^ fit, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/b24923436_0003 MEDICAL BOTANY: OR, ILLUSTRATIONS AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THE jttrtiutnal lllanta OF THE LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN PHARMACOPOEIAS ; COMPRISING A POPULAR AND SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNT OF ALL THOSE POISONOUS VEGETABLES THAT ARE INDIGENOUS TO GREAT BRITAIN. BY JOHN STEPHENSON, M.D. F.L.S. GRADUATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH; AND JAMES MORSS CHURCHILL, F.L.S. MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, AND FELLOW OF THE MEDICO-BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. VOL. III. LONDON: JOHN CHURCHILL, CARLTON STREET, WATERLOO PLACE. MDCCCXXXI. GLASGOW UNIVERSITY U S R A R Y. LONDONs JfcOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. L 1ST O F P L AXES IN’ VOL. III. Aloe Socotrina Plate. . 110 vulgaris . 109 Allium sativum . Ill Anchusa tinctoria . 122 Anethum graveolens . 137 Anthemis Pyrethrum 97 Arnica montana . 123 Centaurea Benedicta ■ 128 Cochlearia Armoracia . 114 Crocus sativus . 101 Cucumis Colocynthis . 138 Curcuma Zedoaria . 107 Diosma crenata . 121 Ergot of Rye . 113 Erythrsea Centaurium . 118 Fucus Helminthocortos vesiculosus 5 . 108 Gentiana lutea . 132 Glycyrrhiza glabra . 134 Plate Laurus Cinnamomum . 127 nobilis . 125 - — Sassafras . . 126 Marrubium vulgare . 135 Matonia Cardamomum . 106 Myristica moscbata . . 104 Myroxylon peruiferum . 102 Myrtus Pimenta . 124 Origanum vulgare . 131 Pastinaca Opopanax 98 Pistacia Terebinthus . . 129 Lentiscus . . 130 Polygala Senega . . 103 Prunus Lauro-cerasus . 117 Pyrus Cydonia . 115 Rhamnus catharticus . . 119 Rosa canina . . 100 gallica 99 Rumex Hydrola path urn . . 133 Salix Russeliiana . . 139 Secale cereale . . 113 Solid ago Virgaurea . 105 Sty rax Benzoin . 112 Tanacetum vulgare . 116 Triticum hybernum . 113 Ulmus campestris . 120 Veratrum album . 136 Vitis vinifera . 140 Zingiber officinale 96 . IV96 Weddeli^JccU XCVI ZINGIBER OFFICINALE. Narrow-leaved Ginger . Class I. Monandria. — Order I. Mgnogynia. Nat. Ord. Scitamine.se, Lin. Brown. Cann^, Juss. Gen. Char. Anther 2-lobed. Filament elongated be- yond the anther with an awl-shaped, channelled beak, embracing the style. Outer limb of the corolla ringent ; inner a 3-lobed lip. Spec. Char. Bracteas ovate-lanceolate, acute. Seg- ments of the outer limb of the corolla linear, revolute. Middle lobe of the lip entire. Nectary 3-lobed. Syn. — Zingiber, Browne’s Jain. 119 ; Sloane’s Jam. 1. p. 163. Zingiber majus, Rumph. Amboin. v. 5. 156. t. 66. f. 1. Ischi, Reede Hort. Malab. v. 11. 21. t. 12. Amomum Zingiber, Lin. Sp. PL 1 ; tVilld. v. 1. 6; Jacq. Hort. Vind. v . 1. 31. t. 75; Roscoe in Lin. Soc. Trans, v. 8. p. 347. Foreign. — Gingembre, Fr.; Zcnzero, It. ; Ingwer, Ger. The Ginger plant is a native of the East Indies, and of various parts of Asia, but is now extensively cultivated in the warmer parts of America, and in the West India Islands, from whence it is chiefly imported into Europe. It is a stove plant in Eng- land, flowering in September, and is said to have been raised here by Edward Lord Zouch, before the year 1605. The root is perennial, tuberous, fleshy, of a compressed round- ish form, covered with an ash-coloured bark, and sending off many stout fibres. The whole herb is smooth, and partakes of the hot, gratefully aromatic flavour of the root. The barren stems are several, upright, annual, herbaceous, wand-like, round, leafy, and about three feet high. The leaves are alternate, linear- lanceolate, acute, entire, single-ribbed, spreading, with long, close, sheathing, abrupt foot-stalks. The ftoiver-stalks are radical, a foot high, and clothed with tubular sheathing bracteas. The VOL. II. x spikes are solitary, erect, club-shaped, enveloped in broader, shorter, less pointed, crowded bracteas, each accompanied by a solitary, sessile flower, twice its own length, of a delicate texture, and short duration. The corolla is monopetalous, tubular, and cut into three unequal acute segments : the outer limb of a very pale yellow, or straw-colour, revolute ; the upper segment rather the broadest, having the lip spotted with crimson. There is only one filament, which is extended beyond the anther ; and has an awl-shaped, channelled beak, embracing the style. The germen is inferior, roundish ; style thread-shaped, embraced by the filament, and scarcely extending beyond its beak : stigma small, projecting a little beyond the beak. The capsule is smooth, containing many seeds. Fig. ( a ) represents the outer bractea; ( b ) the inner bractea and flower; (c) the anther and style ; ( d ) the lip. The Greek name for ginger, 'Eiyyi/Sep, is evidently derived from Zungebeel, its Persian appellation; and as it is indigenous at Gingi in China, it is supposed to have obtained its English name from that place. It is a native of many eastern countries, but is no where to be found, says Ainslie, of a finer quality than on the coast of Mala- bar. It is the ischi of the Hort. Malab. (11. p. 21. t. 12.), and the zingiber majus of Humphius (Herbarium Amboinense, pars 5. p. 156. t. 66. f. 1.) This plant was introduced into New Spain, by Francisco de Mendoza ; from whence it was carried to the West India Islands, where it grows so plentifully, particularly in Jamaica, even in a wild state, as to induce a belief that it was indigenous to the soil. Since its introduction into Jamaica, it has become an article of considerable export; for which purpose it is generally cul- tivated. It is calculated that about one million pounds of it are annually consumed in Europe. Ginger was known in England in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, as Gerarde says, “ Our men which sacked Domingo in the Indies digged vp ginger there in sundry places wilde.,, He adds, “ Ginger groweth in Spaine, in the Canarie Islands, and the Azores. It is most impatent of these our northern regions, as GLASGOW UMVERSfTY myself have found by proofs ; for that there haue been brought vnto me at seuerall times, sundry plants thereof, fresh, greene, and full of iuice, as well as from the West Indies, as from Bar- barie, and other places ; which haue sprouted and budded foorth greene leaues in my garden in the heate of somer ; but as soon as it hath bin but touched with the first sharp blast of winter, it hath presently perished, both blade and roote.” It appears to have been known in London about the year 1566-7, and was evidently introduced by the Dutch ; as Gerarde states that about thirty years or more, before he published his account, (1597,) “ an honest and expert apothecarie William Dries, to satisfie my desire, sent me from Antwerpe to London, the picture of ginger, because I was not ignorant that there hjhd been oft ginger rootes brought green, new, and full of iuice, from the Indies to Antwerpe : and further, that the same had budded and grown in the said Dries’ garden.” When the stalks are wholly withered, the roots are fit to take up, which is generally in January or February. Being picked and cleaned, they are gradually scalded in boiling water : after this they are spread, and exposed to the sun, till the whole is sufficiently cured ; they are then divided into parcels of about one hundred weight each, and put into bags for the market : this is called black ginger. The white is never scalded, but every root is picked, washed, and scraped separately, and then dried in the sun and air. To preserve this root in syrup, it is dug when the shoots do not exceed five or six inches in height. Being picked and washed, they are scalded till tender : then put into cold water, and scraped and peeled gradually : this operation may last three or four days, during which time the roots are kept in water, con- stantly renewed. They are then put into jars, and covered with a thin syrup, which after two or three days is shifted, and a richer put on : this is sometimes again removed, and even a fourth put on ; but it seldom requires more than three syrups. The shifted syrups are diluted, and fomented into a pleasant liquor, called cool drink. Ginger should be chosen in large roots, new, not easily broken, of a light brownish green colour, and of a hot, pungent, aromatic x 2 taste. That which is small, dark coloured, soft, or very fibrous, should be rejected. It is sometimes imported green from the East Indies. In freight, 16 cwt. of dry, and 20 cwt. of green ginger, are allowed to a ton. Qualities. — The active matter of this root is yielded to alco- hol, and in a great measure to water. It affords, by distillation, a small quantity of essential oil, upon which the flavour of ginger depends; while its pungency appears to reside in a resino- extractive matter, united with a great quantity of starch, which constitutes the chief bulk of this valuable condiment. Medical Properties and Uses.— -This root, which is stimulant and carminative, is principally employed as an adjunct to other remedies ; to augment their efficacy, or to obviate their griping effects : and is often administered, in substance or in infusion, for flatulent colic, tympanities, and some forms of dys- pepsia. It also acts as a sialogue, when chewed : toothache is therefore sometimes relieved by it, and by some it is recom- mended in relaxations of the uvula, and tonsils, and in paralysis of the muscles of the tongue and fauces. We are informed by Dr. Ainslie, that Europeans in India, of delicate constitutions, frequently use an infusion of ginger in place of common tea, and the natives eat it freely in salads. Dose. — From ten grains, to a scruple, in powder. Off. Prep. — Acidum Sulphuricum aromaticum. E. Confectio Opii. L. — - Scammonii. L. D. Infusum Sennas. L. Pilula Aloes. D. Pilula Scillae comp. L. Pulvis Cinnamomi comp. L. E. D. Scammonii comp. L. D. ■ Sennse comp. L. Spiritus iEtheris aromaticus. L. Syrupus Rhammi. L. Zingiberis. L. E. D . Tinctura Cinnamomi comp. L. Rhei comp. L . Zingiberis. L. D. Vinum Aloes. L. E. D. Sinclair's Code of Health, vol. i. p. 233. XCVIi ANTHEMIS PYRETHRUM. Spanish Chamomile , or Pellitory of Spain . Spec. Char. Stems simple, I-flowered, decumbent; leaves bipinnated, segments linear, pointed. Syn. — Pyrethrum officinarum, Ger. Em. 758. 1 ; Park. 858. n. 2. 859. f 2. Pyrethrumflorebellidis, Bauh. Pin. 148 ; Rail Hist. 353. Chamaemelum specioso flore, radice longa fervida, Shaw , Afric. 138. Anthemis Pyrethrum, Lin. Sp. PI. 1262; Willd. v. 3. 2174; Woodv. v.2, t. 104 ; Curt . Bot. Mag. v. 13. t. 462. Foreign. — Pyrethre, Fr. ; Piretro, It.; Anthemis pelitri, S p. ; Bertram Wurtzel Zahn Wurtzel , Ger. ; Akkaracarum, Tam. ; Akurkurha} Arab. Pellitory of Spain is a perennial plant, a native of the Levant, Syria, Arabia, Barbary, and the south of Europe. It has long been celebrated as a medicinal agent ; and merits a place in our collections, on account of the beauty both of the foliage and flowers : it is a very rare plant in this country, notwith- standing it was cultivated here, by Lobel, as long since as 1570. Parkinson, it appears, grew it ; as he observes, that the roots of the cultivated plants were much larger than those of the wild one : he tells us also, that it was too tender to endure our winters ; and to the latter cause, as well as to the difficulty of propagating it, for it does not ripen its seeds in this country, its present scarcity has been attributed. The root is long, tapering, about the thickness of a finger, which runs down a foot or more into the ground, with a brownish cuticle, and sending off several small fibres. From the root pro- ceed several procumbent stems, about a foot in height, round, hairy, commonly unifloral, and seldom branching. The leaves are doubly pinnate, with narrow linear segments, of a pale green colour. The flowers appear in June and July; they are large, terminal, solitary, with the florets of the disc yellow, and those of the radius white on the upper side, and of a purplish colour underneath. The florets resemble those of Anthemis nobilis ; in the centre, or disc, are hermaphrodite, those of the circumfe- rence, margin or radius, are female, that is, have no stamens, nor male organs. Fig (a) and ( b ) represents a front and back view of a floret of the radius ; ( c ) a floret of the disc ; ( d ) the style ; ( e ) the stamens. Qualities. — The dried root has no smell. On being chewed, the taste, which is acid, is not immediately perceived, but it quickly raises a glowing heat, and a plentiful secretion of saliva. “ The heat produced by Pyrethrum is joined with a kind of vi- bration, as when a flame is brandished with a lamp furnace . . . Being chewed, it makes a sensible impression on the lips, which continues (like the flame of a coal betwixt in and out) for nine or ten minutes ; but the heat in other parts much longer.* This heat is by no means so painful as that which the arum, capsi- cum, and some other plants produce. Alibert says, " Par la distillation, cette racine fournit une huile butyracee tres acri- monieuse and it is on this oil, which is deposited in vesicles on the bark, that its pungency depends. It is completely ex- tracted by alcohol and sulphuric ether. Medical Properties and XJses.— This root is a power- ful stimulant; and if applied in its recent state to the skin, it produces inflammation and vesication, like Mezereon. J Dios- corides commended it for tooth-ache, for which it is still be- neficially employed by us ; and by him and the Arabian phy- sicians it was prescribed for rigors. The Persians and Moguls consider it to be discutient and attenuant; and the Vytians prescribe an infusion of it, in con- junction with other medicines, as a cordial and stimulant in lethargic cases, in palsy, and in certain stages of typhus fever. In consequence of the immense flow of saliva that it is capable of producing, “ inflammations and congestions of the neighbouring parts are relieved. Hence it has been found useful, when chewed, in some kind of head-ache, apoplexy, chronic ophthal- mia, and rheumatic affection of the face, and, by its direct stimu- lus. in paralysis of the tongue and muscles of the throat.” # Grew, of tastes. X Bergius. XCVIII PASTINACA OPOPONAX. Opoponax , or Rough Parsnip . Class\ . Pentandria. —Order IL Digynia. Xflf. Ord. Umbellate, jLz/z. Umbellifera:, Juss. Gen. Char. Fruit elliptical, compressed, nearly flat, with 3 dorsal ribs, and 2 marginal ones. Petals en- tire, involute, equal. Calyx very minute, obsolete. Flowers regular, uniform, fertile. Spec. Char. Leaves bipinnate ; leaflets unequal at the base ; scabrous on both sides. Syn. — Panax Costinum, vel P. pastinacae folio, Bauh. Pin. 156. Panax Heracleum majus, Ger. Em. 1003. Panax Heracleum, Moris, v. 3. 315. sect. 9. t. 17./ 1 . Panax Chironium, Dalech. Hist. 741. Panax peregrinum, Dod. Pempt. 309. Costus, Matth. Valgr. v. 1. 48. Pseudocostus, Camer. Epit. 28 ; Dalech. Hist. 758. Sphondylio, vel potius Pastinacae Germanicae aflinis Panax, sive Pseudo • Costus flore luteo, Bauh. Hist. v. 3 ,p. 2. 156. Pastinaca Opoponax, Lin. Sp. PL 376; Willd. x. 1. 1466; Woodv. t . 113; FI. Grcec. Sibth. v. 3. t. 288. IIoAuKap7iw, i) api rekovu, hodie. This is a hardy, umbelliferous exotic, -a native of the Levant, Turkey, Arabia, Sicily, and the south of Europe ; which has long held a distinguished place in the Materia Medica, as afford- ing the gum-resin, called Opoponax. The plant withstands our winters, in the southern counties well ; flowering in June and July ; but it is only in the warmer regions of the east that the juice concretes into the appearance which it presents to us, when imported from Turkey and India. It grows abundantly in Achaia, Boeotia, and Phocis in Macedonia; hence it is figured in Sibthorp’s Flora Grseca, v. 3. t. 285. The root is perennial, branched, as thick as the human arm, fleshy, tapering, of a yellowish colour, tubercled, and covered with a corky bark. The stem rises six or seven feet in height, the thickness of a man’s finger, round, leafy, striated, and sca- riose at the base, with numerous angular, smooth, shining, hairy branches, towards the summit. The leaves are very large, pe- tioled, veiny, rough on both sides, with the petioles sheathing, more or less hairy, and acutely serrated ; those of the root simple, cordate, and crenated : the stem-leaves are pinnate, composed of many pairs of oblong, serrated, veined leaflets, with the terminal leaflet cordate, and very large. Both the involucres and invo- lucels consist of from four to six very small linear leaflets, which are sometimes altogether wanting. The flowers are numerous, small, of a greenish-yellow colour, and produced in erect, terminal flat umbels ; on very smooth stalks, and are com- posed of several rays, with opposite linear, oblong, sub-entire, smooth bracteas, under each general umbel. The flowers are all uniform, and generally prolific ; calyx very minute ; petals five, involute, entire, equal ; stamens thread-shaped, spreading, with roundish anthers ; germen roundish ; style short, erect ; fruit elliptical, roundish, compressed, striated, almost flat, with three dorsal ribs, and a thin smooth border ; seeds of the same form. Fig. (a) represents a flower magnified. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Opoponax, which is obtained by wounding the roots of the plant, is of a tolerably firm texture, usually in small grains, but sometimes in large masses, formed by a number of grains, connected with a matter of the same kind. The masses are generally loaded with foreign substances, and are much inferior to the pure loose drops. The finest is in grain from the size of a pin’s head, to that of a large pea. The internal colour of these grains is a pale yellow, frequently mixed with white, and externally they incline to a red, or orange colour. They are moderately heavy, of a some- what fat or unctuous appearence, smooth on the surface, of an acrid bitter taste, and a strong disagreeable sfliell Opoponax should be chosen in clear pieces, with the before-mentioned qua- lities. Such tears as are black, and too hard, should be rejected. The masses, or cakes, are usually of the black colour, and full of sticks and straws. Freight, 16 cwt. to a ton. With wTater it forms a milky solution, and about one-half of it dissolves. Al- cohol acts but feebly. When dissolved with water or alcohol, these liquids acquire its flavour, but no oil separates. # Its spe- cific gravity is 1 *622.f When distilled, it yields a brown oil, and acetic acid, in which a bituminous oil swims : the residual charcoal weighs of the Opoponax distilled. When incinerated, it left of its weight of ashes, composed of Carbonate of lime 18 Silica ... .... 2 Carbonate Sulphate > of potash . . . .15 Muriate j 35 According to the analysis of Pelletier, to whom we are in- debted for the preceding distillation, Opoponax is composed of the following constituents :■ — Resin ........ 42*0 Gum 33*4 Wood 9-8 Starch 4*2 Malic acid . 2*8 Extractive 1*6 Caoutchouc Trace Wax 0*3 Volatile oil, and loss .... 5*9 100*0$ Medical Properties. — This plant, which, according to Dierbach, is the Ilr/joa/cXetov of Hippocrates, was held in high * Neumann's Chem. p. 316. J Ann. de Chim, Ixix. 99. f Brisson. repute by the ancients, especially by Celsus, who administered it in affections of the spleen and in struma but although, ac- cording to Virey,"f* it is considered by the continental physicians as “ bon discussif, resolutif, chasse les vents, attenue dans Pasthme et les obstructions,” it is scarcely ever used in England It has, however, been regarded as antispasmodic and emmena- gogue, and has been given for hysteria and chlorosis, in doses of from five grains, to half a drachm, but might, we consider, be expunged from our materia medica, as an article of little medical value. * Lib. v. cap. xviii. f Hist. Nat. des Med. p. 220. The Editors deem it necessary to state, that they did not see the Plate of Pastinaca Opoponax, till it was too late to correct the lettering. TUM. Tub TyTMturJuZZZdcesie}' Stjf^ua'&ver vecQyXea tt oiyv, A (i)rov 0’ epatjerra, tde KpoKov, yd’ vdmvOuv HvKvdv Kal paXaKov' bq aVo j^dovoq vxpoa eepye’ T (o evi Xe£d(Tdev,e7rl de vetyeXyv eaaavro K aXyv, yjpvaeiy v* q^Xirval d’ direTUTCTOV eepaai. Iliad, Lib. xiv. 346. from whence it has been inferred, that exhilarating properties were ascribed to it even in his days. Lindestolpe suspects that it was the veTrevdyq, nepenthes, of Homer ; while other writers have affixed this appellation to the Inula Helenium and Borago. Our plant is the zaffaran or zahafaran of the Arabians, and was highly esteemed by the Hebrews, who called it carcom. It is the Crocus of the Latins, who named it after a beautiful youth, who was said to have been consumed by the impatience of his love for Smilax, but was, by Hercules his father, changed into this flower, while Smilax was metamorphosed into the plant called by his name, Smilax, or Bindweed. Ovid commemorates this fable “ Et crocum in parvos versum cum Smilax flores.” Virgil also speaks of the crocus as one of* the flowers upon which bees love to feed : — — "pascuntur et arbuta pastim, Et glaucas salices, casiamque, crocumque rubentem, Et pinguem tilium, et ferrugineos hyacinthos.” — Georg. 4. By the old Chemists saffron was called, from its golden colour, Aurum Philosophorum ; by others, Sanguis Herculis, Aurum Vegetabile, Rex Vegetabilium , and Panacea Vegetabilis. Its English name is evidently derived from its Arabian ; which is nearly the same in French, Dutch, and German. Culture. — As several botanists with whom we conversed were ignorant of the habits of this plant, and as it is imperfectly described in a work, which passes for an authority, we took the pains to obtain specimens from Samuel Fiske, Esq. of Saffron Walden, a gentleman who once cultivated it, and who is an ac- complished botanist. In his communication, for which we are greatly indebted, he says, “ The bulbs of the Crocus sativus are planted in July, in a rich light mould, with some well rotted manure, in rows six inches apart, and three inches distant from each other in the rows. “ About the 18th of September, the leaves, or grass as it is called, begin to appear in small pencil-like tufts, and during, and after the period of flowering, keep growing, and gradually cover the whole bed, continuing green all the winter, until May, when they die away, and the bed is bare all the next summer. “ The flowers begin to spring up about the 3rd of October, with a stem about an inch above the ground ; they continue daily coming up for three or four weeks, six, eight, or more rising in succession from one plant. They are gathered every morning during the time of flowering, and the stigmata or chives, with part of the style plucked out for use, the rest of the flower being thrown away. “ The saffron, thus procured, is either dried in a room, in the sun, on papers, or made into cakes by a moderate heat and pressure, “ At the end of three years, when the leaf is entirely dead, the bulbs are taken up and cleaned, and the largest set by for plant- ing again. ** The increase in the bulbs is very great, but being of no use except for replanting, what are not wanted for that purpose are thrown away ; and as the produce of the saffron does not repay the expences, it is now entirely out of cultivation here as an article of commerce.” Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Saffron has a powerful, penetrating, diffusive odour, and a warm, pungent, bitterish taste. It gives out the whole of its virtues and colour to rectified spirit, proof spirit, wine, vinegar, and water, and in a smaller degree to ether ; about three parts in four of the saffron being taken up by each of these menstrua, and the matter which remains undissolved is inodorous, insipid, and of a pale clay colour. The acetous, and even vinous tinctures of saffron, on long keeping, lose a little of their colour and strength ; but those made with rectified spirit remain good for years. In distillation it impregnates water strongly with its flavour. If the quantity of saffron be large, a small portion of a fragrant and very pun- gent oil may be collected, amounting, as Vogel says, to about 1J drachm from 16 ounces. Rectified spirit also elevates a consi- derable share of its flavour, but much the greater part is concen- trated in the extract. The watery infusion, which has the deep orange-red colour of the saffron, is rendered of a very deep purple by strong sulphuric acid, the mixture emitting the smell of vinegar, and yielding a copious black precipitate when diluted by water : the oxymuriatic acid produces a copious yellow pre- cipitate, the liquid only retaining a pale lemon colour. Hence it may be inferred that saffron contains chiefly extractive, which, according to Hernbstaedt, is nearly pure, and in proportion of 10 parts in 16 of the vegetable, the remainder being chiefly ligneous fibre. It contains also a small portion of resin. According to an analysis by M. M. Vogel and Bouillon La- grange (Ann. de Chim. xxx. 3S8,) Saffron is composed of a substance termed, Polychroite, . . . . . 6 . 50 Odorous Volatile Oil, ( ) . Wax, .... 0 . 50 Gum, ...... 6 . 50 Albumen, ..... 0 . , 50 Salts of lime, potass, and magnesia, 10 . Water, 10 Vegetable debris , .... 10 Polychroite is in the form of powder, of an intensely yellow colour. It attracts moisture from the atmosphere ; is very solu- ble in water and alcohol ; somewhat soluble in sulphuric ether ; insoluble in the oils. It is combined with a fixed oil, which may be separated by the action of alkalies. It has a bitter, pungent taste, and a strong, fragrant odour. It is obtained from the stigmas of the crocus, by evaporating a watery infusion to the consistence of honey, which is digested in alcohol ; filter the solution and evaporate to dryness. The dried mass is the Poly- chroite in a pure state. Adulterations. — Even in the time of Pliny, saffron was adulterated : and the best way of trying it, says he, is to lay the hand on it, when, if good, it will be heard to crack or snap : from which we presume the saffron was a dry sort. He further states, that after handling it, if the hand be put into the mouth, it will cause a stinging sensation in the face and eyes if it be good; and on being chewed, stains the spittle and teeth. It is still often adulterated with the petals of Carthamus tinctorius and Calendula officinalis ; by expanding the suspected article in hot water, the petals of the fraudulent additions will be readily found. Medical Properties and Uses.— “ The writers on ma- teria medica,” says Dr. Cullen, “ have constantly spoken of it as a very active medicine ; but their reports of its effects are in some instances manifestly extravagant, though repeated by Boerhaave himself ; and very frequent experiments in practice do not at all support the opinions that have been commonly entertained of it. I have given it in large doses, without its showing any sensible effects; hardly in any degree increasing the frequency of the pulse ; and as anodyne or antispasmodic, I have hardly observed its operation.” Schroder asserts, that if taken to the quantity of two or three drachms it proves fatal ; and by several authors we are informed, that in large doses it produced cephalalgia, intoxication, and mania. It is also said to be plentifully absorbed and to tinge the various textures of the body. From direct experiments, however, made by Dr. Alexander, saffron evidently possesses but little active power over the great majority of mankind, when given even in very large doses; and Dr. H. Cullen administered it in the quan- tity of half an ounce a day, in several hysterical cases, without any sensible effect. It has often been accused of producing great hilarity, which is again contradicted by Bergius, whose words are, “Nobilis matrona semper in tristitiam illapsa est ingentem, postquam pulveres crocatos ei proprinaveram.” Saffron is now discarded from practice as a medical agent; but still enters into the composition of several officinal prepara- tions, to impart an odorous flavour and its rich colouring matter.* Off. Prep. — Confectio aromatica. L. D. Decoctum Aloes comp. L. Pilula Aloes c. myrrha. L. Syrupus Croci. L. Tinctura Aloes comp. L. — Aloes. D. Cinchonse comp. L Croci-sativi. E. — - Bhaei. L. - — Rheei comp. L. * American Soothing Syrup. — This vile nostrum, which is puffed off in the newspapers “ as a real blessing to mothers,” is nothing more than syrup of saffron, with a portion of nitrate of potass or saltpetre, and laudanum ! JllOZ CII MYROXYLON PERUIFERUM. Sweet-smelling Balsam-tree of Peru. Class X. Decandria.— Ort/er I. Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Lomentacee, Lin. Leguminose, Juss. Gen.Chahi. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothecL Petals five, the upper one larger than the others. Germen stalked, longer than the corolla. Legume with one seed only, at the point. Spec. Char. Leaflets pointed, emarginate. Claw of the larger petal twice the length of the calyx. Syn— Hoitziloxitl, Hernandez Nova Plant. y J. Ohurckm LeicesterSquai -6 . w^ddemmm eviii FUCUS YESICULOSUS. Bladder Fucus. Bladder-wrack . Class XXIV. Cryptogamia. Order III. Alga:. Nat. Ord. Alga:. Ess. Char. Seeds produced in clustered tubercles* which burst at their summits. Spec. Char. Frond coriaceous, flat, linear, dichoto- mous, entire, with a central rib ; vesicles innate in pairs, receptacles distinct, terminal, turgid, mostly elliptical. . Syn. — Fucus sive Alga marina latifolia vulgatissima, Rail Syn. p. 40. n. 4. Alga si ve fucus, Quercus marina dietus, Raster, Op. Subs. 2. p. 4. 