Part 6

And as some vegetables, from their affinitiy, may be confounded with others, whereby those possessing medical qualities may be substituted for others having none, or even poisonous ones, I shall in some instances enumerate a list of similar plants, which, with attention to their botanical characters, it is hoped will prevent those dangerous errors we have lately witnessed. As it is our business, in demonstrating plants, to guard the student against such confusion, it will be proper that specimens of such as come under this head be preserved, as a work for reference and contrast wherever doubts may arise.

158. ACONITUM Napellus. COMMON BLUE MONKSHOOD. The Leaves. L. E.--Every part of the fresh plant is strongly poisonous, but the root is unquestionably the most powerful, and when chewed at first imparts a slight sensation of acrimony, and a pungent heat of the lips, gums, palate and fauces, which is succeeded by a general tremor and sensation of chilliness.

This plant has been generally prepared as an extract or inspissated juice, after the manner directed in the Edinburgh and many of the foreign Pharmacopoeias, and, like all virulent medicines, it should be first administered in small doses. Stoerck recommends two grains of the extract to be rubbed into a powder with two drums of sugar, and as a dose to begin with ten grains of this powder two or three times a-day.

Similar Plants.--Aconitum japonicum; A. pyrenaicum; Delphinium elatum; D. exallatum.

Instead of the extract, a tincture has been made of the dried leaves macerated in six times their weight of spirit of wine, and forty drops given for a dose.--Woodville's Med. Bot. 965.

The Dublin College has ordered the Aconitum Neomontanum, which is not common in this country [Footnote: In plants of so very poisonous a nature as the Aconite, it is the duty of every one who describes them to be particular. Here seems to have been a confusion. The A. Neomontanum is figured in Jacquin's Fl. Austriaca, fasc. 4. p. 381; and the first edition of Hortus Kewensis under A. Napellus erroneously quotes that figure: but both Gmelin in Syst. Vegetabilium, p. 838, and Wildenow in Spec. Plant. p. 1236, quote it under its proper name, A. Neomontanum. Now the fact is, that the Napellus is the Common Blue Monkshood; and the Neomontanum is altogether left out of the second edition of the Hortus Kewensis for the best of all reasons, it is not in this country; or, if it is, it must be very scarce, and, of course, not the plant used in medicine.].

160. ACORCUS Calamus. SWEET RUSH. The Root. L.--It is generally looked upon as a carminative and stomachic medicine, and as such is sometimes made use of in practice. It is said by some to be superior in aromatic flavour to any other vegetable that is produced in these northern climates; but such as I have had an opportunity of examining, fell short, in this respect, of several of our common plants. It is, nevertheless, a sufficiently elegant aromatic. It used to be an ingredient in the Mithridate and Theriaca of the London Pharmacopoeia, and in the Edinburgh. The fresh root candied after the manner directed in our Dispensatory for candying eryngo root, is said to be employed at Constantinople as a preservative against epidemic diseases. The leaves of this plant have a sweet fragrant smell, more agreeable, though weaker, than that of the roots.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

161. AESCULUS Hippocastanum. HORSE-CHESNUT. The Bark and Seed. E. D.-- With a view to its errhine power, the Edinburgh College has introduced the seeds into the Materia Medica, as a small portion of the powder snuffed up the nostrils readily excites sneezing; even the infusion or decoction of this fruit produces this effect; it has therefore been recommended for the purpose of producing a discharge from the nose, which, in some complaints of the head and eyes is found to be of considerable benefit.

On the continent, the Bark of the Horse Chesnut-tree is held in great estimation as a febrifuge; and, upon the credit of several respectable authors, appears to be a medicine of great efficacy.--Woodville's Med. Bot. 615.

162. AGRIMONIA Eupatoria. COMMON AGRIMONY. The Herb. D.--The leaves have an herbaceous, somewhat acrid, roughish taste, accompanied with an aromatic flavour. Agrimony is said to be aperient, detergent, and to strengthen the tone of the viscera: hence it is recommended in scorbutic disorders, in debility and laxity of the intestines, &c. Digested in whey, it affords an useful diet-drink for the spring season, not ungrateful to the palate or stomach.

