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smelling salts

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ar·o·mat·ic am·mo·ni·a spir·it

a hydroalcoholic solution containing approximately 2% ammonia, 4% ammonium carbonate, and the aromatics lemon oil, lavender oil, and myristica oil. Used mainly by inhalation to produce reflex stimulation in people who have fainted or are at risk of syncope.
Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

smelling salts

(smĕl′ĭng)
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
Any of various preparations of ammonium carbonate and perfume, sniffed as a restorative or stimulant especially to relieve faintness and headache.
The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
"Smelling salts had to be used to bring the boys around."
It seems the first image showed a piece of graffiti in the background containing a word which may have some of our readers reaching for the smelling salts.
The double-Oscar winner had the fashion press reaching for the smelling salts when she dared to bare her hairy armpits on the red carpet earlier this week.
IT WAS difficult to suppress a chuckle on realising that many green activists will have been reaching for the smelling salts after hearing that Denmark is giving the cold shoulder to onshore wind farms.
The sight of the new season's fixture list on Thursday would have had been like a blast of smelling salts to even the most despondent Falkirk fan.
"Someone pass the smelling salts," the voice of DOI, Tony Gubba, said after Ray's Latin performance.
In the opening scene of the former, a mother, stunned to learn her son had secretly married, cried out for smelling salts just before keeling over in a dead faint.
Dear Editor, Will someone get me a large bottle of smelling salts? After seeing Mr Brown inviting the most socially divisive prime minister of the 20th Century, Margaret "I know better" Thatcher, to No 10 - and then saying that she recognised the need for major change is an even grosser insult to ordinary decent Labour supporter than anything Mr Blair said (Post, Sept 14).
In other words, city planning is regarded as the opportunity to create desirable conditions, not the occasion for passing the smelling salts.
They were revived with smelling salts - but Grant offered to buy one boy a McDonald's to let him do it again.
The reason for the flood of complaints, the national shock and the trolley dash on smelling salts, is that Helen Skelton presented the show in a short skirt.
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