116. t. \}.f.2. Quercus Marina, Gmel. Hist. Fuc. p. 60. Fucus vesiculosus, Lin. Sp. PI. v. 2. p. 1626; Eng. Bot. v. 15. t. 1066; Wither. Bot. Arr. v. 4. p. 84; Esper Icon. Fuc. 1. p. 33, t. 12; FI. Fr. cd. 2 da, 2. p. 18 ; Turner Hist. Fuc. v. 2. p. 44. t. 88 ; Hook. Scot. p. 95. 0. spiralis ; frond twisted in a spiral manner, vesicles none, receptacles roundish. F. spiralis, Lin. ; Eng. Bot. t. 1685. 7. volubilis; frond spirally twisted ; vesicles generally wanting ; apices long, ellip- tical. Raii Syn. 42. n. 6. 8. acutus; frond narrow, producing vesicles ; apices long, lanceolate. F. spiralis, Esp. «. angustifolius ; frond narrow; vesicles mostly wanting ; receptacles sub-pedun- culated, long, between linear and lanceolate, acuminated. F. longifructus , Fl. Fran. ed. 2 da, 2 p. 19. Sherardi ; frond narrow, dwarfish; vesicles none; receptacles short, oblong. F. Sherardi, Stackh. Ner. Brit. p. 72. t. 13. V- linearis; frond narrow, dwarfish; vesicles none ; receptacles long, between linear and lanceolate. F. Quercus Marina, Gmel. Hist. Fuc. p. 2. Under the term Fuel are comprehended a tribe of plants, com- monly included witli the Ulvae and marine Conferva, under the more general title of submerged Algae, or Thalassiophyta, and well known in this country by the popular name of Sea-weeds. In Scotland the name Wrack, (probably from the French varec,) is often applied to those fuci, which are cat on the shores for the manufacture of kelp. In the sexual system, the fuci form part of the third order Algse, of the last class Cryptogamia. The word fucus (Qokoq), which signifies paint, may be supposed to allude to the quality possessed by some of the small reddish species, of affording a sort of rouge. They are marine plants, either floating free in the water, and destitute of roots, or attached by a fibrous or scutate base. Their texture is fibrous, mostly coriaceous, sometimes gelatinous or membranaceous ; often branched or shrub-like, and traversed with a longitudinal nerve or midrib. They produce seeds or sporules, either immersed in the frond, or in capsules or tubercles, variously situated; and most of them are furnished with air vesicles. The economical uses of sea-weeds are numerous and important. To the agriculturist, they furnish a valuable manure. To the glass-maker and soap-boiler they yield the fixed alkali, and the manufacture of kelp for this purpose has become a valuable source of revenue to the proprietors of the rocky shores of Europe, particularly of Britain, and more especially of those of the Northern and Western Islands of Scotland. From the ashes of the fuci the chemist has of late years derived the very curious elementary substance named iodine . Several of them are so rich in saccharine matter and vegetable mucilage, that on the shores of the northern countries of Europe, and the Scottish islands, much of the winter provender of cattle is derived from them. A few of them also afford food to man ; some of the smaller sorts are used as condiments ; while others are employed as medicines. The Fucus vesiculosus is a perennial plant, growing everywhere on the British shores, on rocks and stones, or cast up on the beach ; bearing its fructification in the spring. The root is an expanded, black, woody, callous disc. The frond is smooth and glossy, flat, winged, from one to four feet long, and from half an inch to an inch and a half wide, linear, forked near the root, and afterwards repeatedly dichotomous, of a dark olive-green colour, becoming paler near the apices, and when dry black and dull. All the branches are nearly of equal height, with the apices rounded, and not unfrequently notched; the margins entire. The substance of the frond is coriaceous, flexible and tough, but brittle after it is dried ; and through its whole length furnished with a midrib of a blackish colour, and as thick as a goose-quill, but gradually growing pale and thin. In the membranous part of the frond throughout its whole length are found immersed spherical vesicles, varying in size from a pea to a hazel-nut, externally smooth, and containing in their cavity a quantity of air. Besides these, particularly in the spring, almost always near the apices, are often observable elliptical swellings of a pale yellowish green colour, an inch or two in length, and sometimes occupying the midrib, so that the whole becomes inflated and nearly cylindrical. The fructification consists of compressed, turgid receptacles, solitary or twin, placed at the ends of the branches, varying in form, but mostly elliptical, from one-fourth of an inch to two inches long, and perforated with very minute pores, under which lie imbedded spherical tubercles, composed of short jointed fibres, mixed with seeds of an elliptical form, surrounded with a pellucid limbus, and appearing under a power- ful microscope to contain six or seven roundish grains : the centre of the receptacle is filled with a colourless and tasteless mucus, through which passes a network of anastomosing fibres. The varieties a. /3. y. and 8. are found upon the shores of the British isles, and of all the north of Europe, plentifully. — Fig. ( a ) part of the outside of a receptacle magnified ; ( b ) horizontal section of a receptacle ; (c) tubercle ; (d) seeds ; (e) contents of a seed ; (/) some of the same ; (g) longitudinal section of a vesicle. In Scotland this is sometimes called Black Tang ; sometimes Kelp-ware , and when the receptacles are large and swollen. Strawberry-ware. The Norwegians call it Kue-tang. It is the Quercus Marina or Sea Oak of the older writers. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — The most im- portant uses to which Fucus vesiculosus is applied is in the maufac- ture of Kelp , which is a very impure carbonate of soda, containing sulphate and muriate of soda, and also sulphuret of soda, with a portion of charcoal ; and is manufactured in Scotland chiefly in the months of July and August. The kiln in which it is made is a round pit or basin dug in the sand or earth on the beach, and surrounded with a few loose stones. In the morning a fire is kindled in the pit, generally by means of peat or turf. This fire is generally fed with sea-weed, in such a state of dryness that it will merely bum. In the course of eight or ten hours the furnace is found to be nearly full of melted matter. Iron rakes are then drawn rapidly backward and forward through the mass in the furnace in order to compact it, or bring it into an equal state of fusion. It is then allowed to cool, when it is broken into pieces, and carried into a storehouse, to remain till shipped. The fuci which are chiefly used on our shores are the Fucus vesiculosus, nodosus, and serratus. In some places, F. loreus and filum are employed, but not to any extent. By means of a boat and long sharp hooks, F. digiiatus is cut in some places, and this species, together with F. saccharinus, hulbosus , and esculentits , form much of the drift-ware employed in making kelp. Some of them are no doubt richer than others in the alkali, but when fit for burning they are all capable of yielding about one-fifth of their weight in kelp. Iodine , as already hinted, is also yielded by kelp. Its name being derived from twch?c, violaceus, in allusion to the very striking circumstance of its yielding a violet-coloured gas on being ex- posed to an increase of temperature. It was first discovered accidentally by M. Courtois, a manufacturer of nitre in Paris, and its properties have been since accurately examined by Clement and Desormes, Gay Lussac, Sir H. Davy, Vauquelin, and Wollaston. The latter was the first who gave a regular formula for extracting it ; he dissolved the soluble part of kelp in water, and after evaporating it as long as it continued to afford crystals, he added a little more sulphuric acid to the re- maining liquid than was necessary to neutralize the free soda which it contained, and after all action had ceased, he added as much black oxide of manganese to the clear liquor which re- mained, and on the application of heat, iodine was disengaged. The soap manufacturers obtain their principal supply of soda from kelp ; and Dr. Ure found, that a very large quantity of iodine may be obtained from the brown oily liquid which remains after most of the soda has been abstracted from the kelp-ley. A basin is filled about one-half with this liquid, after it has been heated to 230, and for every eight ounces about one ounce of sulphuric acid is added, previously diluted with its own bulk of water; a violent effervescence immediately ensues; sulphur is deposited, while sulphureted hydrogen, sulphurous, carbonic, and muriatic acids are disengaged ; and on cooling, crystals are deposited, consisting principally of the sulphate of soda. The liquid is filtered, put into a glass retort, and to every twelve ounces, one thousand grains of the black oxide of manganese are to be added; heat is now to be applied, and the iodine rises in a rich purple vapour, which condenses in crystalline plates. It is collected by adapting a receiver to the retort, from which it is easily withdrawn by a little water. Iodine then is a solid substance of a bluish-black colour and metallic lustre. It is soft and friable, and is obtained generally in the form of small scales, sometimes in rhomboidal plates, and even in elongated octohedrons ; it does not conduct electricity. It has a pungent odour, an acrid taste, and stains the skin of a deep brownish-yellow colour ; when taken in considerable quan- tity, it acts as a strong poison. It evaporates at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere, melts at 227, and is sublimed at 350. When mixed with water it passes to the gaseous state along with its vapour at a boiling temperature. It is soluble in alcohol and ether, but sparingly so in water; its solutions have an orange-brown tint, destroying the vegetable colours. Starch is the most delicate test of iodine, forming a compound of a very rich blue colour, when added to any solution which contains it in an uncombined state. In its general properties it bears a great analogy to chlorine, and like it, is always attracted to the positive pole of the galvanic battery, when disengaged from its combinations with the metals or other inflammable bodies. The specific gravity of iodine is 4.941, and that of its vapour 8.678, 100 cubic inches weighing about 270 grains. Iodine is considered by the most eminent chemists to be a simple body. It forms with oxygen the iodic acid , and with chlo- rine the chloriodic acid. lodates are prepared either by the direct addition of iodic acid to salifiable bases, or by the action of iodine on these substances in water. Thus the iodate of potash isjpK tained by pouring a solution of potash on a fixed quantityof iodine, till it loses colour. Now part of the water is decomposed ; its hydrogen combines with one portion of iodine, and forms hy- driodic acid, while oxygen at the same time unites with another portion, and forms iodic acid ; these two acids combine with the potash, and we thus obtain a mixed solution of iodate and hydrio- date of potash. This solution is then evaporated to dryness and digested in alcohol, which dissolves the hydriodate , and leaves the iodate , which is insoluble in alcohol. The supernatant liquor being poured off and evaporated, the hydriodate is obtained, and is very soluble in water. Medical Properties and Economical Uses.— The F. vesiculosus is well known as an excellent manure for land, to which purpose it is often applied in the maritime parts of Scotland and other countries. In the islands of Jura and Skye it serves as a winter food for cattle, which regularly come down to the shores at the recess of the tides to seek for it. Linneus informs us that the inhabitants of Gothland boil it in water, and mixing a little coarse meal or flour, feed their hogs with it ; for which reason they call the plant swine-tang. And in Scania, he says, the poor people cover their cottages with it, and sometimes use it for fuel. Its medical virtues have been much celebrated by Dr. Russell in his Dissertation concerning the uses of Sea-water in the Diseases of the Glands. He found the saponaceous liquor or mucus in the vesicles of the plant to be an excellent resolvent, and useful in dispersing scrofulous swellings. He recommends the patient to rub the tumour with these vesicles bruised in the hand, and after- wards to wash the part with sea-water. But the most beneficial use to which the F. vesiculosus is applied is in making kelp, already mentioned : a work much practised in the Western Islands. Dr. Coindet, of Geneva, suspecting from analogy that iodine was the active principle in sponge, was induced to try it in those cases for which burnt sponge was administered, and his success in the treatment of bronchocele was very remark- able. It has been used by many practitioners both on the con- tipent and in our own country, with undiminished reputation. Success is most commonly to be expected in recent cases, and ^S|n the patient is young ; several instances have, however, oc- curred, in which old, hard, and very large goitres have yielded to this remedy; but in such instances as the course of treatment is protracted, it may have injurious effects on the stomach; to obviate which it has been the object to introduce the remedy by means of friction; and a case is recorded by Mr. Rickwood, where a patient was cured at the age of seventy years. Iodine has been likewise employed in the treatment of scrofula with equal suc- cess; and in the hands of M.M. Hufeland and Osan, the efficacy of the tincture of iodine, and hydriodate of potass have been fully proved ; they have also employed the same preparations with ad- vantage in scirrhus and cancer of the uterus. Dr. Wagner speaks of its beneficial influence on a tumour situated in the neighbour- hood of the jaw, which he considered cancerous; and Dr. Han- nemann is satisfied that iodine exerted a remarkable influence on cancer of the uterus in the most advanced stage. There seems to be no reason for doubting that this new remedy exerts a very marked influence over scrofulous and adventitious deposits. We have therefore numerous and well attested cases of its successful employment in an immense number of diseases, such as white-swelling, deafness, paralysis, distortion of the spine, &c. Professor Maunoir states, that a child laboured under a consi- derable white swelling of the knee, and could not walk without crutches. The usual modes of treatment proving unavailing, the tumour was rubbed night and morning with iodine ointment, while the tincture was given internally in small doses. After a few weeks a perfect cure took place. If iodine be taken in doses too large, or be not properly watched as to its effects, it is apt to produce inflammation of the stomach, attended by nausea, incessant vomiting, and general emaciation; while the testes and mammse diminish in a remark* able manner. These facts, however important to be known, do not in the least militate against the judicious employment of a remedy, that should be viewed as a valuable boon, by every scientific physician; for we have the names of Dr. Gardner, Dr* De Carro, Dr. Roots, Dr. Baron, Mr. Austin, and many other emi- nent names, who, closely watching its effects, in well-regulated doses, consider it as a remedy easily to be managed ; and in our own practice, we continually employ it with perfect satisfaction, not only as a safe, but very efficacious agent. vol. hi. g Dr. Baron has employed it with some success in the treatment of scrofulous phthisis, and other tuberculous affections ; and the late Mr. Haden also reports a case of phthisis supposed to have been cured by iodine. Cases are also recorded of its success in ovarian dropsy. Dr. Coindet praises it as a powerful emena- gogue ; an opinion which has been confirmed by Professor Brera and other physicians. In fact, that gentleman has employed the remedy very extensively. Besides bronchocele, and suppressions of the catamenia, which have been cured by it, he mentions several cases of indurated glands, tabes mesenterica, chronic dysentery, and heemoptbe, supervening to suppressed menstrua- tion ; laryngeal phthisis, leucorrhcea, syphilitic enlargements, &c. as having been also cured by it. Mr. Callaway, surgeon to Guy’s Hospital, confirms its success in scrofulous cases and in enlarged mesenteric glands. M. Magendie informs us that he gave iodine in a case represented to him to be suppressed cata- menia, and at the end of three weeks abortion was the result ! It will be seen from this account, that the value of iodine as a remedial agent in a vast variety of important diseases, does not rest on the testimony of one or two individuals only ; but that its employment is established through the concurrent testimonies of many eminent men in different countries ; and we have chosen rather to bring together many facts, than to speculate on its mode of action, or to -recommend it for particular diseases. It must be borne in mind that it is a new remedy , and although we can administer it with precision in many cases, and with the greatest confidence as to its results, we should view it still as an agent, which has powerful claims to our attention rather as a novel remedy, than as one of which we have ascertained the limits of its applicability. The following are the most useful preparations : — Tincture of Iodine. Take of, Alcohol at 35° 1 once.# Iodine ... 48 grains. — Mix. This tincture, says M. Magendie, is less frequently employed than the two following preparations. It is given in doses of from four to ten drops, three times a day, in a glass of sugared * An once is 7 drachms, 52^ grains, Troy weight. water, or infusion of liquorice ; the doses may be gradually aug- mented to twenty drops. loDURETTED SULPHURIC ETHER. Take of. Sulphuric ether 1 gros.# Pure iodine . 6 grains. — Dissolve. Thirty drops contain one grain of iodine, and the patient can scarcely bear more than ten drops at a time. Solution of Hydriodate of Potass. Take of, Hydriodate of Potass 36 grains. Distilled water . . 1 once. — Dissolve. These two preparations, whose mode of exhibition is the same as that of the tincture of iodine, are employed, as well as it, in the treatment of bronchocele and scrophula ; in the latter case some tonic is generally combined. M. Magendie states, that the solution of the hydriodate of potass may be gradually increased to three gros a day, without unpleasant consequences ; debili- tated and very nervous women have taken it in this quantity, for many weeks, without any derangement of function : with this dose two cases of cancer of the tongue recovered in the space of a fortnight, in the incurable wards of L’Hospice de la Salt- petriere. Ointment of Hydriodate of Potass. Take of, Hydriodate of potass | gros. Spermaceti ointment once.— Mix. A small piece of this ointment may be used night and morning, in the way of friction upon enlarged glands. At the end of a week it may be increased in quantity, according to the age of the patient and extent of the tumour. Sometimes, by these means, the complete resolution of tumours is effected, which could not be removed entirely by saline solutions. Occasionally it is necessary to apply leeches likewise to the indurated glands. There are some other preparations occasionally employed, such as the iodate of zinc, iodurets of mercury, &c. ; for accounts of which the curious reader may consult Houlton’s Translation of " Magendie’s Formulary.” * The gros is 59 grains. FUCUS HELMINTHOCORTOS.— Corsican Worm- moss. Spec. Char.— Fronds cartilaginous, cylindrical, capil- lary, growing in matted tufts, jointed, irregularly dichotomous ; apices acuminate. Capsules hemi- spherical, scattered, lateral, sessile. Syn. — Conferva Helminthocorton, Lin. Syst. Nat. Gmel. v. 2. p. 1394. Fucus Helminthocortos, ,{ Hcemmerten , Dis. cum icone ” teste Rothio FI. Fr. ed. 2 da ii. p. 37. Ceramium Helminthocortos, Roth. Cat. Bot. ii. p. 168. iii. jp. 157. This small species is found growing in the Mediterranean sea, on the coast of Corsica, attached to calcareous rocks and other marine bodies. The root is wholly composed of creeping fibres, variously branched and thickly interwoven. The fronds are very numerous, from the same base, clustered into compact, cushion-like tufts, some inches in width, an inch or an inch and half long, erect, straight, or slightly flexuose cylindrical, not thicker than hog’s bristles, once or twice irregularly dichoto- mous at short intervals, with erecto-patent segments of nearly equal height, all remarkably acuminated. The fructification consists, according to Dr. Roth, of small, hemispherical cap- sules, sessile upon the sides of the branches, solitary, generally few in number and remote from each other; when young com- posed of a very thin membrane, white and pellucid ; when old, their surface becomes unequal as if tubercled, and in the midst is discernible a small membranaceous pellucid vesicle : colour, light reddish-brown, semi-transparent, turning white if long kept in fresh water, and darker when dried : substance, cartilaginous, inclining to horny, tough, and flexible. On the plate (No. 108) we have given a tuft of F. Heminthocortos of the natural size. (a) A single frond magnified; ( h ) part of the same. Medical Properties and Uses. — This plant though al- most entirely unknown among the practitioners of this country, has long been celebrated on the continent, and is there in com- mon use as a vermifuge, under the name of the moss or the Corraline of Corsica. It has also been recommended as a remedy in cancer! CXIIf TRITICUM HYBERNUM. Winter , or Lammas Wheat . Class III. Triandria. — Order II. Digynia. Nat. Ord. Gramina. Gen. Char. Calyx of 2 transverse, opposite valves, solitary, many-flowered. Spec. Char. Calyx four-flowered, tumid, smooth, imbricated, with little or no awns. Syn. — Triticum spic& mutic&, Ger. Em. 65. f. 1 ; Park. Theatr. 1120. f. 1. Siligo spic& mutic&, Lob. Ic. 25. Triticum hybernum aristis carens, Bauh. Pin. 21; Mor. Hist . 3. t. 11. f. 1. Tourn. Inst. t. 29. Triticum vulgare, Host. Gram. Austr. v. 3. 18. t. 26. Triticum hybernum, Lin. Sp. PL 126; Willd. v. 1. 477 ; Errh. PI. Offic. n . 151 ; Ait. Kew. v. 2. ed. 2. p. 180. The native country of this valuable grain, which now constitutes the chief food of the inhabitants of this and other European nations, is entirely unknown. It has, however, been conjectured from the nature and habits of wheat, that it may have come origi- nally from the hilly parts of Asia, and has been rendered hardy by time and cultivation, in this, and most parts of the world. Under the equator, wheat will seldom form an ear below the elevation of 4,500 feet, or ripen above that of 10,800 ; and it will not vegetate beyond the 6 2Q of northern latitude. The English counties most distinguished for the quantity, as well as the qua- lity, of their wheat, are Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Rutland, Here- fordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire, and Hertfordshire. In the more northern parts of the island, this grain is of inferior qua- lity, being cold to the feel, dark coloured, and yielding compa- ratively little flour. In the best wheat counties, and in good years, the weight of a bushel, of wheat, eight gallons to the bushel, is said to be from sixty to sixty-two pounds. In the isle of Sheppy, in Kent (where, perhaps, the best samples of VOL. in, i wheat sent to the London market are produced,) this grain, in some favourable seasons, weighs sixty-four pounds the bushel. Where the climate is naturally colder, wetter, and more back- ward, or in bad seasons, the weight of the bushel of wheat is not more than fifty-six or fifty-seven pounds. The kinds of wheat cultivated by the farmer are numerous ; but the species here figured, is sown in autumn, stands the winter, and ripens its seed in the following summer. Of all the varieties this is the most generally cultivated in this country, as being the most suited to the nature and quality of the soil, and as affording the finest kind of flour. The soils best adapted to the growth of this grain are rich clays and heavy loams. The root consists of many downy fibres. The stems are jointed, from three to four feet high, straight, smooth, and ter- minated by a longish ear or spike. The leaves are linear, smooth, pale green, sheathing, and jointed. The spike is three or four inches long, inclining, and composed of numerous imbricate, oblong, ovate, 2-ranked spikelets ; the calyx consists of two concave, oblong, keeled, smooth, nearly equal valves ; the outer ones near the top generally terminated by very short awns, which distinguishes it from spring wheat (Triticum cestivum,) which has awns three inches long; they contain for the most part from three to four florets, three of which are usually productive ; the outer valve of the corolla is concave and pointed, the inner one flat, 2-toothed, and blunt ; the filaments are capillary, bearing linear, forked anthers : the german is turbinate, with a short style, and feathery stigmas. The seed or grain is ovate, translu- cent, with a narrow channel along the upper side, and enveloped in the corolla. — Fig. ( a ) represents a spicula of the T. hybernum of its natural size ; ( h ) the germen and calyx ; (c) a flower ex- panded and considerably magnified. # * A common indigenous perennial grass, belonging to the present genus, vul- garly denominated couch-grass, or creeping wheat-grass, (Triticum repens) formerly occupied a place in our Dispensatories, under the name of Gramen caninum. Its long creeping roots, which so greatly facilitate the propagation of this g.ass, to the no small inconvenience of the farmer, have a sweetish taste, and are said to be mildly aperient, deobstruent, and diuretic. The expressed juice taken in consi- derable quantities, and frequently repeated, is strongly recommended by Boerhaave, and also by Bergius, for its singular efficacy in removing obstructions, and scirrous affections of the liver. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Of all the varieties of wheat cultivated in this country, that which is known by the name of the White Dantzic is said to be the best, and yields a larger proportion of flour than any other. After the operation of grinding, the flour, or farinaceous matter, is separated from the bran by sifting or bolting. It is inodorous, and nearly insipid. Water, with which it has been macerated, becomes milky or turbid; according to Dr. Thomson, it affords precipitates with infusion of galls and the strong acids, and rapidly becomes sour. If wheat-flour be made into a paste, and washed in a large quantity of water, it is separated into three distinct substances ; a mucilaginous saccharine matter, which is readily dis- solved in the liquor, and may be separated from it by evaporation ; starch , which is suspended in the fluid, and subsides to the bottom by repose ; and gluten , which remains in the hand, and is tenacious, very ductile, somewhat elastic, and of a brown-grey colour. The first of these substances does not essentially differ from other saccharine mucilages. The second, namely, the starch, is particularly distin- guished by its insolubility in cold water, but forms a transparent and gelatinous mass with that fluid when hot. M. Vauquelin found, that the flour which is used in Paris, consists of 72.8 parts of starch, 10-2 of gluten, 10 of water, 2.8 of a gummy kind of matter, and 4.2 of a sweet substance* Flour, kneaded with water, forms a tough, indiges- tible paste; but when a small portion of leaven or yeast, is added to the mass, it undergoes the panary fermentation, and produces bread, a small quantity of salt being added to give it sapidity. During the process, a large quantity of carbonic acid is evolved, but remains con- fined by the mass, in which it is -expanded by the heat in baking, and thus raises the dough. This is the cause of the porosity or sponginess of well baked bread. u When flour has been long kept, it becomes musty, and undergoes the putrefactive fermentation, in which state the bread made with it is very unwholesome. Flour is fit for making bread only when all its constituents are entire ; and as gluten is the most susceptible of decomposition among them, the ascertaining its presence is a proof of the' goodness of the flour. M. Taddei has taught us that guiaic is a test of the presence of gluten, by striking with it a beautiful blue colour; flour, therefore, which exhibits this colour when rubbed with guiaic and a few drops of vinegar, may be pronounced good.