Salve for mine, smeared into a dressing (8)
I believe the answer is:
liniment
'salve' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'mine smeared into a dressing' is the wordplay.
'smeared' indicates an anagram.
'into' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'a dressing' becomes 'lint' (I've seen this in other clues**).
'mine' with letters rearranged gives 'imen'.
'imen' going within 'lint' is 'LINIMENT'.
'for' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for liniment that I've seen before include "Medicinal liquid for the muscles" , "application" , "Lotion" , "Embrocation" , "Liquid for rubbing into skin" .)