Having thus put the spirit of acorns to such a severe test, and that in a case that I already knew so well, in which it was impossible to make a mistake as to the primary affection, I went further, and used it by degrees in all sorts of spleen affections, and that not only in painful ones, but in painless ones, in the evident ones, and in those of a more problematical kind. Gradually I became convinced that it is a remedy, the place of which no other can take. More particularly is it of great, nay, of inestimable value in spleen-dropsy. Later on, I found that the volatile curative principle of acorns may be still better extracted with water with the addition of alcohol. [The _aqua glandium_ is thus prepared:--One pound of peeled and crushed acorns to the pound of distillate.] Perhaps water alone might extract the healing principle, but it would not keep thus, and so the cures would be uncertain, not to mention the fact that such-like decaying medicines are a great trouble to the chemists. The dose of the spirituous acorn-water (the only preparation I have used of late years) is half a tablespoonful in water four times a day. It has not much taste; some would even say it has none, but the doubter may make a solution of alcohol and water in the same proportions, and he will soon find that it has quite a taste of its own. I must make mention of two of its peculiar effects. Certain people feel, as soon as they have taken it, a peculiar sensation in the head, lasting hardly a minute or two, which they say is like being drunk. With a few people, particularly with those who have suffered from old spleen engorgements, diarrhoea sets in after using it for two or three weeks that makes them feel better. It seldom lasts more than a day, and is not weakening, but moderate. Hence it is not needful either to stop the acorn water or to lessen the dose. I could add many instructive cases of spleen-dropsies and other spleen affections in which the volatile principle of acorns proved curative, but as I have so much more to say on other subjects I dare not be too discursive on this one point; besides, what I have already said will suffice for common-sense physicians. Still I cannot forbear noticing a few bagatelles. For instance, I have found that the acute spleen fevers that occur intercurrently with epidemic liver fevers are best cured with _aqua glandium_--at least that is my experience. Furthermore, I am of opinion that the three _splenics_ of which I have made mention are curative of three different morbid states of the spleen, and I know well from my own experience that acorns are indicated in the most common spleen affections; and, finally, I am not acquainted with any positive signs whereby those three separate morbid states of spleen can with certainty be differentiated from one another. (In a later work, _Gout and its Cure_, by Burnett, the remedy is again brought up as follows:)