Akademik

Ptisan. A diluent drink which makes a great figure in the dietetic precepts of the ancients. Ptisan strictly signifies an extract, and was originally applied to barley which was boiled till it began to swell, then was dried in the sun, bruised, cleared of the husks, and again bruised. A decoction was made of this prepared barley, and used as a drink in severish disorders. Other drinks of a similar kind were called ptisans, though not made of barley; and Horace tells his rich miser that he requires a ptisan of rice, ptisanarium oryzæ. The term is not much used by medical men in this country. In France it seems to be a general name for diluent drinks.