Tincture of madness
The tincture of madness was a preparation Strange concocted during his attempt to summon the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Realising that the gentleman had been readily visible to George III whilst his Majesty's mind was disordered, Strange concluded that to contact a fairy he needed to induce a state of unreason in himself. To do this he required an intimate possession of a person genuinely mad - he chose Mrs Delgado - which he could in some way absorb. He eventually took a dead mouse which Mrs Delgado had been intending to have for her supper [53].
Finding that the ingestion of the mouse was both unpleasant and overwhelming in its effects, inducing too sweeping a state of madness, Strange reduced the flesh and guts to powder and dissolved the powder in brandy to produce a tincture . (He reserved the bones for another purpose, using them as a corrective to undo the state of madness.) He then experimented with decreasing doses of the tincture to discover how much or how little he needed to take to induce the necessary shift in perception.
Despite the difficulties and inconveniences of conducting his affairs whilst in the grip of madness Strange continued to use the tincture for some time before he eventually surrendered it to Flora Greysteel, who feared the effect it was having upon him and persuaded him against its use. She destroyed the tincture by throwing it into the sea [60].