American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science Part 37

Many directions will be given that will save from purchasing poisonous milk, meats, beers, and other medicated drinks. Directions for detecting poisonous ingredients in articles for preserving the hair, and in cosmetics for the complexion, which now are ruining health, eyesight, and comfort all over the nation, will also be given.

Particular attention will be given to modes of preparing and preserving clothing, at once economical, healthful, and in good taste.

A large portion of the book will be devoted to instruction, in the various ways in which women may _earn an independent livelihood_, especially in employments that can be pursued in sunlight and the open air.

Should any who read this work wish for more minute directions in regard to ventilation of a house already built, or one projected, they can obtain his aid by addressing Lewis Leeds, No. 110 Broadway, New York City. His a.s.sociate, Mr. Herman Kreitler, who prepared the architectural plans in this work relating to Mr. Leeds's system, can be addressed at the same place.

CATHARINE E. BEECHER.

NEW YORK, June 1, 1869.

APPENDIX.

GLOSSARY OF SUCH WORDS AND PHRASES AS MAY NOT EASILY BE UNDERSTOOD BY THE YOUNG READER

[Many words not contained in this GLOSSARY will be found explained in the body of the work, in the places where they first occur.]

_Action brought by the Commonwealth:_ A prosecution conducted in the name of the public, or by the authority of the State.

_Alb.u.men:_ Nouris.h.i.+ng matter stored up between the undeveloped germ and its protecting wrappings in the seed of many plants. It is the flowery part of grain, the oily part of poppy seeds, the fleshy part in cocoa- nuts, etc.

_Alcoholic:_ Made of or containing alcohol, an inflammable liquid which is the basis of ardent spirits.

_Alkali,_ (plural, _alkalies:_) A chemical substance, which has the property of combining with and neutralizing the properties of acids, producing salts by the combination. Alkalies change most of the vegetable blues and purples to green, red to purple, and yellow to brown. _Caustic alkali:_ An alkali deprived of all impurities, being thereby rendered more caustic and violent in its operation. This term is usually applied to pure potash. _Fixed alkali:_ An alkali that emits no characteristic smell, and can not be volatilized or evaporated without great difficulty. Potash and soda are called the fixed alkalies. Soda is also called a _fossil_ or _mineral alkali,_ and potash the _vegetable alkali. Volatile alkali:_ An elastic, transparent, colorless, and consequently an invisible gas, known by the name of ammonia or ammoniacal gas. The odor of spirits of hartshorn is caused by this gas.

_Anglo-American:_ English-American, relating to Americans descended from English ancestors.

_Anther:_ That part of the stamen of a flower which contains the pollen or farina, a sort of mealy powder or dust, which is necessary to the production of the flower.

_Anthracite:_ One of the must valuable kinds of mineral coal, containing no bitumen. It is very abundant in the United States.

_Aperient:_ Opening.

_Archaology:_ A discourse or treatise on antiquities.

_Arrow-root_: A white powder, obtained from the fecula or starch, of several species of tuberous plants in the East and West Indies, Bermuda, and other places. That from Bermuda is most highly esteemed. It is used as an article for the table, in the form of puddings, and also as a highly nutritive, easily digested, and agreeable food for invalids. It derives its name from having been originally used by the Indians as a remedy for the poison of their arrows, by mas.h.i.+ng and applying it to the wound.

_Articulating process_: The protuberance or projecting part of a bone, by which it is so joined to another bone as to enable the two to move upon each other.

_Asceticism_: The state of an ascetic or hermit, who flies from society and lives in retirement, or who practices a greater degree of mortification and austerity than others do, or who inflicts extraordinary severities upon himself.

_Astral lamp_: A lamp, the principle of which was invented by Benjamin Thompson, (a native of Ma.s.sachusetts, and afterward Count Rumford,) in which the oil is contained in a large horizontal ring, having at the centre a burner which communicates with the ring by tubes. The ring is placed a little below the level of the flame, and from its large surface affords a supply of oil for many hours.

_Astute_: Shrewd.

_Auricles_: (From a Latin word, signifying the ear,) the name given to two appendages of the heart, from their fancied resemblance to the ear.

_Baglivi, (George)_: An eminent physician, who was born at Ragusa, in 1668, and was educated at Naples and Paris. Pope Clement XIV., on the ground of his great merit, appointed him, while a very young man, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the College of Sapienza, at Rome.

He wrote several works, and did much to promote the cause of medical science. He died A.D. 1706.

_Ba.s.s_, or ba.s.s-wood: A large forest-tree of America, sometimes called the lime-tree. The wood is white and soft, and the bark is sometimes used for bandages.

_Bell, Sir Charles_: A celebrated surgeon, who was born in Edinburgh, in the year 1778. He commenced his career in London, in 1806, as a lecturer on Anatomy and Surgery. In 1830, he received the honors of knighthood, and in 1836 was appointed Professor of Surgery in the College of Edinburgh. He died near Worcester, in England, April 29th, 1842. His writings are very numerous and have been, much celebrated. Among the most important of these, to general readers, are his _Ill.u.s.trations of Paley's Natural Theology_, and his treatise on _The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as evincing Design_.

_Bergamot_: A fruit which was originally produced by ingrafting a branch of a citron or lemon-tree upon the stock of a peculiar kind of pear, called the bergamot pear.

_Biased_: Cut diagonally from one corner to another of a square or rectangular piece of cloth.

_Bias pieces_: Triangular pieces cut as above mentioned.

_Bituminous_: Containing _bitumen_, which is an inflammable mineral substance, resembling tar or pitch in its properties and uses. Among different bituminous substances, the names _naphtha_ and _petrolium_ have been given to those which are fluid, _maltha_, to that which has the consistence of pitch, and _asphaltum_ to that which is solid.

_Blight_: A disease in plants by which they are blasted, or prevented from producing fruit.

_Blonde lace_: Lace made of silk.

_Blood heat_: The temperature which the blood is always found to maintain, or ninety-eight degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer.

_Blue vitriol_: Sulphate of copper.

_Blunts_: Needles of a short and thick shape, distinguished from _Sharps_, which are long and slender.

_Booking_: A kind of thin carpeting or coa.r.s.e baize.

_Botany_: (From a Greek word signifying an herb,) a knowledge of plants; the science which treats of plants.

_Brazil wood_: The central part or heart of a large tree which grows in Brazil, called the _Caesalpinia echinata_. It produces very lively and beautiful red tints, but they are not permanent.

_Bronze_: A metallic composition, consisting of copper and tin.

_Brulure_: A French term, denoting a burning or scalding; a blasting of plants.

_Brussels_, (carpet:) A kind of carpeting, so called from the city of Brussels, in Europe. Its basis is composed of a warp and woof of strong linen threads, with the warp of which are intermixed about five times the quant.i.ty of woolen threads of different colors.

_Bulb_: A root with a round body, like the onion, turnip, or hyacinth.

_Bulbous_: Having a bulb.

_Byron, (George Gordon,) Lord_: A celebrated poet, who was born in London, January 23d, 1788, and died in Missolonghi, in Greece, April 18th, 1824.

_Calisthenics_: From two Greek words--_kalos_, beauty, and _sthenos_, strength, being the union of both.

_Camwood_: A dyewood, procured from a leguminous (or pod-bearing) tree, growing on the western coast of Africa, and called _Baphianitida_.