* Bread purchased of the common baker is often unwholesome; it is generally highly fermented for the purpose of increasing its bulk ; and it is almost constantly too little baked, lest it should decrease in weight ; added to this, it is not always certain that the flour is free from pernicious adulteration. Mr. Accum, in his Treatise on Culinary Poisons, informs us, that the inferior kind of flour which the London bakers generally use for making loaves, requires the addition of alum to give them the white appearance of bread made from fine flour. The baker’s flour is very often made of the worst kinds of damaged foreign wheat, and other cereal grains, mixed with them in London Dispensatory, p. 540. grinding the wheat into flour. The smallest quantity of alum that can be employed with effect to produce a white, light, and porous bread from an inferior kind of flour, he states to be from three to four ounces to a sack of flour weighing 240 tfos. “ Another substance,” continues Mr. Accum, ‘‘employed by fraudulent bakers, is subcarbonate of am- monia. With this salt they realise the important consideration of producing light and porous bread from spoiled, or what is technically called sour flour . This salt, which becomes wholly converted into a gaseous substance during the operation of baking, causes the dough to swell up into air bubbles, which carry before them the stiff dough, and thus renders the dough porous ; the salt itself is at the same time totally volatilized during the operation of baking.” Potatoes are like- wise, and perhaps constantly used by fraudulent bakers, as a cheap ingredient, to enhance their profit; and there are instances of convic- tion on record, of bakers having used gypsum, chalk, and pipe-clay, in the manufacture of bread. Although the flour of wheat is better adapted for the purpose of making bread than any other kind of flour, there are many other fari- naceous vegetables, from the seeds or roots of which salutary and plea- sant bread can be prepared. Oaten bread is common, not only throughout Scotland, but likewise in Lancashire, and several of the northern counties of England. In many parts of the former country bread is frequently made of barley meal, and pease meal; but the latter is dry, heavy, and difficult of digestion. In times of scarcity many attempts have been made to compensate for the want of corn, by the substitution of other vegetable substances, in the fabrication of bread. For this purpose recourse has been had to the herb ragwort , the thick root of which, when dried and ground, yields a fine flour, which is said to be easily digested and more nutritive than wheaten bread. The same properties and effects are attributed to radishes. From the acorn also a kind of meal is produced, which is said to make excel- lent bread, provided a little barley meal be mingled with it, to coun- teract its astringent qualities. In the wars of Westphalia, bread of this description was commonly used; and when made with milk was extremely pleasant and nutritious. The slightest preparation is suffi- cient to remove the harsh and disagreeable taste which the acorn has in its natural state. Roasting or boiling is all that is requisite to render it palatable. The acorns that are best calculated for this purpose are those of the white oak. A very good bread may be made of turnips boiled, and mixed with an equal quantity in weight of coarse wheat flour. Millet is sometimes used for the same purpose; and rice is converted by the Americans into a light, wholesome, and pleasant bread. Potatoes, mixed in various quantities with flour, make a wholesome, nutritive, and agreeable bread. M. Parmentier recom- mends the mixture of potatoes, in time of scarcity, with the flour of wheat, in preference to rye, barley, or oats; when no grain can be procured, he recommends the use of bread made from a mixture of the amylaceous powder of potatoes and their pulp, fermented with leaven and honey. Parmentier made bread very much resembling that of wheat, by mixing four ounces of amylaceous powder of potatoes, one drachm of mucilage extracted from barley, one drachm of the bran of rye, and half a drachm of glutinous matter, dried and pow- dered. In the absence of any of the farinaceous vegetables which we have mentioned, various substitutes for bread have been employed in different parts of the world. By far the most valuable of these is the fruit of the Bread Tree, (Artocarpus incisa ,) which grows abun- dantly in the South Sea islands. The fruit is about the size of a child’s head, covered with a thick tough rind. When used instead of bread, it is roasted either whole, or cut into three or four pieces. In Iceland, Lapland, and other northern countries a kind of bread is made of dried fish, beaten first into powder, and then made up into cakes. In the lordship of Moscow, in upper Lusatia, a kind of white earth is found, of which the poor, in times of famine, have been compelled to make bread. Baron Humboldt informs us, that there are savages on the Oroonoko, who receive into the stomach large portions of pot- ters clay ; and in the western parts of Louisiana, the savage inhabit- ants are accustomed to eat great quantities of steatite, mixed with salt. Starch. Wheat contains a larger portion of starch than any other substance ; but it is also obtained from other vegetable substances, par- ticularly tuberose roots, in which it exists apparently in a state of me- chanical mixture. They are rasped or pounded, and diffused through a large quantity of cold water ; the fibrous parts are removed after they have been well washed, while the starch is mechanically suspended by the water and falls to the bottom. The potato contains about one- third of its weight of starch, and this is the substance from which it is usually prepared; but most vegetable substances yield more or less starch, when treated in the same manner as the potato-root. Arrow- root is merely a variety of starch, which is obtained by an analogous process from the root of the Maranta arundinacea , a plant which is cultivated to a great extent in the West Indies. Sago is prepared in the same manner from the pith of various species of palms, and ta- pioca and cassava , are obtained from the Iatropha manihot, a South American plant. The substance commonly called salep, is also another variety of starch and is prepared from the bulbs of the Orchis mascula. Starch is a white, insipid substance; insoluble in ether, alcohol, and cold water, but forms a jelly with hot water. Alcohol, infusion of galls, the acetate and nitrate of lead, and some other metalic salts, precipitate it from its watery solution. Both acids and alkalies com- bined with water dissolve it. The strong acids decompose it, espe- cially the sulphuric and nitric acids ; the latter converting it into malic and oxalic acids. If starch be digested in twice its weight of water, and 1 -50th part of sulphuric acid, renewing the water gradually as it is evaporated, and stirring it occasionally, it is almost entirely converted into sugar. When exposed to a moderate heat it begins to swell, and is gradually changed into a brownish substance, which is used in calico printing, and commonly called British gum. According to M. M. Gay Lussac and Thenard, 100 parts of starch consist of 49.68 parts of oxygen, 6.77 of hydrogen, and 43.55 of carbon. The most delicate test of .starch is iodine, which renders its solution in water, even when largely diluted, of a fine blue colour. Gluten. This is obtained, as already observed, by forming wheat- flour into a paste, and washing it repeatedly with cold water. It is a tough, elastic, fibrous substance of a greyish colour, and when dried semi-transparent, and much resembling glue. It has scarcely any taste, and bears a considerable affinity, both in its composition and properties, to the peculiar animal principle of the same name : it is dissolved by the acids and alkalies ; the strong acids, decomposing it at the same time. Signor Taddei, an Italian chemist, has lately ascertained that the gluten of wheat may be resolved into two distinct proximate prin- ciples, which he has distinguished by the names gliadine, (from y\ta, gluten,) and zimome( from tvjur), ferment.) They are obtained by knead- ing newly prepared gluten in successive portions of alcohol, until it is no longer rendered milky by the addition of water. The alcoholic so- lution being allowed to evaporate spontaneously, a small portion of gluten is at first deposited, and the gliadine remains behind of the consistence of honey, and mixed with a little yellow resinous matter, from which it may be freed by digestion in sulphuric ether. The por- tion of the gluten not dissolved by the alcohol is the zimome. Gluten appears to be one of the most nutritive of vegetable substances, and wheat seems to owe its superiority to all other grains from its contain- ing it in larger quantities. Medical Properties and Uses. — Medicinally, bread is employed to form emollient poultices; and is frequently the medium for those active medicines which are given in very minute proportions, in the form of pills. Toasted and infused in water it forms a grateful beve- rage for the parched mouth in fever ; and is, or should be, the com- mon drink of the dyspeptic. A solution of starch has been occasion- ally recommended as a demulcent for irritation of the fauces ; but is now commonly used for injections when the rectum has been irritated or abraded by the passage of bile, or any of the acrid poisons. Off. Prep.— Mucilago Amyli. L. E. D. Pulvis Tragacanthse Comp. SECALE CEREALE. — Cultivated Rye. — Plate 113. Gen. Char. Calyx of 2 valves, solitary, 2-flowered, on a toothed, elongated receptacle. Spec. Char. Glumes of the calyx bordered with minute parallel teeth. Syn . — Secale, Ger. Em. 68 ; Matth. Valgr. v. 364; Gamer. Epit, 190. Secale cereale, Lin. Sp. PL 124; Willd. n. 1. ; Pursh. v. 1. 90; Host. Gram. Austr. v. t. 28. Foreign.— Seigle, Fr. ; Segale, It.; Centeno , Sp. ; Roggen, Ger.; Rag, Swed.; Rog, Dut.; Roscli, Russ. To render our illustration of Medical Botany as complete as possible, we judge it indispensable to give an original figure of the present species, and the diseased rye or Ergot. Rye we need scarcely observe, is a culmiferous plant, much more generally cultivated in Britain in ancient than in modern times ; being only partially used in certain districts for making bread, or in the distillation of spirits. Its native country is un- known ; but Mr. Pursh says, it frequently occurs, apparently wild, in North America; flowering in June. The root is fibrous and annual ; the stem is jointed, slightly branched at the bottom, smooth ; the leaves linear, glaucous, rough towards the apex ; spike terminal, solitary, erect, three or four inches Jong ; glume containing two flowers, and consisting of two opposite, oblong, pointed valves, smaller than the corolla; florets sessile; corolla of two valves, the outermost ending in a long straight, rough awn, four or five times the length of the glumes; filaments three, hanging out of the flower, with oblong, forked anthers ; germen tarubinate ; styles two, reOexed ; stigmas cylindrical, feathery; seed solitary, oblong, somewhat cylindrical, naked. Poisonous Effects of Ergot. — Most of the knowledge, says Dr. John Thomson, which we at present possess respecting chronic or dry gangrene has been obtained from watching the progress of the disease produced by eating unsound rye. This disease has seldom or never been observed in England, but is en- demical in some districts in France, in which rye forms the principal food of the inhabitants. It occurs only, however, in those districts after very rainy or moist seasons ; seasons in which that grain is liable to be affected with the particular disease, well known in France by the name of ergot , or the cock- spur in rye. Few seasons pass without the rye containing more or less vi- tiated grain; but in those years it is produced in such quantities as to form nearly one-fourth of the whole produce. It is in those seasons in which the ergot is most abundant that the mortification makes its appearance, and it has from this circumstance been naturally inferred, that this disease in the rye was the cause of the mortification. The attention of the public was first called to this disease, in a particular manner, by M. Dodard, by a letter inserted in the Journal des Savans for the year 1676. In this letter he mentions, that it had been long known that those who made use of rye bread, containing much of this corrupted grain, were liable to be affected in their extremities by a gangrene, attended usually with but little fever, inflammation, or pain, but during which the use of the limb affected was destroyed, or the limb itself became dead, and separated from the body. The part affected became at first insensible and cold, and in the progress of the disorder, dry, hard, and withered. In very malignant cases M. Dodard mentions, that this mortification was attended with a greater or less degree of delirium. The account which this author gives of the symp- toms and progress of this disease is evidently imperfect, and the only fact stated in his relation, which seemed decidedly to prove that the mortification was owing to the use of corrupted rye was, that the grain proves fatal to fowls that are fed with it. M. Saviard mentions having seen this distemper in the year 1694, at the Hotel Dieu of Orleans, when he had to perform some ori- ginal operations. He contents himself with observing, that it is very frequent in Sologne ; that it attacks those who eat rye affected with the cock-spur ; and that the upper and lower extremities of the patients, whom he saw, grew during the progress of this affection, as dry as touchwood, and as emaciated as Egyptian mummies. In the year 17 10 several accounts of this disease were transmitted to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, by gentlemen practising physic and surgery in the districts in which it was known that season to have prevailed. In particular M. Noel, surgeon to the Hotel Dieu at Orleans, mentioned to the secretary, that about thirty people, men and children, affected with a dry, black, and livid gangrene had come that season into the hospital ; that this affection always began in the toes, and extended itself gradually along the foot and leg, till it sometimes rose to the upper part of the thigh ; and what is a singular observation, and one peculiar to himself, that he had not seen any female afflicted with this distemper, and had only in one case seen it affect the upper extremities. In some patients the gangrened part came away of its own accord ; in others it became necessary to use scarifications and other topical remedies. In four or five instances death succeeded to amputation, because, notwithstanding the performance of that operation, the disease continued to extend to the trunk. The history of one case was communicated to the Academy, in which the lower extremities were separated from the body, in the articulation of the heads of the thigh bones with the acetabulum. The example of this and of other cases in which these cavites were in the process of the cure filled up with new and sound fiesh, is what probably suggested the operation of amputa- tion at the hip joint. It is particularly mentioned in this report, that this gangrene attacks only the poor and ill fed of the districts in which it occurs. The rye of Sologne,, in the year 1709, contained, according to the relation of M. Noel, fully one- fourth of the cock-spur ; and the poor had taken no pains to separate it from the good grain with which it was mixed. The same M. Noel, in a letter which he addressed many years afterwards to M. Quesnai, seems to be of opinion, that the diseased rye lost its malignant quality after a certain time; this period he limited to two or three months ; but this opinion is not exactly confirmed by subsequent observations. During the thirty-three years in which M. Noel had been surgeon to the Hotel Dieu of Orleans, that distemper had appeared three or four times, and always in those rainy seasons in which rye contained a large proportion of the cock-spur. The disease in his patients had always existed for some time before those patients applied at the hospital for relief; so that he could not give any very accurate information from his own observation of the symptoms which manifested themselves; but he adds, that these unfortunate patients had often told him, that the disease generally began in one or both feet, with pain, redness, and a sensation of heat as burning as the fire; and that at the end of some days these symptoms ceased as quickly as they had come on, when the extreme sensation of heat which they formerly felt was changed into cold. “ The part affected,” adds M. Noel, “ was black like a piece of charcoal, and as dry as if it had passed through the fire.” After some time a line of separation was formed between the dead and living parts, like that which appears in the separation of a slough which has been produced by the application of the cautery, and the complete separation of the limb was, in many cases, effected by nature alone ; in others he had recourse to amputation, which he found to prove sufficiently successful, unless in those patients who were very much worn out with the disease, or who had naturally very bad constitutions. This disease appeared in Switzerland in the years 1709 and 1716; and a very accurate description of its symptoms and progress in that country has been given by Langius, a native of Lucern, in a Dissertation entitled, “ De- scriptio Morborum ex usu Clavarum Secalinorum.” M. Gassond, physician in Dauphiny, when this disease had appeared also in 1709, says, that many of the people were affected with swellings of the feet, legs, hands, and arms, which degenerated into a gangrene that pene- trated to the bone, and produced a separation of the affected limb; and which often required no assistance on the part of the surgeon, except to cor- rect the deformity which it sometimes left behind. This gangrene was attended with different symptoms in different individuals; some suffered very violent pain, accompanied with insufferable heat, although the part affected felt cold to the touch. Jn other patients, redness, with much swelling supervened, attended by delirium and fever. Others were without these symptoms, though they seemed to suffer equal pain. In some patients the parts affected became withered, dry, and black like charcoal. The separation of the dead parts from the living took place with the most excruciating pain, and a sen- sation resembling that produced by the direct application of fire to the body. This sensation was sometimes intermittent, and in other instances it was suc- ceeded by an equally harassing sensation of cold. M. Bossau, surgeon to the hospital of St. Antoine in Dauphiny, has re- marked some peculiarities in the history of this disease which are worthy of notice. This author says, that the gangrene which he had the opportunity of observing was not in every instance of the dry kind, but that the limb attacked with it sometimes became putrid, worms or maggots were generated, and a most insupportable stench exhaled ; that these symptoms were not the same in every patient, but that they had this in common, that heat and cold were equally insupportable, that the disease was not communicable by infec- tion, that it attacked indiscriminately men, women, and children, that there were now about four hundred parishes attacked with this disease, each of which contained six or more patients, and that between thirty and forty came to the Hospital, upon whom it was judged necessary to perform amputation of the arms or legs. The degree of fatality attending the progress of this mortification in differ- ent districts appears to have been very various. M. Duhamel mentions, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy for the year 1T48, that of one hundred and twenty persons attacked,' scarcely four or five had escaped with their lives. Langius mentions, that it was equally fatal in Switzerland. A calamity so serious, and recurring so often, would not fail to attract attention and stimu- late the curiosity of medical men ; and accordingly we find, that in France many attempts were made to discover the true source from which it pro- ceeded. In attending to this subject it was soon observed, that animals of every kind , except man , refused to eat rye affected with the cock-spur ; and that many of them would rather starve, than taste bread or food of any kind, into which a portion of it had, for sake of experiment, been introduced. Animals that were found to swallow it were observed to die of gangrene, which, in dif- ferent animals, attacked different parts of their bodies. The observation of these facts, and the results of several trials made with the corrupted rye, seemed to leave no room for doubt with regard to the true origin of this dis- order ; but in the discussion of many of the questions relative to this disease, doubts began to he entertained by some, and experiments were made by a number of individuals to prove that the disease had its origin in other causes. M. Model, a Russian apothecary, from some experiments, which are de- tailed in the thirteenth volume of Bomare’s “ Dictionaire d’Histoire Natu- relle,v was led to conclude that rye, vitiated with cock-spur, does not possess the quality of exciting gangrene in animals. He fed for some time hens, pigeons, and dogs, with food containing a portion of diseased rye, without ob- serving any injurious effects to result; and this emboldened him to try the use of it on his own person. But the quantity of this substance which M. Model administered, or which he took himself, was greatly inferior to what the people, inhabiting the countries where the disease prevails, consume of corrupted rye in ordinary years, without being at all injured by it. His opi- nion, however, having been eagerly adopted by some men of great reputation in France, such as Parmentier, Schiegel, and Tillet, it became necessary to bring its truth to the test of a fair trial, and' to make such experiments upon this subject as should leave no further room for doubt or uncertainty. The Royal Society of Medicine in Paris employed M. Tessier to go into the coun- tries where this gangrene prevailed, to collect a sufficient quantity of the cock- spur rye, and to institute such experiments as seemed best calculated to de- termine so important a point. The result of M.Tessier’s observations and experiments are to be found in two Memoirs, inserted into the two first vo- lumes of the Memoirs of the Society by which he was deputed. The first con- tains an account of all the facts which he could learn respecting the production of the cock-spur in rye; and the second an account of the results which he obtained, by feeding a number of animals with that substance. Some of those results are sufficiently curious to be deserving of particular attention. M. Tessier had learned in Sologne, and in the other districts of France, where this species of gangrene appears, that the inhabitants often eat rye with impunity for three or four months toget her, one fourth-part of which consists of cock-spur ; and this fact served him as a guide in judging of the quant ity that would be necessary to mix with the food of animals, which he had chosen for the subject of his experiments. This first experiment was made on two wild ducks, male and female. lie fed them with food containing one-seventeenth part of corrupted rye, and in- creased the corrupted rye till it formed one-ninth. At the end of the fifth day, drops of a very black coloured fluid were seen to ooze from the nostrils of the duck. By this time she had taken about an ounce and two drachms of cock- spur rye. The tongue had become yellow, swollen, and flabby. The beak became first brown, and then black, particularly towards the root. The skin covering it swelled and became cold, as well as the tongue, the point of which became also pale and sphacelated. The parts affected began to emit a bad smell, and the bird died between the ninth and tenth day of the experiment. During that period it had taken an ounce and seven drachms of ergot. The drake was not sensibly affected before the eighth day, nor till it had taken eleven drachms of the poison. In this bird the tongue did not sphace- late, but the other symptoms were nearly the same as in the duck. Death took place on the fourteenth day, after two ounces and six drachms had been taken. On dissection, no marks of gangrene or inflammation could be disco- vered in the course of the alimentary canal. The third experiment was on a turkey hen. She was seized with vertigo; her head assumed a violet colour,- and the nostrils emitted a reddish coloured liquor. A diarrhoea came on, and she died on the twenty-second day. Marks ol inflammation and gangrene were found in different parts of the alimentary canal. Gangrene had also attacked different parts of the body. Experiments on pigs led also to results of a similar nature. These experiments appearing to be sufficient to establish the injurious effects of the cock-spur rye, when used as an article of food, M. Tessier made a num- ber of curious experiments to ascertain the degrees of aversion which animals show for this substance, either alone, or mixed with the substances with which they are usually fed. In all his trials he found it extremely difficult to dis- guise the rye so as to induce the animals to swallow, voluntarily, any portion of food into the composition of which the ergot was introduced. These experiments of M. Tessier’s in confirming the opinions of those, who believed that the use of this substance was the cause of those gangrenous diseases, which had repeatedly appeared as endemical in various districts of France, afforded also a simple explanation of the fact, that persons might live for a considerable time upon rye affected with the cock- spur, without suffering any sensible injury from its use; since, in all the animals upon which it was tried experimentally, a given quantity was required to produce the specific effect; and they suggested the only measure, that of separating the diseased from the sound rye, which could prevent so great a national calamity as that which had been so often produced by its use. The spurred rye occasionally occurs in this country, but there are no in- stances recorded of its producing any such effects as those enumerated above • but in the Philosophical Transactions Dr. Woollaston has narrated several cases in which dry gangrene was produced in one family, by partaking of da- maged wheat: the following was the result, at the time the paper was pub- lished : — “ Mary, the mother, aetat. forty. The right foot off at the ankle : the left leg mortified, a mere bone; but not off. Mary, aetat. fifteen. One leg off below the knee : the other perfectly spha- celated, but not yet off. Elizabeth, aetat. thirteen. Both legs off below the knee. Sarah, aetat. ten One foot off at the ancle. Robert, aetat. eight. Both legs off below the knees. Edward, aetat. four. Both feet off at the ancles. An infant, four months old, dead. The father, escaped by merely losing two fingers. The wheat used, was what is called in Suffolk, where the family resided, “rivets,” or“ bearded” wheat. Nearly the same effects were produced in a family in Wiltshire, by the Lolium Temulentum , entering largely into the composition of bread ; for an account of which we refer to No. 1. of our work. Qualities and Chemical Properties of Ergot.