163. ALLIUM Porrum. LEEK. The Root. L.--This participates of the virtues of garlic, from which it differs chiefly in being much weaker. See the article ALLIUM.

164. ALLIUM sativum. GARLIC. The Root. L. E. D.--This pungent root warms and stimulates the solids, and attenuates tenacious juices. Hence in cold leucophelgmatic habits it proves a powerful expectorant, diuretic, and emmenagogue; and, if the patient is kept warm, sudorific. In humoral asthmas, and catarrhous disorders of the breast, in some scurvies, flatulent colics, hysterical and other diseases proceeding from laxity of the solids, and cold sluggish indisposition of the fluids, it has generally good effects: it has likewise been found serviceable in some hydropic cases. Sydenham relates, that he has known the dropsy cured by the use of garlic alone; he recommends it chiefly as a warm strengthening medicine in the beginning of the disease.

Garlic made into an unguent with oils, &c. and applied externally, is said to resolve and discuss cold tumors, and has been by some greatly esteemed in cutaneous diseases. It has likewise sometimes been employed as a repellent. Sydenham assures us, that among all the substances which occasion a derivation or revulsion from the head, none operate more powerfully than garlic applied to the soles of the feet: hence he was led to make use of it in the confluent small-pox about the eighth day, after the face began to swell; the root cut in pieces, and tied in a linen cloth, was applied to the soles, and renewed once a day till all danger was over.

165. ALLIUM Cepa. ONION. The Root. D.--These roots are considered rather as articles of food than of medicine: they are supposed to afford little or no nourishment, and when eaten liberally they produce flatulencies, occasion thirst, headachs, and turbulent dreams: in cold phlegmatic habits, where viscid mucus abounds, they doubtless have their use; as by their stimulating quality they tend to excite appetite, attenuate thick juices, and promote their expulsion: by some they are strongly recommended in suppressions of urine and in dropsies. The chief medicinal use of onions in the present practice is in external applications, as a cataplasm for suppurating tumours, &c.

166. ALTHAEA officinalis. MARSH-MALLOW. The Leaves and Root. L.--This plant has the general virtues of an emollient medicine; and proves serviceable in a thin acrimonious state of the juices, and where the natural mucus of the intestines is abraded. It is chiefly recommended in sharp defluxions upon the lungs, hoarseness, dysenteries, and likewise in nephritic and calculous complaints; not, as some have supposed, that this medicine has any peculiar power of dissolving or expelling the calculus; but as, by lubricating and relaxing the vessels, it procures a more free and easy passage. Althaea root is sometimes employed externally for softening and maturing hard tumours: chewed, it is said to give ease in difficult dentition of children.

The officinal preparations are:-Decoctio Althaeae officinalis, and Syrupus Althaeae.

Similar Plants.--Malva officinalis; M. rotundifolia; M. mauritanica; Lavatera arborscens.

This root gives name to an officinal syrup [L. E.] and ointment [L.] and is likewise an ingredient in the compound powder of gum tragacanth [L. E.] and the oil and plaster of mucilages [L.] though it does not appear to communicate any particular virtue to the two last, its mucilaginous matter not being dissoluble in oils.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

167. AMYGDALUS communis. SWEET and BITTER ALMONDS. L. E. D.--The oils obtained by expression from both sorts of almonds are in their sensible qualities the same. The general virtues of these oils are, to blunt acrimonious humours, and to soften and relax the solids: hence their use internally, in tickling coughs, heat of urine, pains and inflammations: and externally in tension and rigidity of particular parts.

168. ANCHUSA tinctoria. ALKANET-ROOT. E. D.--Alkanet-root has little or no smell: when recent, it has a bitterish astringent taste, but when dried scarcely any. As to its virtues, the present practice expects not any from it. Its chief use is for colouring oils, unguents, and plasters. As the colour is confined to the cortical part, the small roots are best, these having proportionally more bark than the large.

169. ANETHUM graveolens. DILL. The Seeds. L.--Their taste is moderately warm and pungent; their smell aromatic, but not of the most agreeable kind. These seeds are recommended as a carminative, in flatulent colics proceeding from a cold cause or a viscidity of the juices. The most efficacious preparations of them are, the distilled oil, and a tincture or extract made with rectified spirit. The oil and simple water distilled from them are kept in the shops.--Lewis.

