Take a large handful of lavender blossoms, and the same quantity
of sage, mint, rue, wormwood and rosemary. Chop and mix them well.
Put them into a jar, with half an ounce of camphor that has been
dissolved in a little alcohol, and pour in three quarts of strong
clear vinegar. Keep the jar for two or three weeks in the hot sun,
and at night plunge it into a box of heated sand. Afterwards
strain and bottle the liquid, putting into each bottle a clove of
garlic sliced. To have it very clear, after it has been bottled
for a week, you should pour it off carefully from the sediment,
and filter it through blotting paper. Then wash the bottles, and
return the vinegar to them. It should be kept very tightly corked.
It is used for sprinkling about in sick-rooms; and also in close
damp oppressive weather. Inhaling the odour from a small bottle
will frequently prevent faintness in a crowd.
It is best to make it in June.
This vinegar is so called from an old tradition, that during the
prevalence of the plague in London the composition was invented by
four thieves, who found it a preservative from contagion; and were
by that means enabled to remain in the city and exercise their
profession to great advantage, after most of the inhabitants had
fled.