— The true nature of ergot has not hitherto been fully ascertained, notwithstanding the research and talent that have been brought to the investigation. Some have observed a viscid, fermenting juice in the glumes, previously to the formation of the ergot, while others have detected small larvae, which being preserved have afterwards hatched into moths or butterflies. The Abbe Fontana planted in his garden a number of single grains of wheat and rye, and upon the top of each placed several grains of ergot. The result was, a crop in which both the wheat and rye were in- fected with ergot; which experiment indicates something like contagion in the disease, which may very possibly take place through the agency of insects. In an Essay on the genus Scleroticum by De Candolle, in the " Memoires du Museum d' Histone Naturelle ” the ergot is stated to be a parisitic production belonging to this genus ; but, however ingenious his investigations may be, their result is by no means satisfactory ; and it is now generally concluded to be a diseased modification of the grain of the rye itself. Spurred rye, in its native state is of a violet or brownish co- lour. Its size is very variable, some grains being less than healthy rye, and can scarcely be perceived in their husks, whilst others are from one inch to an inch and a half in length, and of a proportionate thickness. The spur is nearly cylindrical, having its ends somewhat obtuse, at times a little pointed, and bent a little in the shape of a crescent. But there is a great variety in this respect, although in all the shape is more or less monstrous , They have generally a longitudinal depression or two running from end to end. Some grains have cracks, appa- rently from dryness ; and others small cavities, apparently the bites of coleopterous insects. On being broken transversely, they snap like dried almonds ; and internally display a greyish- white substance, closely covered by the coloured cortical part, which does not separate from it on ebullition. Viewed through a microscope, this fracture presents in its centre an appearance of white brilliant grains like starch, and towards the circumference a violet shading besprinkled with minute whitish spots. When reduced to a powder it is of an ash-grey colour, and is very dry. If quite fresh, spurred rye is of a disagreeable sickly odour. A certain quantity, after having been kept for some years in a close box, contracted the smell of putrid fish. It was also of a black colour, and almost all the grains were in a degree worm-eaten, with little of substance left except the cortical part, so that it was quite friable to the touch. However, no other traces of insects could be discovered about them. When snuffed up into the nostrils it produces a slight degree of irritation, like a small pinch of powdered tobacco, occasioning a tendency to sneeze, and a pretty abundant secre- tion of mucus. In the grain, and quite dry, spurred rye has scarcely any taste, and, on being chewed, leaves in the mouth a slight acrimony. But in the powder its taste is nauseous, bit- ter, and acrid, like that of corn when in a state of decay. On kneading, with warm water, the flour of rye affected with the spur, a fetid disagreeable smell is very perceptible. The paste is not adherent, and the bread has neither the consistence nor smell of the common rye bread. Parmentier, who had some made with flour containing one- third of spurred rye, asserts that the bread was quite inodorous, and only slightly bitter. However it may easily be conceived, that the qualities of such bread must vary according to the greater or less quantity of the spurred rye entering into its com- position, which in a natural way can scarcely ever equal that formed by Parmentier. According to Vauquelin spurred rye yields by analysis a yellowish-fawn coloured matter, soluble in alcohol, exhaling a smell like that of fish oil ; a white oily mat- ter of a bland taste ; a violet coloured matter, insoluble in alco- hol ; a free acid, which appears to be of the nature of phosphoric acid ; a vegeto-animal matter in considerable quantity, much disposed to putrefaction, and which on distillation furnishes a considerable quantity of thick ammoniacal oil; a minute quantity of ammonia, exhaling at the temperature of boiling water. It also appears from the result of the same analysis, that rye in its spurred state no longer contains any starch ; that its gluten has become altered, and that it abounds with a thick ammoniacal oil, which is never to be met with in rye when in its sound state. The same chemist, wishing to clear up an import- ant point, has made a comparative analysis of scleroticum ; by means of wnich he obtained results so totally different, that he considers De Candolle’s opinion to be quite erroneous. Pettehnhoffer is said to have demonstrated in 1819 the ex- istence of morphine in spurred rye ; and it is not improbable, but that future analyses of this curious production will lead to the discovery of an active principle, sui generis, on which its virtues as a medical agent depend. Medical Properties and Uses. — No notice occurs of spurred rye as a uterine remedy till 1688, when Camerarius stated, that the women in certain parts of Germany were in the habit of employing it to accelerate parturition. From that pe- riod till 1774 no author had made mention of its being used; and it was only then that a very brief letter from Parmentier to the editor of the Journal de Physique, made known that it was frequently given as a child-bed remedy by Madame Depelle, a midwife at Chaumont, in the Vexin. But this letter, which is a mere announcement of the fact, contained no other information. It was reserved for M. Desgranges to make known more fully the singular property of ergot. Having met with several mid- wives in 1777 both in Lyons and its environs, who, from a tra- ditionary knowledge, were accustomed to employ it with no little mystery, he at length made trials of it, which for the most part were crowned with success. He published at different times and in various journals the results of his practice, and specified the peculiar circumstances which admit, or contra- indicate the employment of this remedy. It is, therefore, to the zeal and knowledge of Desgranges that the world is in- debted for the precise acquaintance of this valuable remedy, which he propagated with all his talents, against the strongest prejudice. When this discovery was first announced, it was only employed in the department of the Rhone and some of the fron- tier departments. Soon after its use began gradually to spread from various points throughout the kingdom, as may be proved by the number of cases published since in periodical works, by practitioners in the different departments. According to Ditt- mer, it is also used in different countries in Germany, and par- ticularly in the environs of Ludwisbourg, in Wirtemberg, where it is principally in the hands of the midwives, who give it usually to be swallowed whole in its natural state, administering either five or nine grains for a dose, but always in odd numbers. At Florence, also, as well as in other parts of Italy ; and in America this substance appears to be held in as much estimation as any article of the materia medica. And it is a singular fact, and well worthy of our notice, as tending to establish its claims, that its property of acting specifically on the uterus was first an- nounced to the public of America by Dr. Stearns of New York State, in 1807 ; who, according to a statement by Dr. Bigelow, published in No. 2. Vol. 5. of the New England Journal of Me- dicine and Surgery, was ignorant of its ever being so employed in Europe : “ The use of this article in medicine,” says Dr. Bige- low, “ is, to the best of our knowledge, an exclusively American practice, and if it is now introduced into any part of Europe, it must be from the publications of this country.” Like all other powerful remedies, the use of ergot might inad- vertently be abused. It is therefore necessary to lay down some general rules for its administration. (1st.) It mast never be given when there is malformation of the bones of the pelvis, or of the soft parts of the mother, capable of opposing any remarkable obstacle to the passage of the foetus. If the dimension of the pelvis be less than three inches and a half between the pubes and sacrum, the expulsion of a full grown foetus will be very difficult ; in which case the ergot , by exciting strong uterine contractions, without overcoming the mechanical obstacle, might produce rupture of the uterus itself; and in a case that lately occurred in the vicinity of London, it is very evi- dent that the disproportion between the size of the child’s head and the pelvis should have prevented the medical attendant from employing this powerful agent. A similar inconvenience might result too, if the passage were obstructed by any large tumour, or by any excessive rigidity of the orifice or sides of the vulva. (2d.) The os uteri should be supple and yielding, and partly dilated ; and the time of parturition should have decidedly com- menced, or already existed for some time. (3d.) It must not be used so long as the natural pains are effi- cient, and competent to the end ; for art should never precede nature in hastening the natural act of delivery. 4th. The foetus should be presenting in such a manner as to be expelled naturally ; there being no necessity to change its posi- tion ; nor should its bulk be too great for the natural passages. If it be, the ergot cannot with propriety be employed till that bulk is reduced. (5th.) If the labour be accompanied by flooding, convulsions, syncope, &c. it may be sometimes employed with great advan- tage, provided the membranes are ruptured and the os uteri dilated. (6th.) It may be used very often with much advantage in every kind of premature labour; and at full time, when the pla- centa is not thrown off, and the uterus is found in a state of atony. (7th.) When flooding takes place after the rupture of the membranes ; the os uteri well dilated ; the pains feeble, but the child well situated. (8th.) When the head of the child has been left in the uterus by being separated from the body. (9th.) When the uterus is painfully distended with coagula. The ergot powdered is the most simple of the preparations, and its properties are most apparent in proportion to its freshness and fineness. The dose usually given is from ten to sixty grains, and even more, during the labour; in a small wine-glass-full of barley water, capillaire and water, cinnamon water, or other convenient vehicle. As we must for the most part be ignorant to what extent this substance may act, and as there might arise much inconve- nience in hurrying a labour too much, we ought never to exceed twenty grains for the first dose ; and even this had better be given in two proportions after a short interval. But if at the end of an hour, it should produce no apparent effect on the ute- rus, we may give a scruple for a dose ; and should it become ne- cessary to administer it a third time, we may then give thirty grains. It may be easily imagined, that the manner of giving the spurred rye may vary infinitely ; and that what we have ad- vanced on this subject is far from constituting an invariable rule; as the ergot may be prescribed in different ways, according to the circumstances of the patient, and the particular views of the practitioner. We ought however to observe, that when given in doses too small, it only produces very weak muscular contrac- tions of the womb, which serve to fatigue and wear out the strength of the patient instead of inciting that organ to expel its contents. The infusion , or tea of black rye of the American practitioners, is made by infusing a drachm of the powder in a wine-glass of boiling water, till cold. To this preparation many persons give the preference, and administer half the quantity at the interval of an hour. Some persons boil the same proportions for a quarter of an hour, and this constitutes the decoctum parturiens of some writers. M. Villeneuve, and many others, recommend the ergot to be administered in lavements , whenever there is too much suscepti- bility of stomach, nausea, or vomiting, and repugnance on the part of the patient to swallow it. It is of course given in this manner in much larger doses, two or three drachms being boiled in half a pint of water ; and administered at intervals as may be necessary. The action of the ergot appears to be specifically upon the uterine fibres ; urging them sooner or later to more or less violent contraction. It is not the alternate contraction alone that is in- creased by this substance ; the tonic, which is of much more value, is also powerfully augmented ; since it can, in consequence of this power, be most advantageously employed, in many cases where this effect is all-important. In this respect it appears different from other stimuli, which may exert an influence upon this organ ; such as opium, volatile alkali, &c.; or the mechani- cal stimulus of the forceps, vectis, or the hand. Dr. Dewees states that he never witnessed any exaltation of the power of the arterial action from the exhibition of ergot, which is contrary to our own experience ; as in several cases in which we have tried it it has increased the fulness and frequency of the pulse ; pro- duced a glow of skin ; and it has also been known to excite nau- sea, vomiting, and vertigo. Each of the stimulants just referred to has been known to rouse the ultimate contractions of the uterus into a temporary, and sometimes successful action ; but after neither does the tonic contraction follow, with any degree of certainty ; on the con- trary, inertia of this organ is very apt to follow their employ- ment. Thus hsemorrhage sometimes succeeds the use of either of the remedies just named ; but extensive inquiry will justify the declaration that no such consequence arises from ergot. A very remarkable fact, is, that spurred rye does not appear to ex- ert any very decided action upon the uterus, excepting when that organ has already put on the disposition to expel its contents. The experience of many years proves this important fact ; and it will be found on investigation that amongst the many accidents that are said to arise from its use in bread, that no mention is made of abortion or premature birth, as its immediate effect. We therefore consider this as a settled point, strengthened as it is by the knowledge, that it is familiarly used near Lyons to aid the parturient cow ; France being the country in which the most in- VOL. III. K genious methods are employed to accomplish this object; the desire for which, however urgent, proves a refined depravity, from the stigma of which, England is happily free. It is a singular fact, that the Chenopodium olidum which has been proved by Mr. Houlton, and subsequently in our own prac- tice, to have a direct action as an emmenagogue, agrees in its sen- sible properties with those of the ergot ; and to preserve the par- ticular odour of the latter, it is absolutely necessary that it should be kept whole in a glass bottle with a ground stopper ; and only powdered -when required for use ; nor should it, if possible, be used when it exceeds a year in age ; for, like every other vege- table substance, it is easily acted upon by heat and moisture ; and its producing no effects in the practice of some can only be accounted for by its being effete ; a circumstance of no uncom- mon occurrence, especially in this country.* In a case of profuse haemorrhage which lately occurred in our own practice, we found the membranes entire, the os uteri di- lated to the size of a crown piece, attended by complete inertia of that organ. On examination, the placenta was not to be found within reach : we therefore discharged the liquor amnii, but without arousing the expulsive efforts. We then had recourse to scruple doses of ergot, given at an interval of ten minutes, and before a quarter of an hour had elapsed the pains came on, the haemorrhage ceased, and the child was soon expelled ; the pla- centa followed in due time, and no untoward symptom ensued. Those of our readers who may be inclined to investigate the subject still further, may consult the following works, to all of which we are much indebted : — Professor Thomson’s (of Edin- burgh) Lectures on Inflammation ; Dr. Neale on the Ergot of Rye ; Mitchell’s Difficult Cases of Parturition ; the American Medical Journals; the Medical Repository, and the Lancet, passim. * That scientific pharmaceutical chemist, Mr. Morson, of Southampton Row, has a large quantity of ergot at this time for sale, which we pronounce to be in the highest state of perfection. HORDEUM VULGARE .—Common Barley . Gen. Char. Calyx lateral, 2-valved, single-flowered, ternate. Spec. Char. Flowers all perfect, awned ; two of the rows more erect than the rest. Syn. — Hordeum polistichum verum, Ger. Em. 70. Hordeum vulgare, Lin. Sp. PI. 125. ; Errh. PI. Ojfic. 421. ; Lob. Icon. 28. • Host. Gram. Anstr. v. 3. 35. Foreign. — Vorge avancd, Fr. ; Orzo, It. ; Cebadaromana, Sp. ; Gemeine Gerste , Ger. Next to wheat, the most valuable grain is barley. It is an an- nual plant, and is said to have been found wild in Sicily and Russia. The flowers are disposed in four rows, on a common receptacle or main stalk, which is elongated into a long, flat, jointed spike or ear. The glume, or outer chaff, consists of two narrow, pointed valves, one half shorter than the corolla, each containing a single sessile flower; the corolla or inner chaff is ovate, concave, and terminates in a very long, flat, serrated awn or beard . The filaments are capillary, shorter than the corolla, with notched anthers. The seed or grain is ovate, channelled, and firmly coated with both valves of the corolla. This is the barley most generally cultivated ; but Hordeum distichon, two- rowed barley, is the species admitted into the Dublin Pharma- copoeia, from which the pearl barley of the shops is said to be principally prepared. Barley is used in some countries for making bread ; but it is chiefly cultivated for the purpose of forming malt liquors or distilled spirits. To prepare malt barley is the grain usually employed. It is steeped for two or three days in water until it swells, becomes tender, and imparts its colour to the liquid. The water is then withdrawn, and the grain is spread out on the floor to the depth of two feet, where its k 2 temperature rising spontaneously, it begins to germinate, bursting and shooting out the radicle. This process is soon stopped by spread- ing the grains over a large surface, and turning them repeatedly, which is continued for two days ; after which they are again made into a heap, and allowed to remain in this state till they turn warm, and are then dried in a kiln by a gentle heat. Beer is made from malt pre- viously ground by a mill. This is put into a large vessel or tub with a false bottom, termed the maish-tub ; hot water is poured upon it, and the whole stirred up at intervals. The temperature of the water in this operation, called Mashing, must not be equal to boiling; for, in that case, the malt would be converted into a paste, from which the impregnated water could not be separated. This is called Setting. After the infusion has remained for some time upon the malt, it is drawn off, and is then distinguished by the name of sweet wort. By one or more subsequent infusions in water, a quantity of weak wort is made, which is either added to the foregoing, or kept apart, according to the intention of the operator. The wort is then boiled with hops, which give it an aromatic, bitter taste, and render it less liable to be spoiled in keeping ; after which it is cooled in shallow vessels, and suffered to ferment, with the addition of a proper quantity of yeast. During the fermentation, an internal commotion takes place in every part of the liquor, caused by the extrication of gas, raising to the surface a quantity of yeast, in which the air bubbles are enveloped. After this fermentation has continued a certain time, and the head does not seem likely to rise any higher, it is necessary to put a stop to it, as it would be succeeded by the acetous fermentation ; this being called the vinous, producing alcohol or spirit. This is performed by drawing off the beer, and putting it into small casks, where it conti- nues to ferment, and discharge yeast for some time, the casks being filled up as they diminish in their contents. When the working ceases, the casks are bunged up, and the beer set aside for table. The strength and quality of the liquor differs greatly according to the na- ture of the grain, the particular substances that have been added to flavour it, the length to which the fermentation is allowed to proceed, and the various manipulations which are adopted by different manu- facturers, both in the preparation of the malt and in the subsequent processes. Pearl barley is prepared in Holland and Germany, by first moisten- ing and"shelling the grains, and then grinding them into round gra- nules, in a mill. Pearl barley consists principally of starch, with a small portion of gluten, mucilage, and saccharine matter. Uses.- — Barley bread is much used by some northern nations ; but it is less nutritious than that prepared from wheat or rye. The decoctions of barley, barley water, and barley broth, are well known. The former is much employed as an agreeable and wholesome nourishment for the sick, and barley water, acidu- lated with the juice of lemons or oranges, forms one of the most salutary beverages in febrile diseases. Sweet wort was formerly much used as an antiscorbutic in the navy ; and a cataplasm of yeast, with barley meal, or ground malt, is sometimes employed as a stimulant and antiseptic, to foul spreading ulcers and gan- grenous parts. When properly fermented, of a moderate strength, and used within the limits of propriety, malt liquors are refreshing, wholesome, and considerably nutritive. It is a common observation, that those who drink sound malt liquors are stronger than those who drink wine ; and to those who are trained to boxing and other athletic exercises, home-brewed beer is particularly recommended. Hence Jackson, the celebrated trainer, affirms, that if any person accustomed to drink wine would try malt liquor for a month, he will find himself so much the better for it, that he would soon take to the one and aban- don the other. Malt liquors are divided into small beer, strong beer, ale, and porter. Small beer, and the weaker ales, are re- freshing, gently stimulant, and nutritive drinks. Porter, and the stronger ales, are exceedingly nutritious, and strengthening when used within the limits of sobriety ; but these liquors, can seldom be procured genuine, at least in London. Off. Prep.-— Decoctum Hordei L. E. D. Decoct. Hordei Compositum, L. D. AYENA SATIVA .—Common Oat . Gen. Char.- — Calyx 2-valved, many-flowered; with a twisted awn on the back. Spec. Char. — Paralleled, calyces 2-seeded ; Seeds very smooth, l-awned. Syn. — Avena, Gamer . Epit. 191 ; Fuchs. Hist. 185. Avena sativa, Lin. Sp. PI. 118 ; Willd. i. 443. Foreign. — L’avoine cultivee, Fr. ; Tuttenhaver, Ger. The Oat was found by Anson growing wild upon the island of Juan Fernandez, but no one has been able to ascertain satisfac- torily the place from whence it was first brought to Europe. The root is an annual, sending up a culm or straw, about two feet in height. The inflorescence is in a loose pannicle, with the subdi- visions on long pendulous peduncles. The two glumes or chaffs of the calyx are marked with lines, pointed, unequal, and longer than the flower. There are usually two flowers and seeds in each calyx; they are alternate, conical, the smaller one is awnless, the larger puts forth a strong, two-coloured, bent awn, from the middle of the back. Of this grain the varieties are more nu- merous than any other of the culmiferous tribe ; but in this country, that which is called the potatoe oat, is considered the best. Qualities. — M. Vogel could detect no gluten in oats; but he obtained an azotized substance, destitute of elasticity, and having no resemblance to gluten. Oats contain, besides fecula or starch, a saccharine matter, a bitter principle, and a fixed oil, of a yellowish green colour. Uses. — The flour or meal made into cakes and pottage, is the common food of the country people in the north. Grits, or oats freed from their cuticle, are much used in making broths and gruels. They are wholesome and gently laxative. Gruel, is prepared by boiling either the meal or grits, for a proper length of time, in water. It is moderately nutritive, and demulcent, hence it is frequently prescribed in inflammatory diseases, diarrhoea, cholera, dysentry, and other diseases. The meal boiled in water forms an excellent suppurative poultice. Medical Properties and Uses. — The use of the scraped root as a warm pungent condiment to various kinds of animal food, and also to give a zest to winter salads, is well known. As an article of the materia medica its effects much resemble those of the mustard-seed, but is somewhat more powerful. Infused in water, and received into the stomach, it acts as a sti- mulant, diuretic, and sudorific, and is occasionally employed with advantage in paralytic affections and chronic rheumatism ; it has also been successfully administered in dropsy supervening upon intermittent fever, particularly by Sydenham. This infu- sion, taken with large draughts of warm water, readily proves emetic, and may either be employed by itself to excite vomiting, or to assist the operation of other emetics. It has also been used as a sialagogue, in paralysis of the tongue, in some obstinate cutaneous diseases, and in asthma One drachm of the root infused in a close vessel, with four ounces of boiling water, and made into a syrup with double its weight of sugar, taken in the quantity of a teaspoonful, and swallowed leisurely, is strongly recommended by Dr. Cullen to remove hoarseness, arising from relaxation or deficient secretion of mucus. Externally, it readily inflames the skin, and if its application be long continued pro- duces blisters. An infusion of the root in milk is recommended by Dr. Withering, as one of the safest and best cosmetics. Horse-radish may be given in doses of a drachm or more of the recent root cut into small pieces, and swallowed entire. Off. Prep. — Infusum Armoracise compositum, X. JD. Spiritus Armoracim compositus, L . D . COCHLEARIA OFFICINALIS. — Common Scurvy - grass. Spec. Char. Radical leaves roundish ; those on the stem oblong and somewhat sinuated. Pod globose. Syn. — Cochlearia, Raii Syn. 302; Bauh. Hist. v. 2. 942. /.,* Camer. Epit. 271./. ; Cochlearia rotundifolia, Ger. Em. 401. /. Nasturtium, n. 503.; Hall. Hist. v. 1. 218. Cochlearia Armoracia, Lin. Sp. PI. 903; Willd. v. 3. 448. ; FI. Brit. 688. Eng. Bot. v. 8. t. 551.; Wcadv. t. 29.,; Hook. Lond. 195. Foreign. — Cranson officinal. Fr.; Coclearia , It. ; Gemeine Loffienkraut, Ger. Scurvy-grass is a low, annual plant, growing wild on the sea-coasts of Britain and other countries, and not unfrequently in mountainous situations far inland. It varies considerably in size and luxuriance, and somewhat in the shape of its foliage. The stem is angular, smooth, usually a foot high, and, in the month of May, ornamented with numerous tufts of flowers of a snow-white colour. The leaves are all smooth, and rather suc- culent : the radical ones on long footstalks, of a roundish-heart shape, and wavy ; the stem leaves smaller, embracing the stem, oblong, sinuated, or deeply toothed. The calyx leaves are ovate, obtuse, concave ; petals obovate, with longish claws ; stamens six, incurved ; pod nearly globular, slightly rugose, and crowned with a short style. A thick-leaved variety called Dutch scurvy- grass is sometimes cultivated in gardens for medicinal purposes. Qualities. — The whole herb has a warm, acrid taste, and a pungent rather unpleasant smell when bruised. Its active matter is extracted by maceration, both by water and alcohol ; but its principal virtue seems to reside in an essential oil, separable in very small quan- tity by distillation in water. Uses. — Scurvy-grass has long enjoyed the reputation in the world as one of the most powerful of the antiscorbutic plants# Sydenham and Lewis recommend it strongly, combined with arum and wood-sorrel, in rheumatic and paralytic affections. As an antiscorbutic, the expressed juice of the plant should be taken in the quantity of a pint a day, or the smaller leaves daily eaten as a salad. Of equal virtue, however, with scurvy-grass is the horse-radish, mustard, the tops of turnips, water-cress, lime-juice, oranges, and many other vegetables. CXIV COCHLEARIA ARMORACIA. Horse-radish . Gen. Char. Pod emarginate, turgid^ rugged, 2-valved. Seeds numerous. Spec. Char. Radical leaves oblong, crenate ; those of the stem lanceolate, either cut or entire. Syn. — Raphanus rusticanus, Raii Syn. 301 ; Ger. Em. 241. /. ; Matth. Valgr. v. 1 . 401./.; Camer. Epit. 225, Raphanus sylvestris, Fuchs. Hist. 660./. t. 379./. Nasturtium n. 504 Hall. Hist. v. 1. 218. Cochlearia Armoracia, Lin. Sp. PL 904 ; Willd. v. 3.451 ; Fl. Brit. 690 ; Eng. Bot.v. 33. t. 2323; Woodv. t. 150. Foreign.— Cranson de Bretagne ; Raifort Sauvage ; Moutarde des Allemands, Fr, ; Rafano rusticano, It. ; Marvisco, Sp. ; Murrettich, Ger. Horse-radish is a perennial plant, growing naturally by the sides of ditches, on the banks of rivers, and in waste grounds, from the refuse of gardens. It has long been received into our materia medica, and was cultivated in Britain in the time of Gerard, who says, “ Horse-radish for the most part groweth, and is planted in gardens, yet have I found it wild in sundrie places, as at Namptwich in Cheshire, in a place called the Milne Eye, and also at a small village near London, called Hogsdon, in the field next vnto a farm house, leading to Kingsland, where my verie good friend Master Bredwell, practitioner in physick, a learned and diligent sercher of symples, and Master William Martin, one of the Fellowship of Barbers and Chirurgiaos, my deere and louing friende, in company with him, found it, and gaue me knowledge of the place where it flourisheth to this day.” The specimen from which our figure was designed, grew by the side of the Thames, between the Red-House, Battersea, and Putney Bridge, where it was also found many years ago by Sir J, E. Smith, and figured in “ English Botany,” t. 2223. It flow- ers in June ; but rarely perfects its seeds. The root, so well known at table as an accompaniment of the roast beef of Old England, is long, white, cylindrical, strikes deep into the earth, and is extremely difficult of extirpation. The stem is round, erect, branched, and rises about two feet high. The ra- dical leaves are petiolate, very large, dark green, oblong, obtuse, veiny, crenate, waved, and occasionally pinnatifid : those of the stem are scattered, much smaller, sessile, lanceolate, sometimes serrated or toothed, and sometimes entire. The flowers are nu- merous, white, and terminate the stem in dense clusters. The leaves of the calyx are ovate, concave, spreading, and deciduous; the petals obovafe, twice the length of the calyx, and inserted by narrow claws. The filaments are awl-shaped, incurved, the length of the calyx, and bearing heart-shaped anthers. The ger- menis oblong, surmounted with a short style, and a large capi- tate stigma, changing into an elliptical, compressed, notched, bilocular pod, containing about four seeds, in each cell, most of which prove abortive.