The "Peter Piper" of our young memories took pickled pepper by the peck. He must have been a Homoeopathic prover with a vengeance; but has left no useful record of his experiments--the more's the pity--for our guidance when prescribing its diluted forms. CARAWAY. The common Caraway is a herb of the umbelliferous order found growing on many waste places in England, though not a true native of Great Britain. Its well-known aromatic seeds should be always at hand in the cupboard of every British housewife. The plant got its name from inhabiting Caria, a province of Asia Minor. It is now cultivated for commerce in Kent and Essex; and the essential oil distilled from the home grown fruit is preferred in this country. The medicinal properties of the Caraway are cordial and comforting to [82] the stomach in colic and in flatulent indigestion; for which troubles a dose of from two to four drops of the essential oil of Caraway may be given on a lump of sugar, or in a teaspoonful of hot water. For earache, in some districts the country people pound up the crumb of a loaf hot from the oven, together with a handful of bruised Caraway seeds; then wetting the whole with some spirit, they apply it to the affected part. The plant has been long naturalised in England, and was known here in Shakespeare's time, who mentions it in the second part of _Henry IV_. thus: "Come, cousin Silence! we will eat a pippin of last year's graffing, with a dish of Caraways; and then to bed!" The seeds grow numerously in the small flat flowers placed thickly together on each floral plateau, or umbel, and are best known to us in seed cake, and in Caraway comfits. They are really the dried fruit, and possess, when rubbed in a mortar, a warm aromatic taste, with a fragrant spicy smell. Caraway comfits consist of these fruits encrusted with white sugar; but why the wife of a comfit maker should be given to swearing, as Shakespeare avers, it is not easy to see. The young roots of Caraway plants may be sent to table like parsnips; they warm and stimulate a cold languid stomach. These mixed with milk and made into bread, formed the _chara_ of Julius Caesar, eaten by the soldiers of Valerius. Chemically the volatile oil obtained from Caraway seeds consists of "carvol," and a hydro-carbon, "carvene," which is a sort of "camphor." Dioscorides long ago advised the oil for pale-faced girls; and modern ladies have not disregarded the counsel. From six pounds of the unbruised seeds, four ounces of the pure essential oil can be expressed. In Germany the peasants flavour their cheese, soups, and household [83] bread--jager--with the Caraway; and this is not a modern custom, for an old Latin author says: _Semina carui satis communiter adhibentur ad condiendum panem; et rustica nostrates estant jusculum e pane, seminibus carui, et cerevisa coctum_.