SC - Strawberries, Distillation

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
>Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 22:29:52 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: Re: SC - Strawberries
>
>At 4:01 PM -0600 6/18/97, Jamey R. Lathrop wrote:
>
>>	"Conradus Gesner reporteth, he knew a woman that was cured of the
>>pimples on her face, onely by washing it with Strawberrie-water:  and yet
>>it was very homely and rudely distilled, betwixt two platters, and not in
>>a limbeck."
>
>Now that is interesting. I strongly suspect it is the same low tech
>distillation method described in the _Ain I Akbari_--and some modern living
>in the wilderness book I read.
>
>Take a reasonably convex bowl and a flatter bowl. Put your liquid in the
>former. Put a rock in the middle. On the rock put a cup. Cover the convex
>bowl with the flatter bowl, also with the convex side down. Fill the
>flatter bowl with cold water.
>
> Heat the liquid. The vapors condense on the bottom of the flatter bowl,
>run down to its low point at the middle, and drip off into the cup sitting
>below it on the rock in the middle of the convex bowl. Voila--distillation
>without a still.
>>
>David/Cariadoc
>

Now here's an example of what is seemingly a crackpot medieval recipe for a
home cure that has a sound basis in fact.

But first, my credentials: Once upon a time I was a beautician (I even
studied at the Vidal Sasson Insitute in London). That was BG (before
Gilbert), but I can still cut hair with the best of 'em. My speciality was
facials. You'd never know it to look at me, in my Humble Librarian guise,
but it's true.

Now, why do strawberries make good acne medecine? They're slightly
astringent. Distilled stawberry juice is thus more astringent. Ditto for
cucumbers and geranium.

You never know what's going to pop up as a topic on this list, do you?


Aoife