MEK

MEK. He assures us, from his own experience, that it will always succeed, if proper attention be paid to it. He is of opinion, however, that all countries are not equally proper for the preparation of this saccharine matter: and indeed this seems very evidently to be the case, as the process appears to be a crystallization of the saccharine parts of the milk, and a separation of them from the aqueous ones by means of extreme cold. The country in which he made the experiments is one of the most elevated in all Asia; and so cold, that, though it lies only in the 50th degree of north latitude, its rivers are frozen up for six months of the year. A very dry cold wind also prevails throughout almost the whole year; and the dry winds generally come from the north, being almost always preceded by a warm wind from the south, which blows for some time. The dry rarefied air increases the evaporation from the ice cakes, and leaves nothing but the saccharine or pure confluent parts of the milk, which with the addition of water can always recompense the fluid. Milk, in the wine trade. The coopers know very well the use of skimmed milk, which makes an innocent and efficacious forcing for the fining down of all white wines, arracks, and small spirits; but is by no means to be used for red wines, because it discharges their colour. Thus, if a few quarts of well skimmed milk be put into a hoghead of red wine, it will soon precipitate the greater part of the colour, and leave the whole nearly white: and this is of known use in the turning of red wines, when pricked, into white; in which a small degree of acidity is not so much perceived. Milk is, from this quality of discharging colour from wines, of use also to the wine coopers, for the whitening of wines that have acquired a brown colour from the cask, or from having been hastily boiled before fermenting; for the addition of a little skimmed milk, in these cases, precipitates the brown colour, and leaves the wines almost limpid, or of what they call a water whiteness, which is much coveted abroad in wines as well as in brandies. Milk of Lime; Milk of Sulphur. The name of milk is given to substances very different from milk properly so called, and which resemble milk only in colour. Such is water in which quicklime has been slaked, which acquires a whiteness from the small particles of the lime being suspended in it, and has hence been called the milk of lime. Such also is the solution of liver of sulphur, when an acid is mixed with it, by which white particles of sulphur are made to float in the liquor. Milk of Vegetables. For the same reason that milk of animals may be considered as a true animal emulsion, the emulsive liquors of vegetables may be called vegetable milks. Accordingly emulsions made with almonds are commonly called milk of almonds. But besides this vegetable milk, which is in some measure artificial, many plants and trees contain naturally a large quantity of emulsive or milky juices. Such are lettuce, spruce, fig tree, and the tree which furnishes the elastic American resin. The milky juices obtained from all these vegetables derive their whiteness from an oily matter, mixed and undissolved in a watery or mucilaginous liquor. Most resinous gums were originally such milky juices, which afterwards become solid by the evaporation of their more fluid and volatile parts. Milk-Fever. See MEDICINE Index. Milk-Hedge, the English name of a shrub growing on the coast of Coromandel, where it is used for hedging. The whole shrub grows very bushy, with numerous erect branches, which are composed of cylindrical joints as thick as a tobacco pipe, of a green colour, and from three to six inches long: the joints are thicker than the other parts, but always give way first on any accidental violence offered to the plant. When broken it yields a milk of an excessively caustic quality, which blisters any part of the skin it touches. When the joints are broken off at each end, the tube then contains but very little milk. In this state Mr Ives ventured to touch it with his tongue, and found it a little sweet. In the hedges it is seldom very woody; but when it is, the wood is very solid, and the bark gray and cracked. This plant, he informs us, has acquired great reputation in curing the venereal disease, on the following account: A poor Portuguese woman, the eldest female of her family, had wrought surprising cures in the most inveterate venereal disorders, even such as the European physicians had pronounced incurable. These facts became so notorious, that the servants of the Company, and especially their surgeons, were induced to offer her a very considerable premium for a discovery of the medicine; but she always refused to comply, giving for a reason, that while it remained a secret, it was a certain provision for the maintenance of the family in the present as well as in future generations. On account of this denial the English surgeons were sometimes at the pains to have her motions without doors carefully watched; and as they were not able to discover that she ever gathered of any other plant or tree but this, they conjectured that the milk of this tree was the specific employed. Mr Ives inquired at the black doctors concerning the virtues of this plant; who all agreed, that it will cure the lues venerea, but differed as to the manner of administering it; some saying that a joint of it should be eaten every morning; others that the milk only should be dropped upon sugar; and then put into milk, oil, &c. and given daily to the patient. Milky Way. See ASTRONOMY Index.