-— Fig. ( a ) represents a flower, with the calyx and petals removed ; (6) the germen ; (c) the pod. Culture. — The Horse-radish is generally propagated by cuttings, and requires a rich deep soil, in order to induce the plants to strike their roots freely. “ Crowns,” says Mr. Neill, “ having about two or three inches only of root attached to them, make very good plants; but cuttings of the knotty parts of the roots, provided always they be furnished with one or two buds or eyes, are often preferred, as they are to be planted entirely under the soil. They are generally planted in February or March, in lines, leaving a foot and a half between each line. The sets are placed at the depth of at least a foot; if the soil be light, fifteen inches is not too deep. The roots are not dug for use till the second year; and they are raised only when wanted, the pun- gent quality escaping rapidly as the root dries.” Qualities. — The root has a pungent odour and a warm acrid taste, with a degree of sweetness. Both water and alcohol, extract its virtues. By drying it loses all its acrimony, becoming at first sweet- ish, and afterwards nearly insipid ; if kept in a cool place, covered with sand, it retains its pungency for a long time. It yields by dis- tillation with water, a pale yellow-coloured, acrid, pungent, essential oil. According to Einhoff, the distilled watery liquid yields traces of sulphur. 2ms cxv PYRUS CYDONIA. Common Quince-tree . ClassX II. Icosandria. — Order IY. Pentagynia. Nat. Ord . Pomaces, Lin . Rosace.®, Juss. Gen. Char. Calyx superior, 5-cleft, Petals 5. Apple inferior, with from 2 to 5 cells, many-seeded. Spec. Char. Leaves roundish elliptical, entire; downy beneath. Flowers solitary, stalked. Calyx serrated, reflexed. Syn. — Malus cotonea, Ger. Em. 1452; Rail Hist. p. 1452; Bauh. Hist . v. 1. p. 35; Matth. Valgr. v. 1. 217. Cotonia et Cidonia mala, Lob.Ic. v. 2. p. 152. Pyrus Cydonia, Lin. Sp. Pl. 687. Willd. 2. n. 17. Jacq. Austr. t. 342 ; Woodv. v. 2. t. 79. Foreign. — Coignassier, Fr. ; Melacotogna, It. ; QuittenJcorner, Ger. ; Abee, Hind. The Quince-tree is a native of the rocky banks of the Danube, and is naturalized in the hedges of Germany. Dr. Sibthorp found it wild in the northern parts of Greece, in which country it still retains the ancient name i coSiovia, so called from Cydon a town in Crete where it grew. Thunberg found it growing in Japan, where it is called umbats . It was among the first exotic fruits cultivated in England, where it blossoms in May or June, and ripens its fruit in November. The tree is of low growth, much branched, and generally dis- torted, The leaves are roundish or ovate, entire, varying in size, smooth, and of a dusky green colour above, paler and downy be- neath, and stand upon short foot-stalks. The flowers are large, solitary, and of a pale rose-colour, or white ; the calyx is supe- rior, villous, persistent, and divided into five spreading segments : the corolla is composed of five petals ; these are concave, round- ish, and inserted into the calyx : the filaments are about twenty, awl-shaped, shorter than the corolla, and support yellow anthers : the germen is orbicular, with five slender styles, and simple stig- mas. The fruit is large, varying in shape, yellow, downy, umbi- licated, and when ripe has a peculiar fragrant odour, and a very austere acidulous taste ; each of its cells contains two or three ovate, angular, reddish brown, cartilaginous seeds, ranged hori- zontally.— Fig. (a) section of the fruit; ( b ) a seed. There are different varieties of the fruit ; as the globular, or apple- quince; oblong, or Portugal quince; and the pear-shaped, or pear- quince. The Portugal quince is the best, but the fruit is produced sparingly. The quince tree is propagated by layers, by suckers, or by cuttings. It thrives best in a moist soil, but the fruit is superior in a dry one. The quince is supposed to be the golden apple of the Hes- perides, so famous in ancient fable. Qualities and uses. — The seeds are inodorous, nearly in- sipid, and abound with an impure mucilage, which they yield to boiling water. One drachm makes six ounces of a nearly colour- less transparent mucilage, resembling in consistency the white of egg; which is occasionally prescribed as a demulcent in gonorrhoea, tenesmus, dysentry, and in aptnous affections and excoriations of the mouth and fauces ; in the latter case it is generally combined with borax and honey. A diluted solution of it injected beneath the eye-lids is recommended by Dr. Thompson, for obtunding the acrimony of the discharge in violent inflammations of the eye. It is the most agreeable of all the mucilages ; but is apt to spoil and become mouldy in a short time. In its raw state the fruit is not eatable ; but when pepared it becomes mild, and to many persons highly grateful. A small portion of it added to stewed or baked apples is useful for giving pungency and flavour. The expressed juice taken in small quan- tities is cooling, antiseptic, and astringent, useful in nausea, vomiting, as well as some kinds of diarrhoea ; by boiling it loses its astringency. Formerly this was directed in the London Pharmacopoeia to be made into a syrup ; but the only prepara- tion of the quince, which it now directs, is the decoction of the seeds. An elegant sweetmeat, or marmalade ( Miva cydoniorum ,) is prepared by boiling the pulp over a gentle fire, with an equal weight of sugar. Off. Prep. — Decoclum Cydonise, L. lcm.Iim.Fiib. byJ. ohurchilVLeices tc&r fqu&r&.May 202S WClark del. CXVI TANACETUM VULGARE. Common Tansy . Class XIX. Syngenesia. — Order II. Polygamia SUPERFLUA. Nat. Ord. Composite, y, discoideje, Lin. Corymbiferje, Juss. Gen. Char. Receptacle naked. Seed with a mem- branous crown. Calyx imbricated, hemispherical. Florets of the circumference 3-cleft, obsolete, some- times wanting. Spec. Char. Leaves doubly pinnatifid, deeply ser- rated, naked. Syn. — Tanacetum, Raii Hist. 108; Ger. Em. 650. Matth. Valg . v. 2. 259. f. ; Camer. Epit. 650. f. ; Trag. Hist. 158. f. Tanacetum millefolii foliis, Lob. Ic. 749. f. Tanacetum, n. 132. ; Hall. Hist. v. 1. 57. Artemisia monoclonos, Fuchs. Hist. 46. f. Athanasia seu Tanacetum, Dalech. Hist. 955. Tanacetum vulgare, Lin. Sp. PI. 1184; Willd. v. 3. 1814; FI. Brit . 862. ; Eng. Bot. v. 18. t. 1229; Hoofc. Scot. 239.; Bull. Fr. t. 187.; Woodv. t. 115.; Stokes v. 4. 180. Foreign. — Tanassie , Fr. ; Tanaceto, It. ; Atanasia, Sp. ; Rheinfarn , Ger. ; Worm- kruid , Dut. ; Rheinfan , Dan. ; Dikaja riabina, Russ. Tansy is a well-known perennial plant, a native of most parts of Britain, growing generally on the banks of rivers, hedges, and the borders of fields; flowering in July and August. The root is long, somewhat creeping, and fibrous. In a wild state it seldom exceeds two feet in height ; the stem is erect, rather angular, striated, leafy, solid, unbranched, smooth, and frequently reddish towards the top ; the leaves alternate, dark green, smooth, doubly pinnatifid, and notched or deeply serrated. The flowers are numerous, of a golden yellow colour, flattish, and terminate the stem in a dense corymb. The common calyx is hemispherical and imbricated ; the scales are acute and mem- branaceous at the margin. The florets are of two kinds; those of the disc hermaphrodite , numerous, tubular, and 5-cleft ; those of the radius female, few, sometimes wanting, tubular at the base, and 3-cleft. There are five capillary, very short filaments, in the florets of the disc only, with the anthers forming a cylin- drical tube ; the germen in both is obovate, compressed ; the style thread-shaped ; and the stigma bifid and reflexed ; the per- manent calyx contains solitary, oblong, angular ; seeds crowned with a membranous border. — Fig. ( a ) a floret of the disc ; ( h ) floret of the radius ; (c) common calyx ; (« d ) receptacle. Besides the common tansy, there are two or three other species, very generally cultivated in our gardens, particularly the annual tansy, (T. annuum;) and the costmary tansy, or ale-cost (T. balsamita.) Of the former there is a variety with curled leaves, which is often called double tansy, and likewise a sort with variegated leaves, which is sometimes admitted into shrubberies. Qualities. — The leaves and flowers have a warm, bitter taste, and a strong, peculiar, not unpleasant odour. These qualities they readily impart both to water and alcohol : and a greenish-yellow essen- tial oil is afforded by distillation with water, smelling strongly of the herb. Medical Properties" and Uses. — Tansy is tonic, sto- machic, and anthelmintic ; and as such is useful in dyspepsia, dropsy, hysteria, intermittents, obstructed menstruation, and other diseases ; it also forms a popular remedy for expelling worms, particularly the lumbricus teres, or round worm. Not only the leaves and flowers have been employed with this inten- tion, but also the seeds, which, according to Dr. Woodville, are sometimes substituted for those of Santonicum. The infusion in boiling water has been strongly recommended by Dr. Clarke as a preventive of the return of gout ; # but experience has not confirmed its utility. The young leaves are sometimes shredded down and employed to give flavour and colour to puddings ; and the Finlanders prepare a red dye from them. If dead animal matter be rubbed with this plant, Dr. Withering says, the flesh-fly will not attack it. Dose. — In powder, the dose may be from 3j to 3j, twice or thrice a-day; but it is more commonly taken in infusion, or drank as tea. * Clarke’s Essays Physical and Literary, v. 3, p. 438. Till?. cxvn PRUNUS LAURO-CERASUS. Common Cherry -Laurel . Class XII. Icosandria.— Order I. Monogynia. Nat. Ord. PoMACEiE, Lin. Rosaceae, Juss. Gen. Char. Calyx inferior, 5-cleft. Petals 5. Nut of the drupe with prominent sutures. Spec. Char. Flowers in racemes. Leaves evergreen, bi-glandular at the base. Syn. — Laurocerasus, Ger. Em. 1603; Raii Hist. 1549; Camer. Hort. t. 23; Clus. Hist. 1. 4; Tourn. Inst. 627 ; Du Hamel Arbr. 1. t. 133. Cerasus trapezuntina, sive Laurocerasus, Park. Theatr. 1518. f. 2; Parad. 401. t. 399./. 6. Cerasus folio laurino, Bauh. Pin. 450. Padus Laurocerasus, Mill. Diet. n. 4; Lin. Hort. Cliff'. 185. Prunus Lauro-cerasus, Lin. Sp. PI. 678; Willd. ii. p. 988 ; Hort. Kew. ii. 164; Bull. Fr. 153; Pallas FI. Ros. v. 1. p. 17; Plenck. Icon. 383; Woodv. 2 ded. 515. t. 185. Foreign. — Laurier-cerise , Fr. ; Lauro regio ; Lauro di Trabesonda, It. ; Loiroce- rejo, Port.; Lorbeerkirsche ; Kirschlorbere, Ger. The common laurel is a native of the Levant, and was culti- vated in Britain as early as 1629 ; but the precise period of its introduction is uncertain. It is a hardy evergreen shrub, or small tree, and is planted near houses, and in shrubberies, as an ornamental plant, producing its elegant spikes of odorous white blossoms early in May. We may remark, that it is fre- quently mistaken for the bay, and is regarded as the plant which furnished crowns for the Roman heroes. There is no doubt, however, that it was the sweet-bay (Laurus nobilis) which fur- nished the wreath worn on the brow of the victor, and of the priestess of Delphi. The mistake is supposed to have arisen VOL. HI. L from the bay having formerly been called laurel, and the fruit of it only named bayes. The common laurel attains the ordinary stature of a plum or cherry-tree, sending off long spreading branches, covered with a smooth brown bark. The leaves are alternate, and stand upon short foot-stalks ; they are elliptical or obovate, tapering towards the base, pointed and curved at the apex, minutely toothed, smooth, and polished with a prominent midrib, and of a deep green colour. At their base underneath are two small yellow glands. The flowers are in spikes, on short, simple, axillary peduncles. The calyx is inferior, bell-shaped, and divided at the brim into five obtuse segments. The corolla consists of five small white concave, roundish, spreading segments. The filaments, which are alternately long and short, are about eighteen, awl-shaped, inserted into the calyx, and furnished with roundish yellow anthers. Before the petals unfold, the stamens are indexed, and the anthers disposed in a circular form within the rim of the calyx, as is well represented on the plate (fig. a ). The germen is roundish, supporting a columnar style, and terminated by an orbicular stigma. The fruit, or drupe is globular, of a shining black colour, and resembling a small cherry, both in its external appearance and internal structure. Fig. (a) represents a section of a flower, showing the position of the stamens ; ( b ) the ger- men and style, (c) the fruit ; ( d ) a drupe cut across, to show the nut or stone. Poisonous Effects. — The distilled water of this plant, the virtues of which depend on the prussic acid that it contains, is a deadly poi- son. When applied to wounds in animals it induces vomiting, con- vulsions, great prostration of strength, diminished sensibility, and death. Injected into the stomach and rectum, it excites a similar train of symptoms, excepting that, in the latter, the convulsions are more violent, and tetanusof the extremities is produced. Its action has been found most rapid and intense when injected into the jugular vein. Many cases are on record of its effects on man, and the earliest with which we are acquainted, are contained in the 37th vol. of the Phil. Trans, by Dr. Madden of Dublin, part of whose communication we give. “ A very extraordinary accident that fell out here some months ago, has discovered to us a most dangerous poison, which was never before known to be so, though it has been in frequent use among us. The thing I mean is a simple water, distilled from the leaves of the Lauro-cerasus. The water is, at first, of a milky colour, but the oil which comes over the helm with it, being in a good measure separated from the phelgm ; by passing it through a flannel-bag, it becomes as clear as common water. It has the smell of the bitter almond, or peach- kernel, and has been for many years in frequent use among our house- wives and cooks, to give that agreeable flavour to their creams and puddings. Jt has also been much in use among our drinkers of drams; and the proportion they generally use it in, has been one part of laurel- water, to four of brandy. Nor has the practice, (however frequent,) ever been attended with any apparent ill-consequences, till some time in the month of September, 1728, when it happened that one Martha Boyse, a servant, who lived with a person that sold great quantities of this water, got a bottle of it from her mistress, and gave it to her mother, Anne Boyse, as a very rich cordial. Anne Boyse made a present of it to Frances Eaton, her sister, who was a shopkeeper in the town, and who she thought might oblige her customers with it. Accordingly, in a few days, she gave about two ounces of the water to a woman called Mary Whaley, who had bought some goods of her. Mary Whaley drank about two-thirds of what wTas filled out, and went away. Frances Eaton drank the rest. Mary Whaley went to another shop, and in about a quarter of an hour after she had drank the water, she complained of a violent disorder in her stomach. She was carried home, and from that time she lost her spirit, and died in about an hour, without vomiting, or purging, or any convulsion. “ The shopkeeper, Frances Eaton, sent word to her sister, Anne Boyse, of what had happened, who came to her and affirmed that it was not possible that the cordial, as she called it, could have occa- sioned the death of the woman ; and to convince her of it, she filled out about three spoonsful, and drank it. She continued talking with Frances Eaton about two minutes longer, and was so earnest to per- suade her of the liquor being inoffensive, that she poured out two spoonsful more, and drank it off likewise. She was hardly well seated in her chair, when she died, without the least groan or convulsion, Frances Eaton, who had drank somewhat above a spoonful, found no disorder in her stomach or elsewhere ; but to prevent any ill conse- quences, she took a vomit, and has been well ever since. “ Mary Whaley was buried without being examined by any one that 1 can find, except the coroner. I went to see Anne Boyse about twenty-four hours after her death, but could not prevail to have her opened. She was about sixty years old ; her countenance and skin appeared well coloured, and her features were hardly altered, so that she looked as one asleep. Her belly was not swelled, nor had she any other external mark of poison. “ This accident brought into discourse another of the like nature, which happened about four years since in the town of Kilkenny. A young gentleman, son to Alderman Evans, mistook a bottle of laurel- water for one of ptisan. What quantity he drank is uncertain, but he died in a few minutes, complaining of a violent disorder in his stomach. This affair was nQt much regarded at that time, because he laboured under a distemper, to which, or to an improper use of remedies, his death was attributed by those about him.” r, 'l Then follow Dr. Madden’s experiments on animals ; and the same volume contains also a narration of Dr. Mortimer’s. Foder& states, that when “ he was attending his studies at Turin, in 1784, the chamber-maid and man-servant of a noble family of that town, stole, for the purpose of regaling themselves, a bottle of distilled laurel-water, which they took for an excellent cordial. Fearful of being surprised, they hastily swallowed, one after the other, several mouthfuls of it: but they soon paid the price of their dishonesty, for they expired almost instantly in convulsions. The dead bodies were carried to the university for examination. The stomach was found highly inflamed, but the rest of the organs were in a sound state.”* A very interesting trial took place during the last century, from a supposition (well grounded we conceive) that the distilled laurel-water had been administered. As it is often referred to by medico-legal writers, we think it right to give the account, which, with some remarks of Professor Beck, are quoted from his invaluable work on Medical Jurisprudence ; the pamphlet, containing an account of the trial, taken in short-hand by Mr. Gurney, being so scarce that we are unable to obtain it. “ Sir Theodosius Broughton was a young gentleman of fortune in the county of Warwick, and nearly arrived at the age of twenty-one. His mother and his brother-in-law, Captain Donellan, and his sister, (Mrs. Donellan,) resided with him. In the event of his dying before the period of his majority, the greatest part of his fortune descended to his sister, and Captain Donellan would thus become entitled to a life-estate in it. Sir Theodosius was labouring under a slight syphi- litic affection, for which he was attended by Mr. Powell of Rugby. His general health is, however, stated to have been good. On the 29th of August, 1780, Mr. Powell sent him a draught to be taken on the next morning, consisting of rhubarb and jalap, each fifteen grains; spirits of lavender, twenty drops; nutmeg-water, two drachms; simple syrup, two drachms; and an ounce and a half of simple water. The bottle containing this draught was placed on a shelf in his bed-room. He returned in the afternoon of this day from fishing, in good health and spirits. In the morning, a servant awoke him at an early hour, for the purpose of obtaining some straps for a net. He arose, and went into the next room for them. Even now he appeared in perfect health. About seven a.m. Lady Broughton got up and went into his room, as he had before desired her, to give him the medicine. She enquired whether he had taken it, or whether he chose that she should give it to him. He desired her to reach down the draught which was labelled “Purging Draught for Sir T. B ,” and she poured it into a cup, for the purpose of his taking it. He had not, however, swallowed more than half of it, when he complained that it was so nauseous to the taste, and disagreeable to the smell, that he did not apprehend he should be able to keep it on his stomach. This remark induced Lady Broughton to smell the draught. She found it very peculiar in this respect, and observed to him that it smelt very strongly of bitter- almonds He ate some cheese in order to take the taste out of his Fodere, vol. iv. p. 27. mouth, and afterwards washed his mouth with some water. In about two minutes after swallowing the draught, he appeared to struggle very much, as if to keep it down, and had a rattling and guggling in his stomach. These symptoms continued about ten minutes, when he seemed to Lady Broughton to be inclined to go to sleep, and she left the room. She returned again in about five minutes, and was sur- prised to find him with his eyes fixed upwards, his teeth clenched, and froth running out of his mouth. He died in about half an hour after- wards, never having spoken since he took the draught. “ Captain Donellan came into the room when Sir Theodosius was dying, and inquired of Lady Broughton where the physic-bottle was. She showed it to him. He immediately took and poured water into it, shook it, and then emptied its contents into the wash-hand basin. And he persisted in doing this with another bottle, although Lady Broughton remonstrated, and objected to his conduct. Mr. Powell was sent for, but arrived after the death of Sir Theodosius. It ap- peared also in evidence, that Capt Donellan had a still in his own room, and that he had used it for distilling roses. “ Some days after the death of Sir T., he brought this still to one of the servants to be cleaned. It was full of lime, and the lime was wet. On the other hand, it appeared on the cross-examination of Lady Broughton, that Sir T., a short time before his death, had bought ar- senic to poison fish, and some of this was afterwards found locked up in his closet. Suspicions soon began to be excited as to the cause of this sudden decease, and when these reached the ears of Sir W. Wheeler, the guardian of the young baronet, he wrote to Capt. Do- nellan, informing him of the rumours that were abroad, and request- ing him to have the body opened, to satisfy the family and the public. Donellan immediately assented to this, and sent for some medical gentlemen. He, however, did not explain to them the cause of his request; and as they were thus led to suppose it merely an ordinary case, they declined the performance, on account of the putrefaction of the body. It is not necessary, nor indeed does it belong to this statement, to enumerate the various devices by which Donellan evi- dently attempted to elude the wishes of Sir W. Wheeler respecting a dissection. On the eighth day after death the body was buried ; but it was taken up immediately after by the coroner and opened. It was found swollen and distended, the face was black, the lips swollen and retracted, and showing the gums, the teeth black, the tongue pro- truding, and the skin spotted in various parts of the body. ‘ The orifices and small arch of the stomach, and the intestines, bore the appearance of inflammation ; the heart was natural, the lungs were suffused with blood, looking red, and spotted in many places with black specks; and on the back part, the blood had settled in a deep- red colour, almost approaching to purple ; the diaphragm was in the same state, and in general upon the depending surfaces of the body, the blood was settled in the like manner: the kidnies appeared black as tinder, and the liver was much in the same state.’ There was also some extravasated blood in the thorax. “ Several physicians and surgeons deposed, that they performed ex- periments on animals with laurel water, and found the effects very similar to the symptoms produced in SirT. Broughton’s case. Death succeeded in a few minutes, after having been preceded by convul- sions. The appearances on dissection also agreed. “ It may be mentioned in this place, that Mr. Powell prepared a draught precisely alike to that which he had sent to the Baronet, with the addition of some laurel-water; and Lady Broughton on being requested to smell it, stated that it resembled the one she had given to her son. “ The counsel for the prisoner, in their cross-examination, inquired of the medical witnesses, whether the presence of epilepsy or apoplexy would not account for the symptoms observed? To this a negative answer was given. Dr. Parsons thought they resembled the latter most, but he was decided in attributing them to the effects of the me- dicine. Sir Theodosius was young, of a spare habit, and it was, therefore, very improbable that apoplexy should have caused his death. They also inquired, whether the appearances observed on dissection might not be the effects of putrefaction. It was allowed that the external might; but not the internal. “ On the part of the prisoner, the celebrated John Hunter was summoned as a witness : and the judge (the Hon. F. Buller) in sum- ming up the evidence, after stating that four medical witnesses were decided in attributing death to the effects of the laurel water, made the following comments on his testimony: — { For the prisoner, you have had one gentleman called, who is likewise one of the faculty, and a very able man. I can hardly say what his opinion is, for he does not seem to have formed any opinion at all of the matter. He, at first, said he could not form an opinion whether the death w7as or was not occasioned by the poison, because he could conceive that it might be ascribed to other causes. I wished very much to have got a direct answer from Mr. Hunter, if I could, what, upon the whole, wras the result of his attention and application to the subject, and what was his present opinion, but he says he can say nothing decisive. So that upon this point, if you are to determine upon the evidence of the gentlemen who are skilled in the faculty only, you have the very positive opinion of four or five gentlemen of the faculty that the de- ceased died of poison. On the other side, you have what 1 really cannot myself call more than the doubt of another : for it is agreed by Mr. Hunter, that the laurel-water would produce the symptoms which are described. He says an epilepsy or apoplexy would produce the same symptoms ; but as to an apoplexy, it is not likely to attack so young and so thin a man as Sir Theodosius was ; and as to epilepsy, the other witnesses tell you they don’t think the symptoms which have been spoken of, do show that Sir Theodosius had epilepsy at the time.’ ” The jury retired for about an hour, and then brought in a verdict of guilty, and Capt. Donellan was executed. It was and still is (says Professor Beck) a prevailing opinion with many, that Sir T. Broughton was not poisoned, and that the captain was innocent. Dr. Male notices this case as “ a melancholy and striking instance of the unhappy effects of popular prejudice, and the fatal consequences of medical ignorance.” Mr. Phillips, in his f* Theory of Presumptive Proofs,” adduces it as an instance where a man was unwarrantably condemned on circumstantial evidence.* As a medical man, it might be enquired of Dr, Male, whether the symptoms preceding this death have not been most strikingly and astonishingly verified, as probably originating from laurel-water, by the subsequent investigations of chemists and physicians. Mr. Hunter says, in his testimony, that he had never known laurel-water to act so rapidly as the other medical witnesses described. He had injected it into the veins and into the stomach of animals, but it never produced so quick an effect. Who, have subsequent trials proved to be correct on this point — Mr. Hunter, or the other witnesses ? The fact of Capt. Donellan’s having a still is cautiously omitted in Mr. Phillips' statement of the case, and it is evident from his comments, that they are founded on imperfect information concerning the subject in dispute. The oil of laurel also acts as a virulent poison, and in a similar manner to the distilled water. The watery extract , however, accord- ing to Orfila, is very feeble, and comparatively innoxious in its opera- tion. For the effects of bitter almonds, and of their essential oil, we refer our readers to Art. XLI1I. Vol. I. of this work. The kernels of the peach are very often distilled for the purpose of impregnating eau de noyau , and if too strongly impregnated with the oil, it must prove noxious. The late Duke Charles of Lorrain nearly lost his life by swallowing a small quantity of this liquor, and although we are unable to furnish our readers with the particulars, several fatal cases have occurred in England. