Ground linseed (linseed meal or flaxseed meal) should be recently
prepared and free from unpleasant or rancid odor. It is a grayish-yellow
powder containing brownish fragments.
ACTION AND USES.--It is nutrient, tonic, laxative, emollient and
demulcent. Linseed meal and the cake are valuable foodstuffs in small
quantities. It is two and one-half times as fattening as starch or
sugar. It causes the hair of an animal to become slick and glossy and
induces shedding in the spring, but is very heating in summer. Linseed
gruel is a food, being palatable and easily digested, for horses, cattle
and sheep, not only good in health, but in debilitating diseases, also
in chronic skin diseases. It acts in such cases both as food and
medicine. In febrile diseases horses will often sip or drink cold
linseed tea (linseed meal two ounces to one pint of water) when they
will not touch anything else. When a patient is exhausted the linseed
tea is given with milk, eggs and whisky. Horses that are poor feeders,
having harsh scurvy skins, or being affected with roaring, thick wind or
heaves, are usually much benefited with linseed in some form. A
mucilaginous demulcent in the proportion of about one to two ounces to a
pint of warm water, is useful in irritable conditions of the throat,
alimentary canal, kidneys and bladder.
For linseed poultices, take the best grade of linseed meal, pour hot
water over it until it becomes pasty. Charcoal and antiseptics are often
mixed with it. When used as a poultice on the foot in nail pricks,
always put on a poultice that will cover the whole foot.