GELATINA, JELLY, a form of food, or medicine, prepared from the juices of ripe fruits, boiled to proper consistence with sugar, or of the strong decoctions of the horns, bones, or extremities of animals boiled to such a degree as to be stiff and firm when cold,
without the addition of sugar.
The jellies of fruits are cooling, saponaceous, and acescent; and therefore are good as medicines in all disorders of the primæ viæ arising from alkalesecent juices, especially when not given alone, but diluted with water. On the contrary, the jellies made from animal-substances are all alkalesecent, and are therefore good in all cases where an acidity of the humours prevails: the alkalesecent quality of these, however, is in a great measure taken off by adding lemon-juice and sugar to them. There were formerly a kind of jellies much in use, called compound jellies; these had the restorative medicinal drugs added to them, but they are now scarce ever heard off.