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — The leaves and bark of this tree are of a bitter, somewhat acrid taste, and have a smell characteristic of the volatile oil which they con- tain. This oil is most abundant in the leaves when gathered in the autumn. It is formed of two parts; one crystallizable, the other un crystallizable and very poisonous. A particular vegetable principle which has been long known, but has till lately been confounded with gum, exudes nearly in a pure state from this and some other trees. To it. Dr. John gave the name of cerasin. Cerasin is a solid substance possessing the appearance of gum, and is distinguished by a similar taste. It is usually harder than gum, and not so easily reduced to powder ; when put into water, it imbibes that liquid, swells up considerably, and be- comes semi-transparent, and gelatinous, but is not in the least soluble. It dissolves in boiling water, but again precipitates when the liquid cools, and remains in the state of a jelly. Ce- rasin is insoluble in alcohol and ether. Gum Tragacanth may * Appendix to his Law of Evidence, p. 30. be considered as pure cerasin. But the most important product of the Prunus lauro-cerasus is the volatile oil (prussic or hydro- cyanic acid ) which it yields on distillation, and the poisonous effects of which are particularly adverted to when speaking of distilled laurel-water. Prussic acid, when obtained for medicinal purposes, is however procured in a different manner; and as it is all-important that it be of uniform power, we give Vauquelin’s method, which is principally recommended by British practitioners, and resorted to by our best chemists. M. Vauquelin obtains it by decomposing the cyanuret of mercury by sulphuretted hydrogen. To a retort he adapts a globe, containing a mixture of sulphuret of iron and diluted sulphuric acid. The cyanuret of mercury is placed in a horizontal tube, bent to a right angle, at the extremity of which, enters the globe. The cyanuret of mercury is placed in the horizontal part of the tube, near the extremity attached to the globe. Beyond the deuto-cyanuret, fragments of carbonate of lead and of chloruret of calcium are placed, the former to absorb the small quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen which might remain undecomposed by the cyanuret of mercury, the latter to take up the water which the hydrocyanic acid might otherwise carry along with it. Scheeles’ method furnishes an impure product, and when the new Pharmacopoeia appears, we hope to find a standard rule for procuring so powerful a medicine. Prussic acid , at the ordinary temperature, is liquid, trans- parent, and colourless ; its taste, at first of an agreeable fresh- ness, soon becomes acrid and irritating ; it slightly reddens the tincture of turnsol. Its odour is powerful and noxious ; being insupportable when not mixed with a large proportion of air — it then resembles the smell of bitter almonds. Prussic acid is ex- tremely volatile ; in fact, it boils at 26°. 5, under a pressure of 0°.76 ; and at 10° sustains a column of mercury at 0°.38. Its congelation is however easily effected, and takes place at 15° of Farh. : so that when a few drops of this acid are poured upon paper, the portion which evaporates, instantly produces a degree of cold sufficient to crystallize the other : it is the only liquid which possesses this property. It is but slightly soluble in water, on which account, when agitated with ten or twelve times its bulk of this fluid, it collects on the surface in the manner of oil or ether. It is readily soluble in alcohol. Left to itself in well-stopped vessels, it sometimes decomposes in less than an hour; according to M. Majendie, it can rarely be preserved longer than a fortnight. Messrs. Waugh, in Regent Street, are said, however, to prepare it after the formula of Dr. Nimmo, and warrant it to keep, without deterioration, for six months. Prussic acid exerts the same deadly powers that the distilled laurel-water does, but in a more eminent degree. One drop, in a pure state, introduced to the tongue of a dog or cat, induces a few hurried inspirations, and death immediately ensues. Dropped into the eye, it produces effects equally sudden. One drop di- luted with several drops of alcohol, injected into the jugular vein, will kill the animal as suddenly as if it were struck with lighten- ing; and in animals poisoned in this manner, scarcely any traces of muscular irritability can be detected a few moments after death. Cases are continually occurring in this country, in which prus- sic acid has been taken with the express intention of producing death : and in the Annales de Chimie for 1814, the following one is recorded. A professor of chemistry left a flask containing alcohol saturated with prussic acid ; the servant-maid, seduced by the agreeable smell of the liquor, swallowed a glass of it. At the expiration of two minutes she fell dead, as if she had been struck with apoplexy. The body was not opened. Orfila also mentions that Professor Scharinger of Vienna, pre- pared some pure and concentrated prussic acid, a certain quan- tity of which he diffused on his naked arm, and died a short time after. Hufeland relates the following case. “ D. L., a robust and healthy man, setat. 36, on being siezed as a thief by the police, snatched a small sealed phial from his pocket, broke off the neck, and swallowed the greater part of its contents. A strong smell of bitter-almonds soon spread around, which almost stupified all present. The culprit staggered a few minutes, then, without a groan, fell on his knees, and sunk lifeless on the ground. Me- dical assistance being called in, not the slightest trace of pulse or breathing could be found. A few minutes afterwards, a single and violent aspiration occurred, which was again repeated in about two minutes. The extremities were perfectly cold, the breast and abdomen still warm, the eyes half open and shining, clear, lively, full, almost projecting, and as brilliant as those of the most ardent youth under violent emotion. The face was neither distorted nor convulsed, but bore the image of quiet sleep. The corpse exhaled a strong odour of bitter-almonds- And the remaining liquid in the phial being analysed, was found to be a concentrated solution of prussic acid in alcohol. Even its vapour should be carefully avoided ; for if respired, it causes considerable pain in the chest, and a feeling of oppression which does not go off for several hours. It also has a very dele- terious effect on germination, exerting an influence on living vegetables, almost as powerful as on animals, speedily destroying their vitality. Tests. — It having been denied that the presence of the vege- table poisons could be detected, the attention of chemists has been excited to this point; and in the Archives Generales for August 1824, M. Lossaigne has made known the proper method of de- tecting hydrocyanic acid in the human body. Before devoting himself to the research on this substance in the stomach of ani- mals, he considered it proper to study the actions of the re-agents on this acid. He is satisfied that, by saturating an aqueous solution of hydrocyanic acid, with a small quantity of potass, and then touching it with a little sulphate of iron, he could detect the -0* — part of the weight of wrater. If, instead of the sulphate of iron, he employed sulphate of copper , and then added a suffi- cient quantity of muriatic acid to dissolve the excess of oxyde of copper which had been precipitated by the alkali ; the solution assumed a milky appearance, at the time when it only contains g-o-* part of its weight of acid. If we dilute this solution in a large quantity of water, the precipitation disappears in a few hours, and the fluid becomes clear, especially if the liquid in which the precipitation first took place has the muriatic acid a little in excess. A fact well worthy of remark is, that in making the two-fold experiment by these tests, that made by the sulphate of copper will have its effect disappear, and the fluid will become clear frequently before that which has been treated by the sulphate of iron has acquired the blue colour proper to it. It sometimes happens, that this colour does not show itself for twelve, and sometimes for eighteen hours afterwards. It is by the help of these tests that M. Lossaigne has disco- vered, forty-eight hours after the death of a cat , the hydrocyanic acid in the intestinal tube. The method of procedure is to dis- til in a tubulated retort, the fluid that has been obtained from the intestines by cutting them into small pieces. As the hydro- cyanic acid is very volatile, it passes over in distillation. When you have obtained about ^ of the fluid, you need not carry the operation further, but saturate the product by potash, and ex- amine it by the two modes before described. The following observation has been deduced from the experiments of this chemist : — 1. That by these two tests he could detect, in a distilled fluid, hydrocyanic acid in the proportion of 1-0?-6-0- to g0*0Q- of the weight of water. 2. That it is possible to detect it, in poisoned animals, more than forty- eight hours after death. 3. That it is always in the viscera, that its vestiges can be discovered. 4. That not the least portion can be detected in the brain, spinal marrow, or heart. Although they give out an odour which causes its existence to be suspected. From a paper read, however, before the Royal Academy of Medicine at Paris, by M. Itard, it appears that a spontaneous development of prussic acid is occasionally met with in the alvine evacuations. He quoted two cases of the kind. The first subject had inflammation of the intestines ; the other symp- toms of inflammation of the liver. In both individuals, the stools smelt strongly of bitter almonds. These facts are cer- tainly highly important in a medico-legal point of view; as the existence merely of the odour of prussic acid in the faeces can- not, under such circumstances, be received as evidence that the person had been poisoned with this medicine. M. Delens re- lated, on the same occasion, several facts, which showed that prussic acid had been found in the perspiration, urine, and ex- pectoration, accounting for the blue colour of those liquids. M. Dupay observed, that cows fed in certain pastures gave blue milk. M. Virey quoted a case where cows fed with the prunus padus, exhaled a very strong smell of bitter almonds. The existence of prussic acid in the excrements of these ani- mals was ascertained by the sulphate of iron. M. Marc related that in Germany some persons had been poisoned by eating sausages, in all of whom a great quantity of prussic acid was spontaneously developed. Treatment. — The effects of this poison are so instanta- neous, that when taken with a view to suicide, the fatal pur- pose is generally at once accomplished. Occasionally, however, serious effects are produced by overdoses in medicine ; and under such circumstances, in addition to the means recommended in Art. XXXVII. under the head of Nicotiana Tabacum, we should recommend cold affusion to the head, and repeated doses of ammonia, warm brandy and water, or the spirits of turpentine. Medical Properties and Uses.— Dr. Elliotson justly observes in his valuable work,# the hydrocyanic acid can scarcely be called a new medicine, as the leaves of the lauro- cerasus, bitter almonds, and other substances containing it, and from which they derive their virtues, were long ago employed as remedies. Dr. Brown Langrishf tells us that the powder of the dry leaves of the lauro-cerasus was frequently employed in his neighbourhood as a certain cure for ague, “ by giving as much as will lie on a shilling, in a glass of white wine, two hours be- fore the fit, and repeating it three times. It is held in great * Numerous Cases illustrative of the Efficacy of the Hydrocyanic or Prussic Acid in Affections of the Stomach, &c. By John Elliotson, M.D. f Physical Experiments upon Brutes, p. 122. 1746. esteem among the poorer sort of people, and is said to have good success.” By referring also to the account of Amygdalus com- munis, in our work, it will be seen that Bergius successfully treated it with bitter almonds. Nurses occasionally put a leaf of the lauro-cerasus in pap, to relieve flatulence ; while Linneus says, " Lauro-cerasi per Belgium usitatissima pro infuso in morbis depascentibus.” # Baylies boasts of its virtues in hectic, and speaks of it as efficacious in attenuating the blood : that it was given during the last century as a remedy for consumption, is evident from a reference to it by Cullen, who says, “ that it has been of no use in cases of phthisis pulmonalis , or in resolving obstructions of the liver, seems to be concluded upon too few experiments.” Not only every class of agents produces peculiar effects upon the living body, but every individual, besides the general properties of its class, is characterized by peculiar effects. The hydro- cyanic acid is a narcotic, but it has not the property of lessening pain in general, nor of procuring sleep in a direct manner like opium ; neither has it the power of controlling the pulse like Digitalis. In a large dose, short of fatal effects, it, as we have already hinted, occasions insensibility and extreme feebleness of the heart’s action : in a smaller, vertigo, faintness, and perhaps rapidity of pulse, sickness, and a sense of constriction at the preecordia ; in a still smaller, nausea only, with perhaps mo- mentary vertigo, and even pain of the stomach. Although, in too large a dose it irritates the stomach, it has a remarkable power when properly exhibited of soothing this organ when in a state of morbid irritability. In Dr. Elliotson’s extensive prac- tice at St. Thomas’s hospital, it has been satisfactorily proved, we understand, to be the best remedy in gastrodynia and in pyrosis ; but its powers are most conspicuous in vomit- ing unconnected with inflammation of this organ. Frequently, as in pregnant women, it is observed to arrest, at the first few doses, perhaps at the very first, vomiting which had existed for several weeks, merely from morbid irritability ; and hiccough also has frequently yielded to it. Yet, what is sin-f * Amcenitates Academic*, vol. iv. p. 40. gular, it will not mitigate pain in the intestines, or entendynia. It cannot therefore be expected to relieve, nor does it even lessen pain generally, in other parts ; and as a consequence, cannot be employed as a general anodyne. The attacks of pain which occur in angina pectoris, and so closely resemble gastrodynia in situation and course, as probably to be mistaken, are said to be more relieved by it than by any other means. It is also employed with advantage in the hooping, and what is called spasmodic cough ; i. e. when there is no inflammation or organic disease ; or where these exist, the cough is disproportion- ally violent. After proper antiphlogistic measures in inflammations of the chest, it has been useful ; and occasionally in consumption, in palliating symptoms ; but as it possesses no power over or- ganic disease, it is not a cure for consumption as some have too fondly wished; and a physician asserting in the nineteenth century, what time has proved to be incorrect, that it has cured several hundred cases, either proves a disregard of truth, or an ignorance of the symptoms and pathology of this fatal disease — for which he is alike culpable. Nervous patients it sometimes soothes considerably. But, ex- cepting in affections of the stomach, we may doubt whether it possesses any advantages over opium, properly administered ; and in procuring sleep, relieving pain in general, or as remedy for diabetes, it will be found a poor substitute. When palpitation depends upon dyspepsia, it, in common with other symptoms, is greatly mitigated by this acid. The external application of the prussic acid, greatly diluted, has been recommended to sooth irritation of the skin. But it more frequently causes smarting sensations, and a degree of dry- ness, even when extremely diluted, that renders it worse than useless. Externally, though occasionally beneficial, it is infi- nitely inferior in its effects to the chloruret of soda, which as a disinfecting agent, and as a cleanser of sloughing ulcers, we particularly recommend.* Dose. — -The largest dose of the acid generally borne, prepared * See Scott’s Translation of Labbaraque, on this subject. by Vauquelin’s method, varies from one to five drops. We should begin with one drop, and increase the dose one drop daily,, or every other day, till the symptoms yield, or signs of its dis- agreeing appear, such as severe vomiting, vertigo, or a sense of debility. The dose should be then reduced to what is borne with comfort. It may be continued any length of time without fear of accumulation of effect, or constitutional operation. It should not be given on an empty stomach ; and when several doses are combined, the mixture should be well shaken previously to its administration. PRUNUS DOMESTICA.— Common Plum-tree. Spec. Char. Flower-stalks solitary or in pairs. Leaves lanceolate-ovate, convolute while young. Branches without thorns. Syn. — Prunus, n. 1079. Hall. Hist. v. 2. 27. Prunus sativa, Fuchs. Hist. 403 ./. Prunus domestica, Lin. Sp. PI. 680 ; Willd. v. 2. 995 ; FI. Brit. 527 ; Eng . Bnt. v.25. t. 1783; Hook. Scot. 150; Ger. Em. 1497./. ; Woodv. t. 85. FOREIGN. — Prunier, Prune, Fr. ; Prugno ; Susino, It.; Ciruelo, Sp. ; Ameriera, Port. ; Ppfiaumen, Ger. , Plommon, Swed. ; Sliwnik, Russ. The plum-tree is frequently found growing wild in our woods and hedges, bearing flowers in April and May ; but the country from whence it originally came has not been ascertained. “ W~hether,” says Sir J. E. Smith, “ all our cultivated plums may formerly have originated from the Prunus insitia, (Wild Bullace-tree,) its thorns having disappeared by culture, like those of the pear-tree, is a question which perhaps no botanist can ever solve/’ With respect to the varieties, Parkinson, in 1629, enumerates no fewer than sixty, “ all of which,” he says, “ are to be had of my very good friend Master John Tradescant, who hath wonderfully laboured to obtain all the rarest fruits he can hear of in any place in Christendome, Tur- key, yea, or the whole world.” Professor Martyn, in his edition of Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary, also enumerates sixty va- rieties of the plum. The plum-tree rises about fifteen feet in height, and is desti- tute of spines. The leaves are pale green, oval, serrated, on short footstalks, and when young, convoluted and pubescent underneath : the stipulas are pointed, and placed in pairs at the base of the footstalks. The flowers are large, on short pedun- cles, with a bell-shaped, deciduous calyx, and five, obovate, white petals. The filaments are numerous and inserted into the calyx : the germen is round and supports a simple style. The fruit is an oblong drupe, internally consisting of a sweet fleshy pulp, and inclosing a smooth almond-shaped nut or stone. Qualities. — Three sorts of this fruit are ranked among the articles of the materia medica ; they are all met with in our gar- dens, but the shops are supplied with them moderately dried from abroad. These are the Brignole plum, or Prunelle, brought from Brignole in Provence, of a reddish yellow colour, and a very grateful sweet, subacid taste; the common or French prunes, called by our gardeners the little black damask plum, and damsons, the larger damask violet plum of Tours, which is seldom kept in the shops, but has generally been supplied by the common prunes. All these fruits possess the same general qua- lities with the other summer fruits. When perfectly ripe, they are pleasant to the palate, and moderately nutritive ; but when eaten too freely they are apt to occasion flatulence, griping, and diarrhoea. They are nearly inodorous, and contain chiefly mucus, saccharine matter, and malic acid. Medical Properties and Uses. — The dried fruit, or prunes, are gently laxative, and enter as an ingredient into the Confectio senna of our pharmacopoeias. They are advanta- geously employed as an article of diet, in costive habits, and in febrile and other diseases. The fruit of the sloe, (Prunus spinosa,) is a powerful astrin- gent; and the inspissated juice is a substitute for the Indian catechu. This juice is also largely used in factitious or adul- terated port-wine, and the leaves are reckoned among the adul- terations of tea in England. Ill U cxviii ERYTHRiEA CENTAURIUM. Common Centaury. Class V. Pentandria. — Order I. Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Rotaceje, Lin. Gentians, Juss. Gen. Char. Capsule 2-celled. Corolla salver-shaped. Anthers becoming spiral. Spec. Char. Stem nearly simple. Panicle forked corymbose. Leaves ovate-lanceolate. Calyx half the length of the tube, its segments partly com- bined by a membrane. Syn. — Centaurium minus, Raii Syn. 286 ; Bauh. Pin. 278 ; Camer. Epit. 426./. Centaurium parvum, Ger. Em. 547 .f. ; Matth , Valgr. v. 2. 19./. Centaurium, n. 648, Hall. Hist. v. 1. 288. Gentiana Centaurium, Lin. Sp. PI. 332 ; Bull. Fr. t. 253 ; FI. Dan. t. 617. Chironia Centaurium, El. Brit. 257; Eng. Bot. v. 6. t. 417 ; Willd. Sp. PI. v. 1. 1068; Curt. Lond.fasc. 4. t. 22; Woodv. t. 157. Foreign. — Gentiane centaurelle ; Petit Centaurde , Fr. ; Centaurea tninore, It.; Centaurea menor , Sp. ; Tausendgiildenkraut , Ger. ; Solotnik poleuioi , Russ. This elegant annual grows spontaneously in most parts of Bri- tain, in dry gravelly pastures, and in woods ; flowering in July and August. Dr. Milne found it in great abundance in Charlton Wood, near the seven mile-stone, on the lower road to Wool- wich ; in the meadows about Eltham and Sidcup ; in Shooter’s Hill Wood; and in the chalk-pits at Northiieet. We also observed it plentifully in Birch Wood, Kent. A white variety was gathered by Mr. Lawson, near the medicinal well at Cart- mel, in Lancashire ; and is affirmed by the editor of the third edition of Ray’s Synopsis, to be pretty common in Kent and in the isle of Sheppey. It occurs generally throughout Europe, as far northward as Sweden. The plant rises from a small woody, fibrous root, to the height of ten or twelve inches. The stem is slender, erect, angular, leafy, sometimes branched at the upper part, and when very VOL. in. M luxuriant, from the base also. The leaves grow close to the stalk, in pairs, tending upwards, and are pointed, ovate, or elliptic-lanceolate. Those next the root are numerous, obovate, and form a turf near the ground : they are all smooth, ribbed like those of plantain or soap-wort, and of a bright green colour. The flowers, which open in the day-time and shut at night, are disposed in a beautiful more or less dense panicle, at the extre- mity of the forked branches. They have a smooth, striated, 5-cleft calyx, about half the length of the tube of the corolla, whose limb is of a brilliant pink or rose-colour, rarely white, and divided into five elliptical spreading segments, succeeded by an oblong cylindrical capsule, that opens by two valves, dis- closing a number of small seeds. The filaments are thread- shaped, and furnished with oblong, yellow anthers, which become spiral or three- times- twisted, after bursting, as represented by fig. a, on the plate. The germen is oblong, bearing a straight style, with a roundish bifid stigma. The genus Erythrsea, so named from the red colour of most of the flowers, contains four British species. It differs from Chironia, (which was originally appropriated to an African genus,) in habit, in the long tube and short limb of the corolla, and in other less important cha- racters. The term Centaurium was bestowed on this species in honour of Chiron the Centaur, the celebrated preceptor of Achilles, who by the testimony of Pliny, (1. xxv. c. 6,) cured with it Hercules’s foot, which had been wounded with a poisoned arrow. Qualities. — The flowering tops are principally used in medicine; they are intensely bitter, without any peculiar smell. Their active powers are extracted both by water and alcohol. The decoction with water affords, by inspissation, a bitter extract. Medical Properties and Uses. — Common, or Lesser Centaury, as it is sometimes called, has long been celebrated for its medicinal virtues, and is justly esteemed to be among the most efficacious of our indigenous bitters. It is a useful stomachic and antiseptic, and be- fore the discovery of cinchona, was much employed as a useful tonic, in the cure of intermittent and continued fevers. As a bitter, it may be given with advantage in dyspeptic complaints, and in all cases where that class of remedies is indicated. The tops enter as an ingre- dient into the Portland powder; once in the highest repute as a re- medy against the gout, but now very properly discarded from me- dical practice. The extract agrees in its medical properties with that of gentian, and being less expensive, is perhaps preferable. The dose of the powder is from gfi to ; of the extract gr. v. to 9j ; of an infusion, made by macerating jfl of the dried tops in ft>fl of boiling water, of which jij, may be taken three or four times a day. xvus. f' j erf / Z/yf / '// c/6J. '/sr/// // //y ZoruLn Zullished for ike Authors Jun c Uff'ZS, GZ.nd del. CXIX RHAMNUS CATHARTICUS. Common Buckthorn . Class V. Pentandria. — Order I. Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Dumosi, Lin. Rhamni, Juss. Gen. Char. Calyx funnel-shaped, bearing the pe- tals. Berry of several cells. Spec. Char. Leaves ovate, serrated. Flowers 4-cleft, dioecious. Thorns terminal. Berry with four seeds. Syn. — Rhamnus solutivus, Ger. Em. 1337. f. 1. 2. ; Dod. Pempt. 756. /. Rhamnus n. 824.; Hall. Hist. v. 1. 366. Cervispina, Cord. Hist. 175./. Spina infeetoria, Matth. Valg. v. 1. 143./; Camer. Epit. 82./. Rhamnus catharticus, Lin. Sp. Pl. 279; Willd. v. 1. 