good for. He replied that it was an astringent and acted beneficially on the gums, but he had never heard that it was used for any other purpose than the manufacture of an elegant dentifrice. I felt inclined to question him about the camel in order to see whether he would tell me that it was a tropical animal, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... want to be flayed alive. So the kinds of tastes discriminated by the tip of the tongue are the pungent, like pepper, cayenne and mustard; the astringent, like borax and alum; the alkaline, like soda and potash; the acid, like vinegar and green fruit; and the saline, like salt and ammonia. Almost all the bodies likely to give rise to such tastes (or, more correctly, sensations of touch in the tongue) are obviously ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... village of the Choke-Cherry Indians, who, like the Bow Indians, were probably a band of Sioux. [Footnote: The Sioux, Cheyennes, and other prairie tribes use the small astringent wild cherry for food. The squaws pound it, stones and all, and then dry it for winter use.] Hard by their lodges, which stood near the Missouri, the brothers buried a plate of lead graven with the royal arms, and raised a pile of stones in honor of the Governor of Canada. They remained ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... resembles the marginal shield fern in outline, but the fronds are thinner, are not evergreen, and the sori are near the midvein. Its use in medicine is of long standing. Its rootstock produces the well-known filix-mas of the pharmacist. This has tonic and astringent properties, but is mainly prescribed as a vermifuge, which is one of the names given to it. In Europe it is regarded as the typical fern, being oftener mentioned and figured than any other. In rocky woods, Canada, Northfield, ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton
... courtship under the rose, for before others he hid his love like a crime, treating Isabel as good humoured elderly men treat pretty children. Where the astringent memory of Lizzie came into play, Lawrence was dumb. The one aspect of that fiasco which he had not fully confessed to Isabel—though only because it was not then prominent in his mind—was its scorching, its lacerating effect on his pride. But for it he would probably ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... joking, Mr. Fleurant; you must learn to be reasonable with patients; Mr. Purgon never ordered you to put four francs. Tut! put three francs, if you please. Twenty; thirty sous.[1] "Item, on the said day, a dose, anodyne and astringent, to make Mr. Argan sleep, thirty sous." Ten sous, Mr. Fleurant. "Item, on the 26th, a carminative clyster to cure the flatulence of Mr. Argan, thirty sous." "Item, the clyster repeated in the evening, as above, thirty sous." Ten sous, Mr. Fleurant. "Item, ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... themselves or by their ancestors. The nuts are found in scarcely sufficient quantity to supply the demand. When they can not be obtained, other plants [13] are used, but they are an inferior substitute. In taste the betel nut is exceedingly astringent and can not be used except in combination with the betel leaf and lime. As a rule the green and tender nut is preferred by the mountain Manbos, but the ripe nut seems to be the choice of those who have come in contact with Christianized Manbos ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Dr. Wiley, the former Government Chemist, published the ingredients of a number of popular remedies for colds, coughs and catarrh. Every one of them contained some powerful opiate or astringent. These poisonous drugs relieve the cough and the catarrhal conditions by paralyzing the eliminative activity of the membranous linings of the nasal passages, the bronchi and lungs, the digestive and genitourinary ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... guiltily, and then raised them full of an extraordinary laughing light, as if she was beyond all reason delighted to have her secret thoughts discovered. "How you see through me, dear!" she said in a voice that was rallying and affectionate, charged with an astringent form of love. "All that I wanted to say was simply that I am so very glad you have come. Perhaps for reasons that you'll consider tiresome of me. But Richard has been so much away, and even when he's at home he is out at the works laboratory so much of the time, that ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Mother came running at the noise I made, wrapped me up, put me in the servant girl's arms and told her to run with me through the garden and out by a back way to Peter Lawson to have something done to stop the bleeding. He simply pushed a wad of cotton into my mouth after soaking it in some brown astringent stuff, and told me to be sure to keep my mouth shut and all would soon be well. Mother put me to bed, calmed my fears, and told me to lie still and sleep like a gude bairn. But just as I was dropping off ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... at all particular in the choice of its proteges and not at all artistic. Without exception, all these writers wrote in the pallid white prose of pensioners of a monastery, in a flowing movement of phrase which no astringent could counterbalance. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... kind of mental astringent Malachi was. Naturally, he loved the gay and happy little college boys. Oh, how he loved us! He had complained to the police regularly during each celebration for twenty years and he had expressed ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... are in the hands of a living God. In the Book of Job, for example, the impotence of man and the omnipotence of God is the exclusive burden of its author's mind. "It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?—deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" There is an astringent relish about the truth of this conviction which some men can feel, and which for them is as near an approach as can be made to the feeling of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... 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 ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of the dragon-tree is exhibited in several species of the genus Dracaena, at the Cape of Good Hope, in China, and in New Zealand. But in New Zealand it is superseded by the form of the yucca; for the Dracaena borealis of Aiton is a Convallaria, of which it has all the appearance. The astringent juice, known in commerce by the name of dragon's blood, is, according to the inquiries we made on the spot, the produce of several American plants, which do not belong to the same genus and of which some are lianas. At Laguna, toothpicks steeped in the juice of the dragon-tree are made ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... would lay a hand on his. Mrs. Phillips noticed these minor familiarities and remarked on them to Foster, who had lately wheeled his chair in. Foster, a few days later, passed the comment on to Randolph, with an astringent comment of his own.—At all events, Amy Leffingwell remained in the distance, and George Pearson shared ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... in the neighborhood of Colombo, especially among the cinnamon gardens. Here, also, the cashew tree grows to great perfection. The bark of the latter is very rich in tannin, and is used by the natives in the preparation of hides. The fruit is like an apple in appearance, and small, but is highly astringent. The well-known cashew-nut grows like an excrescence from the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... part of the fresco including the feet of the Christ to make a doorway. In 1726 one Michelangelo Belotti, an obscure Milanese painter, received L300 for the worthless labour he bestowed on restoring it. He seems to have employed some astringent restorative which revived the colours temporarily, and then left them in deeper eclipse than before. In 1770 the fresco was again restored by Mazza. In 1796 Napoleon's cavalry, contrary to his express orders, turned the refectory into a stable, and pelted the heads of the figures with dirt. ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell
... 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... millefolium) is usually regarded as a weed, but sheep are very fond of it, and when they can get it, never fail to eat it greedily. It possesses astringent properties. Some writers have recommended it as a good crop for warrens and sands. Its composition, according to Way, is ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... form, since all of the ammonium compounds have an extremely irritating effect on animal tissue. Sulphates of sodium and potassium are also objectionable. Aluminium hydroxide is soluble in the slightly acid gastric juice and has an astringent action on animal tissue, hindering digestion in a way similar to the alum itself. Many of the alum powders contain also mono-calcium phosphate; the reaction is ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... from the means of gratifying elegant tastes, the comfort, luxury, and culture which came with Lovegrove's retirement on a fortune. They had mellowed on the sunny shelves of prosperity, like every good thing which has an astringent skin when it is green. They would greatly have liked to see Daniel shine in society. Of his erudition they were proud, even to worship. The young man never had any business, and his father never seemed to think of giving him any; knowing, as Billy would say, that he had stamps enough to "see ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... travel through the country in the exercise of their calling. They tan and dress leather with very great expedition, by steeping the hide first in a mixture of wood-ashes and water, until it parts with the hair; and afterwards by using the pounded leaves of a tree called goo, as an astringent. They are at great pains to render the hide as soft and pliant as possible, by rubbing it frequently between their hands, and beating it upon a stone. The hides of bullocks are converted chiefly into sandals, and therefore require less care in dressing than the skins of sheep and goats, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... part of the State; but in most instances the fruit is too sour for use, unless for preserves. Crab apples are equally prolific, and make fine preserves with about double their bulk of sugar. Wild cherries are equally productive. The persimmon is a delicious fruit, after the frost has destroyed its astringent properties. The black mulberry grows in most parts, and is used for the feeding of silk-worms with success. They appear to thrive and spin as well as on the Italian mulberry. The gooseberry, strawberry, and blackberry, grow ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... garden being 'overlooked,' i.e. bewitched by an evil eye, in case the Obeah- bottle which hangs from the Mango-tree, charged with toad and spider, dirty water, and so forth, has no terrors for his secret enemy. He will have a Libidibi {314e} tree, too, for astringent medicine; and his hedge will be composed, if he be a man of taste— as he often seems to be—of Hibiscus bushes, whose magnificent crimson flowers contrast with the bright yellow bunches of the common ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... were commonly eaten with the thus Syriacum, a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which qualified the purgative nature of the fish. This learned physician gave them to understand, that though this was reckoned a luxurious fish in the zenith of the Roman taste, it was by no means comparable, in point of expense, to some preparations ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... things would change in appearance! They would change much more if interpreted by the intellect of the grub. What have the lessons of touch and taste contributed to that rudimentary receptacle of impressions? Very little; almost nothing. The animal knows that the best bits possess an astringent flavour; that the sides of a passage not carefully planed are painful to the skin. This is the utmost limit of its acquired wisdom. In comparison, the statue with the sensitive nostrils was a marvel of knowledge, a paragon too generously endowed by its inventor. It remembered, compared, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... worth while to say much. They are far from being one's best hours. And then, more often than not, will come another blessed two hours, or even more, of unconsciousness, before the first purple grey forecasts of a new day call me out into the bush for my morning lesson in serenity: Nature's astringent message to egoists and all the sedentary, introspective tribe, that bids us note our own infinite insignificance, our utter and microscopical unimportance in her great scheme of things, and her sublime indifference ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... of tartar. Oxalic Oxalic acid Acid of sorel. Acetic {Acetous acid Vinegar, or acid of vinegar. {Acetic acid Radical vinegar. Succinic Succinic acid Volatile salt of amber. Benzoic Benzotic acid Flowers of benzoin. Camphoric Camphoric acid Unknown till lately. Gallic Gallic acid {The astringent principle ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... whole house, like jessamine or mignionette, and are excellent for pies and tarts. The persimon is a fruit to which you are a stranger; it may be ranked with the plums, but has four stones, and is not fit to eat till bitten by the frost, when its austere and astringent taste disappears, and it becomes nearly transparent, and as rich and sweet as Guava jelly. The May-apple, or Mandrake, a wild fruit, is a favourite with our young folks; it grows on a single-steemed plant, usually one foot high, and is about the size of a plum, but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... sheer ignorance and depraved appetite, but the elephant is most careful in its selection of all that is suitable to its requirements. It is astonishing how few of the forest trees are attractive to this animal. Some are tempting from their foliage, others from their bark (vide the powerfully astringent Catechu), some from the succulent roots, and several varieties from the wood, which is eaten like the sugar-cane. There is one kind of tree the wood of which alone is eaten after the rind has been ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... experiment with the small twigs of the chokecherry, which being stripped of their leaves and cut into pieces about two inches long were boiled in pure water, till they produced a strong black decoction of an astringent bitter taste; a pint of this he took at sunset, and repeated the dose an hour afterwards. By ten o'clock he was perfectly relieved from pain, a gentle perspiration ensued, his fever abated and in the morning he was quite recovered. One of the men ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... conduct them to the camp, which I very soon did, even though it was dark, the track being very plain. We collected a great many nondas to-day and baked some of them with our bread, which was the only way we could eat them cooked; they were much better fresh from the trees, but we found them rather astringent. Spring, our best kangaroo dog, was unable to come up to the camp this day, being overpowered by the heat of the sun, a circumstance we all regretted, as he was ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... 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 ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... De Feb. Malig. sect. iii. chap. 26. Dr. Huxham, in his Essay on Fevers, has the following very judicious Remark on the Use of Wine: "In this View, and in those above-mentioned, I cannot but recommend a generous red Wine as a most noble, natural sub-astringent Cordial, and perhaps Art can scarce supply a better. Of this I am confident, that sometimes at the State, and more frequently in the Decline of putrid Malignant Fevers, it is of the highest Service, especially when acidulated ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... on the rocks, which yields, on infusion in hot water, a sweet astringent taste, whence it derives its name: to its virtues the healthy state of the soldiery and convicts must be greatly ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... should be dusted over with very fine powder of gum sandarach, and then replaced. Astringent fomentations; as an infusion of oak-bark, or a slight solution of alum. Horizontal rest ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... expect; but as the little canoe careered wildly down the slope from one lake to the next with, in the beginning, many a scrape on the rocks of the river bed, my nervous system contracted steadily till, at the foot where we slipped out into smooth water again, it felt as if dipped into an astringent. ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior) |
