Definition of "tar-water" []

• A cold infusion of tar, formerly a favorite remedy for many chronic affections, especially of the lungs. (noun)
• The tarry ammoniacal water obtained in the process of gas-manufacture. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "While Baillie's own medical knowledge may question the legitimacy of phrenology as science, her satire of it in The Match may, like Berkeley's tar-water, function metaphorically as utopianism."
• "Bishop George Berkeley, for example, in his 1744 utopian treatise, Siris, delineates his vision of a world cured of imperfections by tar-water."
• "Like tar-water and phrenology, enthusiasm or mesmerism here functions as feminist utopian thought by offering what Sargisson call alternative “unruly thinking” (Contemporary 128) seeking to unsettle “scientific” paradigms."