1092; FI. Brit. 260; Eng. Bot. v. 23. t. 1629; Hook. Scot. 80 ; Raii Syn. 466; Bauh. Pin. 478.; Woodv. t. 114. Foreign. — Nerprun ; nerprun pur gatif ordinaire, Fr. ; Ramno catartico ; Spino cer- vino, It.; Ramno catartico; espina de ciervo , Sp. ; Escambrociero , Port.; Gemeine Kreuzdorn, Ger.; Getappel, Swed. ; Korsbcertorn, Dan. ; Pridoroschnaja igolka , Russ. Buckthorn is, perhaps, as well known among herbalists and rustic practitioners as any indigenous medicinal plant of Great Britain. It ha&been long celebrated for the cathartic qualities of its berries, which are gathered by the common people in some places in considerable quantities, and the juice expressed for the use of the apothecaries. It grows wild in hedges, groves, and thickets, flowering in May, and ripening its fruit in September. It is rather uncommon in the neighbourhood of London ; but Dr. Milne found it in some lanes betwixt Plumstead and East Wickham ; in a chalk-pit betwixt Gravesend and Chatham, and in copses above Purfleet. The specimen from which our figure was designed, grew in the lane leading from the Fox and Hounds public-house to Darenth Wood, two miles beyond Hartford, in Kent. We have also observed it in great abundance in the m 2 hedges near Thames Ditton ; and Mr. W. Anderson, of the Bo- tanic Garden, Chelsea, informs us it grows plentifully about Norwood, in Surrey. Buckthorn is a shrub, which rises to the height of seven or eight feet, with a smooth dark-brown bark, and yellowish wood. The branches are alternate, or nearly opposite, spreading, and each terminating in a strong spine, after the first year. The leaves are simple, entire, ribbed, smooth, finely serrated, and of a bright green colour ; the earlier ones downy, and in tufts from the flowering buds; those on the young shoots, opposite, and smooth. The flowers are small, sustained on pedicels, and stand in thick clusters on the extremities of the last year’s branches. They are generally of different sexes on distinct plants ; the fer- tile flowers, with the rudiments of stamens, narrow petals, and a deeply four-cleft style ; the barren ones with an abortive germen, and broader petals. The anthers are small, roundish, on short awl-shaped filaments, and inserted in the mouth of the four-cleft calyx, opposite to each petal. The berries, which succeed the germen in the female flowers, are black when ripe, globular, of the size of a pea, and contain a green pulp, with four cells, and as many seeds, that are smooth, elliptical, convex on one side, and flattened on the other. By this last character they are easily known by druggists, from the fruit of the Rhamnus fran- gula, which has only two seeds, and is supposed to be less ac- tive. Fig. ( a ) represents a male flower ; (6) female flower ; (c) a stamen ; ( d ) fruit ; (e) the section of a berry, showing the four cells ; ( f ) the seed. There are two British species of Buckthorn : Common Buck- thorn, already described, and Alder Buckthorn, or Berry-bear- ing Alder, (R. Frangula.) The latter is a shrub, which, like the preceding, grows to a considerable height, with smooth entire leaves, and flowers in May. It is destitute of thorns ; and the berries, which ripen in July, are dark purple, each containing two large yellowish seeds. This plant formerly obtained a place in the foreign dispensatories, under the name of Frangula. The inner bark, the only part used in medicine, when dried is a dras- tic purgative ; emetic, when green. The berries gathered before they are ripe dye wool green, and yellow ; when ripe, blue-grey, blue, and green. The bark dyes yellow, and with preparations of iron, black. The species usually cultivated, or introduced as objects of curiosity are, — the Turkey-berry buckthorn, (R. infectoria ) ; the shining-leaved buckthorn, or common jujube, (R. zizypkus); the common alaternus, (R. A later mis) ; the pubescent rhamnus, or Bahama red-wood, (R. colubrinus) ; the common Christ’s thorn, (R. paliurus) ; the pointed-leaved buckthorn, (R. ano - plia) ; and the Syrian Christ’s-thorn, (R. spina Christi). The first is a native of the south of Europe. It is frequent in rough, stony places in Greece, and is regarded by Dr. Sibthorp as the Aviaov, Lycium, of Dioscorides. The unripe berries are much used for dyeing, and are imported into England under the name of French berries. They are chiefly used for topical dye- ing in calico printing ; but the colour which they communicate is very fugitive ; and they are also used to give the colour to Turkey leather, or yellow morocco. This shrub is very nearly related to the R. catharticus, but grows procumbent, not erect, and the leaves are smaller and narrower. The fruit of the shining-leaved buckthorn, or common jujube, is sold in the market at Canton during the autumn. It is about the size of an olive, of a yellowish-red colour, sweetish, and clammy. In Italy and Spain it is served up at table, in deserts during the winter season, as a dry sweetmeat. It was for- merly kept in the shops, under the name of jujubes, and recom- mended in coughs and other pulmonary complaints, but has now justly fallen into disuse. The natives of Siberia use the wood of an unarmed species, the Rhamnus Erythroxylon, or Siberian Red-wood, to make their images, on account of its hardness and colour. Accord- ing to Osbeck, the poor in China, where the shrub is a native, use the leaves of the R. teezans , as a substitute for the genuine tea, and is called by them Tia. Another species (R. paliurus) which is affirmed by travellers to be one of the most common shrubs in the country of Judea, is supposed by some to be the plant, from which the crown of thorns put upon the head of Christ, was composed ; but Dr. Hasselquist is rather disposed to think it was the R. spina Christi of Linneus. The true Lotus of the Greeks (Rhammus lotus) is one of the most com- mon shrubs in many parts of Africa. The fruit is described by Mr. Park, as a small farinaceous berry, of a yellow colour, and delicious taste. Qualities. — The odour of the buckthorn-berries is faint and unpleasant; and to the taste bitter, acrid, and nauseous. They are said to contain acetic acid, mucilage, sugar, and an azotized substance. Medical Properties and Uses. — The juice of the ber- ries is a violent griping drastic purgative, capable of exerting very injurious effects; and although still employed as a domestic remedy, is now much more used in the practice of veterinary surgeons than by us. A syrup is still prepared from them, as directed by the London and Edinburgh colleges. The London form is preferred on account of the aromatics which enter into its composition, preventing its griping effects. It is still, how- ever, a violent remedy, and produces most unconquerable dryness of the mouth and throat, and intolerable thirst. The dose of this, is from six drachms to an ounce, or two ounces. From the inspissated juice of the ripe berries, with a very small addition of alum, is obtained that green colour so well known by the name of vert-de-vessie or sap green. Sometimes it is pre- pared by adding eight pounds of lime-water to twelve pounds of the expressed juice, and six ounces of gum arabic ; which mix- ture is afterwards evaporated into the consistence of an extract, and dried for use. /y//A/ rr' ;//t ZondcmJublished for Che ^Authors June 1,1328. cxx ULMUS CAMPESTRIS. Common Small-leaved Elm. Class V. Pentandria. — Order II. Digynia. Nat. Ord. Scabrida:, Lin. Amentace;e, Jass. Gen. Char. — Corolla 0. Capsule compressed, mem- branous, superior. Spec. Char. — Leaves doubly serrated, rough. Flowers nearly sessile, 4-cleft. Capsule oblong, deeply clo- ven, naked. Syn . — Ulmus minor, folio angusto scabro, Good, in Ger. Em. 1480. /. ; Raii Syn. 469. Ulmus, Dod. Pempt. 837./. Ulmus campestris, Lin. Sp. PI. 327; Willd. v. 1. 1324; FI. Brit. 281.; Eng.Bot.v. 27. t. 1886; Woodv. 2d. ed. 710. t. 242. Foreign. — Orme, Fr. ; Olmo , It. Sp. and Port. ; Ulmrinde, Ger.; Aim, Dan. and Swed. ; Olm , Dut. ; Ilim, Russ. The common small-leaved elm is generally understood to be indigenous to the south of England, though the fact is doubted by Evelyn and others. Several superstitious customs were prac- tised on this and other elm-trees by our Saxon ancestors. A canon of King Edgar, in the tenth century, may be thus literally translated. “ We decree that every priest shall anxiously ad- vance Christianity, entirely abolish all heathenism, and forbid tree-worship, divination with the dead, omens, charms with songs, man-worship, and many other illusions which are prac- tised in asylums on Elms, (hence perhaps the name Witch or Wych-Elm,) and on various other trees, by which many are perverted who ought not so to be.” Dr. Hunter justly remarks, there can be no stronger proof of its being known at a very early period, than that many compound names of places, of which, the word “ elm” forms a part, are to be met with in " Doomsday Book,” the drawing up of which was finished in 1086. The small-leaved elm grows abundantly in the woods and hedges near London, flowering in April, long before the foliage expands. It is a lofty tree, sending off many round, spreading, crooked, leafy branches, and is covered with a rugged dark-brown bark. The leaves are elliptical, contracted towards each end, doubly serrated, unequal at the base ; they are very rough, wrinkled, and veined, stand alternately on footstalks, and are of a dark-green colour. The flowers are small, and grow in numer- ous dense, round, dark-purple clusters, from the sides of the branches before the evolution of the leaves, each flower being nearly sessile, with an oblong fringed bractea at its base. The calyx is inferior, turbinate, wrinkled, permanent, and divided at the limb into four oblong obtuse segments of a pale brownish red colour. There is no corolla. The filaments are four, twice as long as the calyx, and bearing dark-purple anthers. The germen is oblong, compressed, and supports two styles, which bend outwards, and are terminated by the stigmas, which con- sist of a downy line along the upper surface of each style. The flowers are succeeded each by an oblong, wedge-shaped flat pale-brown capsule, which has a deep sinus at the extremity, and incloses a single seed. Fig. ( a ) represents a flower with its bractea magnified ; (6) the styles ; (c) the capsules ; ( d ) Scolytus destructor of the natural size. Of the elm there are about fifteen species, four of which, be- sides the campestris, are naturalized in Britain, viz. — the broad- leaved elm, called also the wych hasel, (U. montana ; ) the com- mon cork-barked elm, (U. suberosa;) the Dutch cork-barked elm, (U. major;) and the smooth-leaved, or wych elm, (U. glabra.) In the first of these, the leaves are larger than any of the native species ; the bark is smooth and even, and the flowers are stalked, and in looser tufts. The common cork-barked elm has stalked, four or 5-cleft flowers, and like the Dutch elm, (which has sessile flowers,) is chiefly remarkable for its quick growth and rough corky bark. The wych elm, which is very common in Essex, has small leaves, smooth on both sides, nearly sessile, 5-cleft flowers, and obovate, deeply cloven capsules. Lin- neus confounded all the European elms under the name of Ulmus campestris. The elm attains a large size, and lives to a great age. Mention is made of one planted by Henry IV. of France, which was standing at the Luxembourgh Gardens in Paris at the com- mencement of the French revolution. One at the upper end of Church-lane, Chelsea, (said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth,) was felled in 1783. It was thirteen feet in circum- ference at the bottom, and one hundred and ten feet high, Mr* Coxe mentions an ancient elm at Raglan Castle, in Monmouth- shire, which was twenty-eight feet five inches in circumference near the root. PifFes’ elm, near the Boddington Oak, in the vale of Gloucester, was, in 1783, about eighty feet high, and the smallest girth of the principal trunk was sixteen feet. From the planting of Sir Francis Bacon’s elms, in Gray’s Inn Walk, in 1600, and their decay about 1720, one would be disposed to assign the healthy period of the elm to be about one hundred and twenty years. The health of these must have been, how- ever, affected in some degree by the smoke of London. The superb avenue called the “ Long Walk,” at Windsor, was planted at the beginning of the last century. Most of the trees have evidently passed their prime. The most profitable age of elms, both for quantity and quality of timber, is supposed to be about fifty or sixty years. The predominance of resin insoluble in water, and not liable to be acted on by the atmospheric air, has been assigned as the cause why the pine and the larch are more durable than the silver fir and the spruce. “ It is possible,” says Miller, “ that the elm is injured by too much humidity in the soil upon which it grows ; and that the Dutch elm, which is usually classed as a different species from the common elm, may be merely the common one debased in the humid soil of Holland.” The elm has been always considered as one of the trees which can be most safely transplanted after attaining a considerable size. Evelyn gives several accounts of this species being thus removed into other soils. In the year 1816, a much improved mode of transplanting this and other forest trees, was introduced by Sir Henry Stuart, of Allanton, for an account of which we must refer our readers to his “ Planter’s Guide.” VOL. in. N The culture of the elm is effected in different ways ; as by seed, suckers, layers, and grafting. All the sorts and varieties are of hardy growth, and will succeed perfectly well in any com- mon soil and exposure, but delight most in a deep rich earth of a stiffish loamy nature, which is rather inclined to moisture, the English sorts having the best situations and soil, and the Wych and Dutch kinds those which are inferior in these respects. The common small-leaved elm is of slower growth than our other wild species, with a harder, more durable, and consequently more valuable wood, which is preferred for most kinds of wheel- wright work, pipes for conducting water under the ground, water, pumps, coffins, and various other useful purposes. The elm-tree is liable to be injured, and is sometimes entirely destroyed by a minute beetle, (Scolytus destructor ,) which, in its preparatory state, feeds upon the soft inner bark. This insect, which inhabits the elms of France and Germany, as well as England, was particularly prevalent, and caused incalculable mischief in St. James’ and Hyde Parks four or five years ago. The leaves of the trees infested by the scolytus first become yel- low, the trees themselves then die at the top, and ultimately perish. “ From March to September,” says Mr. Curtis, (to whose valuable and elegant work we are indebted for the accom- panying figure,) “ the female may be found upon the trunks of elm-trees, making her way through the bark ; after which, she proceeds between the bark and the wood ; forming a passage, and depositing her eggs on each side in her course till she is ex- hausted, when she dies, and may generally be found at the ex- tremity of the channel ; when the eggs which are deposited being close to each other, hatch, the larvae beginning to feed, working nearly at right angles from the path of the parent, proceeding almost parallel to each other, as expressed in the engraving.” In order to check the ravages occasioned by these formidable little animals, Mr. Macleay recommends the infected trees to be brushed over in March, with a mixture of tar and train oil, a certain height above ground, which will destroy the lavse.* An * See Macleay in Edinburgh Philos. Journ. No. XXI. July 1824, p. 123. Curtis British Entomology, v. 1. t. 43, insect, similar in its economy, but belonging to a different genus, the Bostrichus typography of Fabricius, and known in Ger- many under the name of Warm trokniss, (decay caused by worms,) occasioned terrible devastation among the pines, in the Hartz forest about the year 1783. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — The inner bark, which is the part used in medicine, has a yellowish colour, and a mucilaginous bitter astringent taste, without smell. The bark in the spring is most advantageously striped from the smal., but not from the smallest branches ; and in autumn from the branching roots. The decoction, when evaporated, leaves a little semi-transparent substance, soluble in water, but inso- luble in alcohol and ether, which Dr. Thomson, in his Dispen- satory, regards as ulmin; or rather, as a peculiar modification of mucus, combined with extractive, gallic acid, and super- tartrate of potass. Ulmin is the name given to a peculiar sub- stance which was discovered by the celebrated Klaproth, in the bark of the elm. It exists in the bark of almost all trees, but is generally obtained by spontaneous exudation from the elm. It may be prepared by acting on elm-bark by hot alcohol, and cold water; and then digesting the residue in water which contains an alkaline carbonate in solution. In the solid state it has the appearance of gum. It has no taste, and is soluble, though sparingly, in water and alcohol. The alkaline carbonates dissolve it more abundantly, and it is precipitated from its solu- tion in them by acids and metallic salts. Dobreiner states, that gallic acid is converted into ulmin, by dissolving it in ammonia, and exposing the solution to oxygengas. Ulmin has not hitherto been applied to any particular use. Medical Properties and Uses. — The decoction of elm- bark has been recommended in various cutaneous diseases ; particularly of the herpetic and leprous kind. Banau recom- mends its use in fluor albus, chronic rheumatism, scrofulous affections, tinea capitis, scurvy, and in old inveterate ulcers. In Vol. II. of the Medical Transactions, five cases of inveterate eruptions are narrated by Dr. Lysons, as having been cured by this remedy; but it is doubtful whether adjuncts are not the causes of relief. Dr. Lettsom also cured what he supposed to be the lepra ichthyosis of Sauvages by it ; but it is now fallen into disuse as a remedy of very little power. We think, how- ever that it deserves more extensive trials before we discard it from our materia medica. The decoction ( Decoctum Ulmi of the pharmacopoeias) is made by boiling four ounces of the inner bark in four pints of water down to two pints. Dose from four to six or eight ounces twice a day. The bark of the elm dried and ground to powder has been mixed with meal, in Norway, to make bread in times of scarcity. The leaves also afford a pleasant nourishment to cattle, and in some parts of Hertfordshire the poor people gather them in sacks for this purpose. * CXXI DIOSMA CRENATA. Crenated Diosma . Class V. Pentandria. — Order l. Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Multisiliqu m, Lin. Rutacea:, Juss. Gen. Char. Petals five. Nectary of five scales crowning the germen. Capsules three or five, con- nected. Seeds in an elastic bivalve arillus. Spec. Char. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, crenate, punc- tured underneath ; flowers solitary. Syn. — Hartogia betulina, Berg. Cap. 67. Diosma crenata, Lin. Sp. PL 287 ; Amcen. Acad. 6. p. 308 ; Houttuyn Lin. Syst. 3. p. 286; Willd. 2. 1138; Thunb. Dissert, p. 14; Ait. Hort. Kew. v. 2. p. 32. Bot. Cab. n. 404. All the species of this genus are shrubs, and natives of the Cape of Good Hope. The subject of the present article was introduced by Mr. Francis Masson in the year 1774. It forms a thin branching shrub, flowering in its native soil throughout August, September, and October. It is still very rare in our collections ; but blossoms occasionally in March, at Messrs. Lod- diges, at Hackney. For its culture the soil should be sandy peat, and the plant requires the usual greenhouse protection in winter. The plant is perennial, erect, everywhere smooth, and rises about two feet high ; the branches are round or somewhat angu- lar, loose, wand-like, and of a purplish colour. The leaves are opposite, scattered, ovate, pointed, of a dark green colour above, paler underneath, crenated, and full of small transparent punc- tures, particularly at the edges between each tooth. The flowers are solitary on short pedicels, delicate, white, or of a pale reddish tint, and arise at the ends of short opposite lateral shoots. The VOL. III. calyx consists of five deep ovate, acute permanent segments. The corolla is composed of five elliptic-oblong bluntish segments, slightly spreading. The nectaries are five linear-lanceolate scales crowning the germen. The filaments are five, awl-shaped, bearing ovate, incumbent anthers. The germen is superior, turbinate; the style erect, the length of the stamens, with a simple stigma. The capsule is ovate, containing an oblong solitary seed, inclosed in an elastic arillus. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — The odour of the whole of this plant is very strong and peculiar. It affords an essential oil, which resembles a mixture of oil of rue, cubebs, and camphor. The extractive matter is slightly bitter and mu- cilaginous. It yields to water, on long-continued boiling, a quantity of mucilage ; and the essential oil, which is imparted to boiling water by infusion, is dissipated by decoction. To an analysis by M. Cadet, jun. the leaves of this plant yielded, # Essential oil . . 0.665 Gum . . . 21.17 Extractive . . . 6.17 Chlorophylle . . . 1.10 Resin . . . . 2.151 . Medical Properties and Uses. — To this plant the na- tives of Southern Africa ascribe incredible virtues in numerous diseases, and of a very opposite nature. To Dr. Reece of Bolton Row, we are indebted for the Krameria triandra, as an ar- ticle of our. authorised materia medica, which as an astringent tonic is much prized by Sir IT. Halford, at whose recommenda- tion it found a place in our pharmacopoeia. The former gentle- man, whose therapeutical knowledge is deservedly esteemed, was also the first to excite the attention of British practitioners to the D. crenata ; and as the subsequent experience of several able men in Ireland has confirmed its efficacy, it now ranks amongst the officinal drugs of the Dublin pharmacopoeia. For several years it appears to have been successfully prescribed in * Journ. Chim. iii.44. Holland, for rheumatism and inflammatory affections of the mem- branes, particularly of the bladder, urethra, prostate gland, and rectum. The natives of the Cape, from whom the Dutch de- rived their knowledge on the subject, are partial to the spirit of buchu, made by distilling the leaves in the dregs of wine, which they term buchu-brandy, and regard as a sovereign re- medy for all chronic diseases, and even acute ones, of the stomach and bladder, but especially spasmodic affections of the stomach and intestines. By referring to Burcheli’s travels in Africa, it will be found, that the Hottentots apply a decoction of buchu leaves to fresh wounds, and also use them as a cosmetic, which is referred to by Thunberg, when speaking of the uses of the plants belonging to this genus : “ Inserviunt imprimis uniflora , pulchella , crenata , et betulina , quarum folia inter lapides in pul- verem redigunt Hottentotti, eoque, cognomine Buchu, corpus pinguedine ovina arte inunctum adspergunt, unde odor eorum graveolens et insuetus valde ingratus.,,# The Diosma Crenata appears to be an excellent aromatic sto- machic, and is very efficacious as a diuretic. It also exerts very powerful effects on the urinary apparatus, as irritative affections and chronic inflammations of the bladder and urethra, which so often follow mismanaged gonorrhoea, or are consequences of re- tention of urine, diseased prostate gland, stricture of the urethra, the action of calculi, or the rude use of the bougie. Dr. M‘Dowallf has given many cases of these kinds in which it has been eminently successful, and the correctness of his asser- tions is fully borne out by Dr. Cumming, also of Dublin. We are also in the habit of employing the infusion for the same dis- eases, and are generally well satisfied with the results. An emi- nent general practitioner (and it is from this class of the pro- fession that we naturally look for the advancement of our the- rapeutical knowledge) has favoured us with the following obser- vations, with which we conclude : “ I have often found the infu- sion of buchu-leaves, taken internally and applied externally, extremely beneficial for rheumatism. In one case of long stand- * Dissert, Botan. de Diosma, p. 20. t Vide Dublin Medical Transactions. ing chronic rheumatism, the patient, an elderly man, was suffer- ing severely in the loins and extremities, as also from a most distressing irritative affection of the bladder and urethra. A wine glassful of the infusion,. made with an ounce of the leaves to a pint of boiling water, taEen three times a day, not only re- duced the rheumatic pains, but entirely removed the complaint of the bladder and urethra, which had been ascribed to a dis- eased state of the prostate gland. These sedative effects, so remarkably displayed, induced me to try it in similar affections of the rectum, and the favourable results fully confirm the opi- nion I had anticipated.” Off. Prep — Inf. Diosmee Crenatee. D, London, Published for the, Authors, July 1162,9. CXXII ANCHUSA TINCTORIA. Dyer s Alkanet. Class V. Pentandria. — Order I. Monogynia. Nat. Ord . Aspeeifoli je, Lin. Boragineal, Juss. Gen. Char. Corolla closed with concave obtuse valves ; funnel-shaped ; tube straight, tumid below. Seeds concave at the base. Spec. Char. Downy; leaves lanceolate, obtuse; stamens shorter than the corolla. Syn. — Anchusa monspeliana, Bauh. Hist, v. 3. 584. Anchusa parva, Lob. Icon. 578. Anchusa prima, Matth. Valgr. v.2. 341, Lithospermum tinctorium, Andr. Repos, t. 576. Buglossum radice rubrA, sive Anchusa vulgatior, Tourn. Inst. 134. Anchusa tinctoria, Desjont. Atlant. v. 1. 156; Ait. Hort. Kew. cd. 2. v. I . 290; nec Linn. FI. Grose. Sibth. v. 2. t. 166. A yxovwb2ij9ie', Zondfin .lUhUs /us'd, fvr :hr Ajuth CXXVII LAURUS CINNAMOMUM. The Cinnamon-tree. Spec. Char. Leaves nearly opposite, ovate-oblong, 3-nerved ; lateral nerves vanishing towards the end. Panicles repeatedly compound ; petioles smooth, Syn. — Cinamomum sive Canella Zeylanica. Bauh. Pin. 408. Canella seu Cinamomum vulgare. Bauh. Hist. 1446. The Cinnamon-tree of Ceylon. Raii. Hist. 1561. Arbor canellifera Zeylanica, cortiee acerrimo seu prestantissimo, qui cinna- momum officinarum. Breyn. Prod. 2. 17. Cassia cinnamomea sive Cinnamomum. Herm. Lugd. Bat. 129. t. 655. Cinnamomum foliis latis ovatis frugiferum. Burm. Zeylan. 62. t. 27. Kama. Rheede Malab. 1 . p. 107. t. 57. K ivvapwpov, Dios. Laurus Cinnamomum. Lin. Sp.Pl. 528. ; Willd. 2. p. 477.; Blackw. Herb . t. 354 ; Jacq. Amer. p. 59. t. 117 ; Plenck. Icon. 312 ; Gcertn. Sem. 2. 69 ; Bot. Repos. 596 ; Bot. Mag. t. 2028; Woodv. 1 . 80. t. 27 ; Nees ab Essenb. Diss. de Cinnam. t. 1 ; Lamarck Ency. 3. p. 441 ; Per soon Syn. 1 ,p. 448 ; Stokes. 2. 412. Foreign. — Lecanellier ; La canella, Fr. ; Canella; Albero della canella, It. ; Ca- nela ; Arbol de la canela, Sp. ; Canella vulgar, Port.; Der Zimmet , Her Kaneel ; Zimmetbaum, Ger. ; Dar-cheeni, Beng. ; Kura puttay, Tam. ; Kurundu potto, Cing. ; Dar Chinie, Hind. ; Cay que, Coch. Chin. Laurus Cinnamomum, the bark of which yields the well known spice cinnamon, is a native of Ceylon, but it is cultivated in other parts both of the East and West Indies. Cinnamon seems to be confined to the torrid zone, or at least, we have no good authority for supposing that it is found much beyond it. Spielman says, it is found in Tartary, and many authors have asserted that it grows in China. Spielman’s assertion is nowr supposed to be incorrect ; and Sir G. Staunton tells us that, with the exception of the camphor-tree, none of the laurel genus grows in China ; nor does Osbeck include it in his “ Flora Sinensis.” It grows abundantly on the Malabar coast ; the island of Sumatra, particularly about the Bay of Tapanooly ; Cochin China ; Tonquin, where it is an article of Royal mono- poly ; the Sooloo ; Borneo ; Timor ; the Nicobar and Fhillipine islands; the island of Floris, and Tobago. It has been culti- p 2 vated in the Brazils, the isles of Bourbon and Mauritius, the Sichelle islands, Guadaloupe, Jamaica, and the northern Circars, the island of Du Prince on the east coast of Africa. The cin- namon plant was introduced into Guiana, in the year 1772, from the Isle of France; subsequently it was transported into the Antilles. In Guiana the inhabitants cultivate it in their gar- dens, and round their cottages. They prepare cinnamon suf- ficient for domestic purposes, and transmit a small quantity to France. Prior to the year 1790, it was introduced into Cayenne by the French government at a very great expence, and recom- mended to be cultivated by the colonists ; cinnamon has been successfully cultivated in the island of Dominica by a Mr. Buee, where the same gentleman has succeeded in propagating the clove-tree. The cinnamon-tree has long been known in this country, and was cultivated by Mr. Philip Miller in 1768. The Bishop of Winchester, many years since, raised it from seeds ripened in his own hot-house, at Farnham in Surrey. With us it must be kept constantly in the stove. In its native soil and climate, the cinnamon laurel flowers in January and February, and the fruit ripens in June, July, and August. “ The soil of the cinnamon garden in the neighbourhood of Co- lombo is a remarkable instance of the silicious kind. The surface of the ground in many places where the cinnamon plant flourishes, is white as snown ; this is pure quartzy-sand. Below the surface a few inches, where the roots penetrate, the sand is of a grey colour. A specimen of this, dried thoroughly, was found to consist of 98 5 Silicious sand, 1 0 Vegetable matter, 0 5 Water. 100 9 It may appear surprising that the cinnamon plant should succeed best in so poor a soil ; but other circumstances considered, it admits of explanation. The garden is nearly on a level with the lake of Co- lombo, its situation is sheltered, the climate is remarkably damp, showers are frequent, the temperature is high and uncommonly equable. These are the principal peculiarities to which the excellence of the cinnamon, and the luxuriant growth of this valuable shrub, in a soil apparently so unpromising, may be justly attributed.”* Captain Percival, in his History of Ceylon, confims the narrative of Dr. Davy. Davy’s History of Ceylon, p. 39. The fullest account of the cinnamon-tree, and of the prepa- ration of cinnamon, that we have seen in the English language^ is by Henry Marshall, Esq. Staff Surgeon to the Forces in Ceylon, and the following details respecting the natural history and description of this valuable spice, is principally derived from his interesting paper, published in Thomson’s Annals of Philo- sophy, vol. x. p. 241 and 346. The tree grows to the height of from 20 to 30 feet ; has a slender trunk, from 12 to 18 inches in diameter, irregular, knotty, and covered externally with an ash coloured, thick, rough, scabrous bark; innumerable branches shoot from the stem and give it the appearance of the Portugal laurel. The wood is light and porous like that of the osier, and is used for fuel. Shoots spring up from the roots in great pro- fusion, and form a bush round the stem. The inner bark is reddish. The bark of the young shoots is often beautifully speckled with dark green and light orange colours. The root and branches exude abundance of camphor. The leaves, which stand in nearly opposite pairs on short slightly channelled petioles, are from six to nine inches in length, oblong, smooth, pointed, entire, and three nerved ; the lateral nerves vanishing as they approach the point. The young leaves and tender shoots are of a bright red or liver colour, with yellow veins ; the former as they acquire maturity become olive, then bright green, and before they fall olive yellow ; mature leaves have a strong aromatic odour, and the biting hot taste of cloves. The flowers are in axillary and terminal panicles, white, inodorous, or per- haps somewhat foetid. The petals are six, ovate, pointed, con- cave, and spreading ; the filaments are in ternaries, shorter than the corolla, flattish, erect, the three innermost gland uliferous at the base, and the anthers are double. The fruit is an oval berry, larger than a black currant, which adheres to the recep- tacle, like the acorn; when ripe, the skin is bluish-brown, thickly scattered with spots ; beneath the skin is a greenish pulp, which is slightly acrid, has a terebinthinate odour, and a taste resembling that of the juniper berry. This pulp incloses a nut, which contains an oily, soft, pale rose-coloured, inodorous kernel. Crows and wood-pigeons devour the berries with great avidity ; the productive quality of the seeds remain undestroyed, and by this means the plant is disseminated to a great extent .of country, and is found even in the thickest and most impassable jungles.— Fig. (a) represents a section of a flower magnified; (b) a stamen with its gland at the base ; (c) the germen and style ; ( d ) the fruit. Cinnamon is mentioned, Exod. xxx. 23, among the materials which composed the holy anointing oil ; and in Prov. vii. 17, Cant. iv. 14, Eccles. xxiv. 15, and Rom. xviii. 13, amongst the richest perfumes. Our species of cinnamon is brought from the East Indies ; but as there was no traffic with India in the days of Moses, it was probably ob- tained from Arabia, or some neighbouring country. We learn, also, from Pliny, that a species of it grew in Syria. “ In Syria gigni cin- namum quod caryopon appellant, multum a surcolo veri cinnamomi differens.” — -Nat. Hist. 1. xii. c. 38.* Dr. Marshall, whose valuable contributions were published in the Annals of Philosophy, thinks it probable that from the earliest ages, Europe has been indebted to Ceylon for part of its consumption of this article. He thinks that it may have been exported by small vessels belonging to the island, to the Malabar coast, from thence to Sabea, on the south coast of Arabia, by the Arabs. Here the ships belonging to the merchants of Phoenicia and Egypt found large stores of the produce of India ; and by this medium the demands from all Europe were supplied. The enormous expence incurred by transporting cin- namon such a circuitous route, must have greatly enhanced its price and prevented its very general use. On some occasions, however, the quantity expended was considerable. At the funeral of Sylla, 210 burthens of spices were strewed upon the pile ; and it is probable that cinnamon formed a great part of the spices used on this occasion, the produce of the Moluccas being then but little, if at all, known to the Romans. Nero is reported to have burned a greater quantity of cin- namon and casia at the funeral of Poppoea than the countries from which it was imported yielded in one year. In 1498 Vasco de Gama landed at Calicut. Indian commerce now took a different route, and the Portugese supplied Europe with the ar- ticles which had formerly passed through the hands of the Venetians. Eager to engross the cinnamon trade, the Portugese, early in the six- teenth century, arrived at Ceylon* and obtained leave to establish a factory, which led to the erection of the fort of Colombo. Shortly after the fort had been built, they concluded a treaty with the King of Kandy, wherein he agreed to furnish them annually with 124,000 pounds of cinnamon, in return for which they were to assist the king and his successors, both by sea and land, against all his enemies. The thriving settlements of the Portugese in the East, eventually attracted the attention of the merchants of Holland. Soon after they had * Salmasius has shown from the authority of MSS, that camacon , or comucon , is here to be read for caryopon. In Solinum, p. 922. gained a footing in India, they became anxious to engross the cinna- mon trade, and early in the seventeenth century found means to ingra- tiate themselves with the King of Kandy, who invited them to aid him in expelling the Portugese from the islands. In 1612, the king en- gaged to deliver to the Dutch East India Company ail the cinnamon he was able to collect. Peace was concluded between the Portugese and Dutch in 1644. By this treaty a moiety of the trade was ceded to the Dutch. War commenced again in 1652. Colombo surrendered to the Dutch in 1656, and Jaffna, the last place of strength of the Portugese, fell in 1658. After monopolizing the trade for many years, during which time they extirpated the trees in Malabar to enhance the value of the cinnamon of Ceylon, the Dutch found serious rivals in the Chinese, whose cinnamon is inferior to none. To check, there- fore, this rivalship, and to render themselves independent of the King of Kandy, they began to cultivate the cinnamon on their own ground at Ceylon ; and Dr. Thunberg, who .visited Ceylon in 1778, informs us, that by the unwearied exertions of Governor Falck, exceedingly large plantations of cinnamon had been formed, and that the shoots of some of the early plantations had been already three times barked. Political altercations between the colonial government and the court of Kandy occurred about 1 792, during which the peeling of cinna* mon in the king’s territory was greatly interrupted, and the governor declined to send an ambassador to obtain leave, as the King of Kandy required. By the year 1793, the propagation of the cinnamon plant had so far succeeded, that the governor was enabled to furnish the annual investment from the territory of the company, and in a letter to his successor, he congratulates him, that, in future, they would not be under the necessity of flattering the court of Kandy any longer. Ceylon was reduced by a British force in Feb. 1796, and in the latter end of 1797, 13,893 bales of cinnamon were sent to this country. By the treaty of Amiens, concluded in 1802, the Batavian republic ceded to his Britannic majesty all their possessions in the Island of Ceylon, which belonged before the war to the United Provinces. Soon after our countrymen became possessed of Ceylon, they became infected with the Dutch mania, and such serious alarm did they en- tertain that the market would be overstocked with cinnamon, the pro- duce of the island, that the government, anxious to keep up its price, ordered many of the plantations to be rooted up. In July 1805, General Maitland assumed the government of Ceylon, and one of his first acts was to arrest the disposition of the plantations. He readily saw the propriety of encouraging and increasing the cultivation of cinnamon, and adopted means which have been followed with, sucess. During this government, the annual investments continued gradually to increase, and many hundred acres of new ground were planted. Less dependence was now placed on the supply from the Kandian, territory, which was always uncertain and subject to many impediments. To rival the excellence of the cultivated cinnamon of Ceylon, Dr. Marshall thinks it probable that the Dutch will cultivate it in Java, or some of its dependencies, and he strongly urges the propriety of exerting the powerful means, which circumstances have placed in our power, to cultivate, collect, and export a greatly increased quantity of this spice with the view of supplying the markets both of Europe and America ; while the trade will be rendered less profitable to our rivals, and less encouraging to them to attempt to monopolize the commerce of this important article. te The ground for planting cinnamon is in the first instance pre- pared, by cutting down the low brush-wood and young trees. The lofty trees are allowed to remain, as the cinnamon is observed to thrive better under their shade, when not too close, than when it is exposed to the direct rays of the sun. The brush-wood is collected into heaps, and burned. The planting commences when the seeds are ripe, generally during the months of June, July, and August. The workmen stretch a line upon the ground, along which they with a mammettee (hoe) turn up about a foot square of earth, at intervals of six or seven feet. The ashes of the burned shrubs and branches of trees are then spread upon the spots of friable earth ; and into each of them four or five cinnamon berries are planted with a dibble. Branches of trees are spread upon the ground, to prevent the friable earth from being scorched, and to protect the young shoots. The young shoots appear above the ground in about fifteen or twenty days. Sometimes the berries are sown in nurseries, and the shoots trans- planted in the months of October and November. “In favourable situations the shoots attain the height of five or six feet in about six or seven years; and a healthy bush will then afford two or three shoots fit for peeling. Every second year from four to seven shoots may be cut from a bush in a good soil. Thriving shoots of four years’ growth are sometimes fit for cutting. “ As four or five seeds are sown in one spot, and as in most seasons many of the seeds germinate, the plants grow in clusters, not unlike a hazel bush. In seasons with little rain many of the seeds fail, and a great number of the young shoots die ; so that it is frequently ne- cessary to plant a piece of ground several times successively. A plantation of cinnamon, even on good ground, cannot be expected to make much return before eight or nine years have elapsed. The plan- tations from which a considerable part of the cinnamon is procured are Kaderang, Ekele, Marendahn (Colombo), and Morotta. These are styled protected plantations, to distinguish them from a number of extensive fields that were planted with cinnamon by the Dutch, and which have since been permitted to be overrun with creepers, brush- wood, &c. and many of the cinnamon plants rooted up by the natives.” “ On an average of ten years the quantity of cinamon deposited annually in the magazine at Colombo from the jungles and abandoned plantations of our own terrritory, including what has been collected in the Candian country, amounts to 1184 bales ; and at Galle, during the same period, 935. “ The peeling commences early in May, and continues until late in October. The rains which precede, and occur during the southwest monsoon, produce such a degree of succulency in the shoots as to dispose the bark and wood to part easily. The setting in of the rainy weather immediately produces a fresh crop of scarlet or crimson- coloured leaves. “ The cinnamon harvest begins by dividing the peelers into small parties, which are placed under the directions of an inferior superin- tendant. When they are to peel in the plantations, each party has a certain extent of the plantation allotted to it. A few of the party cut shoots; while the remainder are employed in the wadu (or peeling shed) to remove the bark and to prepare the cinnamon. When the chaliah perceives a bush with shoots of a proper age, he strikes his ketta (which resembles a small bill-hook) obliquely into a shoot; he then gently opens the gash, to discover whether the bark separates easily from the wood. Should the bark not separate easily, the shoot or branch is not deemed fit for cutting. The chaliahs seldom trust implicitly to any external mark of the proper condition of the plant, and rarely try a shoot until the scarlet leaves have assumed a greenish hue. Some plants never acquire a state fit for decortication. Shoots of many years’ growth often bear the marks of numerous annual ex- periments to ascertain their condition. Unhealthy, stunted plants, are always difficult of decortication ; and the cinnamon procured from them is generally of an inferior quality. “ The peelers do not cut shoots or branches whose diameter is much less than half an inch, or more than from two to three inches. “ To remove the bark, the peeler commences by making with his kokette, or peeling knife, through the bark, a longitudinal incision, of which the length is determined by the figure of the shoot. A similar incision is made on the opposite side of the shoot, and when the branch is thick, the bark is divided in three or four places. The kokette is next introduced under the bark, which is gradually sepa- rated from the wood, and laid aside. When the bark adheres firmly to the wood, the shoot is strongly rubbed with the handle of the kokette. These sections of bark are carefully put one into another, the outer side of one section being placed in contact with the inner side of another, and are then collected into bundles, and firmly pressed or bound together. “ In this state the bark is allowed to remain for twenty-four hours, or sometimes more ; by which means a degree of fermentation is pro- duced that facilitates the subsequent operation of removing the cuticle. The interior side of each section of bark is placed upon a convex piece of wood, and the epidermis, with the greenish pulpy matter under it, is carefully scraped off with a curved knife. During the operation the peeler sits upon the ground, and keeps the bark steady upon the piece of wood with his heel or toes. The bark dries, con- tracts, and gradually assumes the appearance of a quill or pipe. In a few hours from the time the cuticle is removed, the peeler com- mences to put the smaller tubes into the larger, and introduces also the small pieces. By this means a congeries of quills is formed into a pipe, which measures about forty inches long. The cinnamon is" suspended in the wadu upon open platforms for the first day. The second day it is placed in the sun, on wicker shelves, to dry. When sufficiently dry, it is collected into bundles of about thirty pounds weight each, and in this state deposited monthly in the government magazines at Colombo or Galle. “ When newly prepared, cinnamon has a most delicious odour : this odoriferous quality becomes gradually fainter. Cinnamon is at first a light-orange colour, which becomes a shade darker by exposure to the air. The bark of old trees acquires a reddish-brown colour. “ Shortly after the cinnamon is deposited in the store-houses, the inspection of it commences. The East India Company employ an inspector and two assistants to superintend the sorting and baling of the cinnamon. The manipulation is performed by natives. Each bundle is placed on a table or large bench ; the bundle is untied, and the cinnamon examined quill by quill. It is divided into a first, a second, and a third, or rejected sort. The first and second sorts are alone deemed of a quality fit to form the Company’s investment. The sorting of cinnamon consists chiefly in detecting or separating what is coarse, and otherwise of a bad quality, including the imposi- tions of the peelers. This is chiefly performed by inspection. Habit soon enables the people employed to discover by a single glance of the eye what is considered defective. Tasting is very rarely had recourse to. “ The bark of the large shoots, or thick branches of trees, produces coarse cinnamon, which is generally rejected by the sorters. This cinnamon is thick, and has a reddish-brown colour, rough surface, loose texture, and is coarse-grained. It breaks short, shivery, and crumbling. When chewed it is disagreeably pungent, feels gritty, ligneous, and sandy, in the mouth. “ The peelers occasionally scrape off the external pellicle of this quality of cinnamon. This operation thins the cinnamon and im- proves the colour, but leaves it with a coarse, rough surface. This quality of cinnamon is always rejected. “ Cinnamon prepared from the bark of very young and succulent shoots is rejected. It is light straw-coloured, thin, and almost without flavour or taste ; and what little aroma it possesses is very evanescent. “ Mildewed or half-rotten and smoky cinnamon is rejected. When the peelers are overtaken with rain at a distance from sheds, the bark they have previously collected ferments, becomes decayed, and in- odorous. In such situations they frequently retire to caves, or very confined huts, where they kindle fires, to procure warmth and to dress their food. The smoke arising from these fires often greatly injures the bark, and renders it unfit to be manufactured into good cinnamon. To increase the weight, the peelers sometimes stuff the quills of cin- namon with sand or clayey earth, thick ill-prepared pieces of bark, &c. &c. When these impositions are suspected, the quills are undone, often broken, and the foreign mixtures removed. “ This is one of the many causes which prevents the cinnamon from being in quills of nearly equal length. Cinnamon produced beyond the river Keymel on the north, and the Wallawey on the south, is generally condemned. It is light-coloured, greatly deficient in aro- matic flavour, astringent, bitter, and has sometimes a taste similar to the rind of a lemon. Even between these limits the cinnamon pro- duced differs greatly in quality. Differences of soil, and exposure, are very evideut causes of a difference in the quality of cinnamon. Shoots exposed to the sun are more acrid and spicy than the bark of those which grow under a shade. A marshy soil rarely affords good cinnamon. It has often a pale yellow shade, approaching to the colour of turmeric. It is loose, friable, and gritty, and its texture coarse-grained. It possesses little of the spicy taste of cinnamon. Very often, however, the cause of the inequality of this spice is not apparent; the bark of different shoots of the same bush have often very different degrees of spiciness. “ That which is considered in Ceylon as of the best quality is of a light yellow colour, approaching nearly to that of Venetian gold ; thin, smooth, shining; admits of a considerable degree of pressure and bending before it breaks ; fracture splintery; has an agreeable, warm, aromatic flavour, with a mild degree of sweetness. When chewed, the pieces become soft, and seem to melt in the mouth. “ The first and second sorts are weighed, and put up into bundles, each weighing 92 J lb. English. Each parcel or bale is firmly bound round with ropes, and then put into double gunnies. “ The outside of the bale is marked with the number of the quality of the cinnamon, and the initial letter of the name of the protected plantation from whence it is procured. The bales of cinnamon which are procured in the neglected plantations, the woods of our own terri- tory, or in the Candian country, are marked A. G. (Abandoned Gar- dens.) The Company export their cinnamon from Colombo or Galle, and the interstices between the bales are filled with black pepper.’’ “ On some occasions the Ceylon government has directed oil to be extracted from the cinnamon, whose quality did not permit it to form part of the Company’s investment. The process is simple : the bark is grossly powdered, and macerated for two days in sea-water, when both are put into the still. A light oil comes over with the water, and swims upon its surface, and a heavy oil, which sinks to the bottom of the re- ceiver. The light oil separates from the water in a few hours ; but the heavy oil continues to precipitate for ten or twelve days. The heavy oil, which separates first, is about the same colour as the light oil ; but the portion which separates last has a browner shade than the super- natant oil. In future distillations the saturated cinnamon-water is ad- vantageously used, added to sea-water, to macerate the cinnamon. Eighty pounds of newly-prepared cinnamon yield about two ounces and a half of oil, which floats upon the water, and five ounces and a half of heavy oil. The same quantity of cinnamon, if kept in store for several years, yields about two ounces of light oil, and five ounces of* heavy oil.” “ The word casia is by modern authors used in a variety of senses ; but as they do not always define it, or explain the specific nature of the substance they intend to describe, it is often difficult to know in what sense they have adopted the term, or to comprehend the nature of the 'article concerning which they have been writing. “ This makes the subject extremely embarrassing. It is, however, very generally used in one or other of the three following meanings. 1. To denote the prepared bark of the laurus casia. 2. To specify the cinnamon procured from thick shoots, or large branches of the cinnamon-tree, employing it as synonymous with the appellation coarse cinnamon. 3. To denominate the produce of the laurus cinnamomum found in various countries, and to distinguish it from the cinnamon produced in Ceylon. “ With regard to the first specification, it is sufficient to mention that laurus casia, dawul kurundu, has been already described, and the distinction between it and the laurus cinnamomum pointed out. It is never decorticated. As to the second, it is well known that the rejected cinnamon, or third sort of that prepared in Ceylon, has been imported into England, and sold under the denomination of casia. “ The third specification seems to be founded in a supposition that the laurus cinnamomum found out of Ceylon is not equal to that which is produced in this island.” The true cinnamon of commerce, according to Mr. Marshall, is the produce of young shoots of the cinnnamon-tree (Laurus Cinnamomum ) ; and casia is the prepared bark of the old branches of the same kind of tree. Casia is harder, and more woody than cinnamon. The ancients made use of this kind of bark ; but we at present reject it.# The casia bud of commerce is the fleshy hexangular receptacle of the seed of the L. Cinnamomum. When gathered young the receptacle completely envelops the embryo seed, which progressively protrudes, but is continually embraced by the receptacle. The buds have the ap- pearance of nails, with roundish heads of various sizes. If carefully dried, the receptacle becomes nearly black, and the point of the berry light brown. The seeds contract by drying, and often fall out; the receptacle is then cup-shapad. When kept long they have a dirty brown colour, and posses very little of the flavour of cinnamon. By distillation they yield an essential oil not inferior to that of cinnnamon bark. Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Cinnamon bark has a reddish brown colour, and consists of long rolled pieces which splinter when broken. It has a pleasant aromatic smell. * The following is Mr. Marshall’s description of the Laurus cassia, of Lin., or Bastard Cinnamon-tree, which abounds in many parts of Ceylon, and is called dawul kurundu by the Cingalese. “ The trunk is branchy and crooked ; leaves ovate- lanceolate. entire, from four to six inches long, and from one to two inches broad ; three nerved ; the lateral nerves terminate before they join the leaf, and join the middle one; above the petiole smooth, alternate; upper surface dusky green; under surface pale grey; petiole half cylindrical; flat above; flowers inodorous; whitish, verticillated, sessile; calyx common 4-leaved ; leaves roundish, concave; contains five distinct flowers with short peduncles ; corolla 6-petalled, ovate-con- cave, nearly equal ; filaments nine, shorter than the corolla ; style short, stigma obtuse ; berry black, round, and about the size of a large currant. The bark of the root is extremely bitter ; the leaves of the bark of the trunk and branches, are bitter, and have, in a very slight degree, the taste and odour of myrrh. This is the canella de matto of the Portugese, the wild caneel of the Dutch, and the laurus myrrha of Louriero.’’ It is figured in Nees ab Essenbeck’s “ Dissertatio De Cinnamomo t. 3, published at Bonn in 1823, and in the Botanical Magazine, t. 1636. and a pungent but agreeable taste. Its properties are entirely owing to its volatile oil. This oil has a whitish yellow colour, and an extremely pungent taste and smell. It may be separated by infusing the bark in alcohol, and then separating the alcohol from the oil by distillation. When water is distilled off this bark it comes over milky, from the accompanying oil, which it retains with great obstinacy ; very little separating till the mix- ture has stood a very considerable time. Medical Properties and Uses. — Cinnamon bark is one of the most grateful aromatic stomachics that we possess, and is reckoned to be stimulant, stomachic, astringent, and tonic. It is principally employed, however, as an adjunct to other remedies, to prevent their griping effect, or to cover their nauseous taste. The oil being a powerful stimulant is sometimes employed to allay spasmodic affections of the stomach and bowels, hiccup, and nausea. It is also applied sometimes to relieve the pain of decayed teeth. Off. Prep. — Aqua Cinnamomi. L.E.D. Spiritus Cinnamomi. L.E.D. Tinctura Cinnamomi. comp. L. E. D, Pulvis Cinnamomi, comp. L.E. LAURUS CAM PH OR A.— -Japanese Camphor -tree. Spec. Char. Leaves elliptical, pointed ; 3-ribbed far above the elongated base. Clusters axillary, some- what compound, shorter than the leaves. Syn. — Camphora offiicinarum. Bauh. Pin. 500; B lac Jew. t. 347. Arbor camphorifera japonica. Commel. Hort. Amst. v. 1. 185. t. 95. ■ Laurus Camphora. Lin. Sp. PI. 521 ; Willd. ii. p. 478 ; Jacq. Coll. v. 4. 221. t. 3./. 2; Koempf. Amdn. 770. t. 771 ; Woodv. t. 155. The Japanese camphor is obtained by distillation from this tree, but the greater part of what is brought to Europe from Sumatra and Borneo is now fully ascertained to be the produce of the Dryobalonops Camphora, a tree belonging to a distinct genus from the laurel. The camphor laurel is a native of Japan, and is sometimes to be seen flowering in our stoves. It is a large tree with ascending branches. The leaves are ovate-lanceolate, entire, smooth, ribbed, of a pale yellowish green colour on the upper surface, on the under glaucous, and stand on long foot- stalks. The flowers are small, white, on long, naked, lateral pe- duncles. The corolla is composed of six ovate, concave unequal petals, enclosing a tuberculated bristled nectary, which surround the germen. The filaments are shorter than the corolla with round anthers. The germen is roundish with a simple style. The fruit is a small ovate berry, of a dusky brown or reddish colour resembling that of the cinnamon. For an account of the Chemical Properties and Uses of Cam- phor, see the article Dryobalonops. Lanc/xTroFuilishedy for tfajliahcrs. dzy?21329, WeZde&Scs CXXVIII CENTAUREA BENEDICTA. Blessed Thistle. Class XIX. Pentandria. — Order ’ III. Pol. Frus- TRANEA. Nat. Ord. Composite, «, capitate, Lin. Cinaroce- PHALiE, JUSS. Gen. Char. Receptacle bristly. Seed-down simple, or feathery, rarely wanting. Florets of the radius funnel-shaped, dilated, irregular. Spec. Char. Capsules doubly spinous, woolly, invo- lucred. Leaves semidecurrent, toothed, spiny. Syn. — Cnicus sylvestris hirsutior sive Carduus benedictus, Bauh. Pin. 378. Carduus benedictus, Camer. Epit. 562 ; Dod. Pempt. 725 ; Bauh. Hist. 3. 75. t. 2 ; Raii Hist. 303 ; Ger. Em. 1 171. 2./.; Park. 530. Centaurea benedicta, Sp. PI. Willd. iii. 2315 ; Woodv. 1 19. t. 42; Zorn. Icon. 122. Foreign. — Char don benit, Fr. ; Curda santo, It.; Curdo benito, Sp. ; Kardo bene- dictenkractj^Benedicten-Flockenblume , Ger. Blessed Thistle is an animal plant, growing spontaneously in the south of France, Spain, Barbary, and the Levant, flower- ing plentifully in June, and partially until September. It was formerly much cultivated in our gardens, where it thrives as well as in its native soil. Our figure was made from a specimen obtained in the Botanic Garden, Chelsea. The root is tapering, whitish, branched, and furnished with many slender fibres. The stems are several, a foot and a half high, trailing, roundish, channelled, reddish, woolly, and branched towards the top. The lower leaves stand upon foot- stalks, but the upper are sessile, alternate, and somewhat de- current; the whole are oblong, rough, with short hairs, acu- leated, sinuated, or almost runcinate, and armed with many sharp spines ; of a green colour, with a strong, whitish midrib, paler underneath and reticulated. The flowers are large, bright yellow, solitary at the ends of the branches, inclosed by an in- volucrum of ten leaves ; of these the five external ones are largest. The calyx is oval, imbricated, smooth, woolly, each scale being terminated by pinnate spines, connected with the involucrum by fine cobweb-like threads. The florets of the ray are small and sterile ; those of the disc are hermaphrodite, tu- bular, unequally divided, and toothed at their upper extremities. The filaments are five, capillary, downy, and inserted in the base of the tube of each floret; the anthers are vertical, linear, oblong, united into a cylinder, and longer than the corolla; the style is filiform, and the stigma cloven. The seeds have a pale- aceous receptacle, are oblong, brown, striated, and crowned with a hairy seed down or pappus. — Fig. (a) represents a flower detached from the involucrum ; (b) the same with the scales o^ the calyx removed ; (c) a floret, &c. magnified ; ( d ) the stamens and anthers; (e) the pistil. Qualities. — This plant has little or no smell, but the taste is intensely bitter. “ Its virtues are extracted both by water and alcohol. The watery infusion has a pale, greenish-yellow colour, which is changed to deep olive, by sulphate of iron, and an orange-brown by the pure alkalies, althougHHhe carbonates do not affect it. Nitrate of silver and superacetate of lead produce copious precipitates, and are, therefore, incompatible with this infusion.” Medical Properties and Uses. — This plant was for- merly in such high repute, that it obtained the name of the “ blessed thistle ,” and was given for the plague, worms and nu- merous other diseases. If we are to believe Simon Pauli, it has no equal in healing obstinate ulcers, and even cancers ; and Arnoldus de Villa-nova lauds it in the same extravagant manner* Notwithstanding that it is now little employed, it is a useful medicine, the strong decoction, or infusion, being capable, like the chamomile, of inducing vomiting. The infusion, less strong, taken while warm, produces a copious determination to the skin, while six drachms of the leaves, to a pint of cold water, forms an elegant bitter infusion, which is very efficacious in loss of appetite and dyspepsia. The dose in powder is from ten to forty grains ; of the infusion, a wine glassful every four hours. 21222. /.j /s/r/a 2/2 (/2 // ( // //r j . Clarice 22. r*Avy. 11823. CXXIX PISTACIA TEREBINTHUS. Chian Turpentine Tree . Class XX. Dicecia. — Order V . Pentandria. Nal Or