170. ANETHUM Foeniculum. FENNEL. Seeds. E.--These are supposed to be stomachic and carminative; but this, and indeed all the other effects ascribed to them, as depending upon their stimulant and aromatic qualities, must be less considerable than those of Dill, Aniseed, or Caraway, though termed one of the four greater hot seeds.--Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 129.

171. ANGELICA Archangelica. GARDEN ANGELICA. The Root, Leaves, and Seeds. E.--All the parts of Angelica, especially the roots, have a fragrant aromatic smell, and a pleasant bitterish warm taste, glowing upon the lips and palate for a long time after they have been chewed. The flavour of the seeds and leaves is very perishable, particularly that of the latter, which, on being barely dried, lose greatest part of their taste and smell: the roots are more tenacious of their flavour, though even these lose part of it upon keeping. The fresh root, wounded early in the spring, yields and odorous yellow juice, which slowly exsiccated proves an elegant gummy resin, very rich in the virtues of the Angelica. On drying the root, this juice concretes into distinct moleculae, which, on cutting it longitudinally, appear distributed in little veins: in this state they are extracted by pure spirit, but not by watery liquors.

This resin is considered one of the most elegant aromatics of European growth, though little regarded in the present practice, and is rarely met with in prescription; neither does it enter any officinal composition.

172. ANTHEMIS nobilis. CHAMOMILE. The Flowers. L.E.D.--These have a strong not ungrateful, aromatic smell, but a very bitter nauseous taste. They are accounted carminative, aperient, emollient, and in some measure anodyne: and stand recommended in flatulent colics, for promoting the uterine purgations, in spasmodic affections, and the pains of women in child-bed: sometimes they have been employed in intermittent fevers, and the nephritis. These flowers are also frequently used externally in discutient and antiseptic fomentations, and in emollient glysters. The double-flowered variety is usually cultivated for medicine, but the wild kind with single flowers is preferable.

Similar Plants.--Anthemis arvensis; A. Cotula; Pyrethrum maritimum.

173. ANTHEMIS Pyrethrum. PELLITORY OF SPAIN. The Root. L.--The principal use of Pyrethrum in the present practice is as a masticatory, for promoting the salival flux, and evacuating viscid humours from the head and neighbouring parts: by this means it very generally relieves the tooth-ach, pains of the head, and lethargic complaints. If a piece of the root, the size of a pea, be placed against the tooth, it instantly causes the saliva to flow from the surrounding glands, and gives immediate relief in all cases of that malady.

174. APIUM Petroselium. COMMON PARSLEY. The Root. E.--Both the roots and seeds of Parsley are directed by the London College for medicinal use: the former have a sweetish taste, accompanied with a slight warmth of flavour somewhat resembling that of a carrot; the latter are in taste warmer and more aromatic than any other part of the plant, and also manifest considerable bittenress.

These roots are said to be aperient and diuretic, and have been employed in apozems to relieve nephritic pains, and obstructions of urine.

Although Parsley is commonly used at table, it is remarkable that facts have been adducted to prove, that in some constitutions it occasions epilepsy, or at least aggravates the epileptic fit in those who are subject to this disease. It has been supposed also to produce inflammation in the eyes.--Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 43. A variety which produces larger roots, called Hamburgh Parsley, is commonly grown for medicinal uses.

175. ARBUTUS Uva Ursi. TRAILING ARBUTUS or BEAR-BERRY. The Leaves.--This first drew the attention of physicians as an useful remedy in calculous and nephritic affections; and in the years 1763 and 1764, by the concurrent testimonies of different authors, it acquired remarkable celebrity, not only for its efficacy in gravelly complaints, but in almost every other to which the urinary organs are liable, as ulcers of the kidneys and bladder, cystirrhoea, diabetes, &c. It may be employed either in powder or decoction; the former is most commonly preferred, and given in doses from a scruple to a dram two or three times a-day.-- Woodville's Med. Botany.

176. ARNICA montana. MOUNTAIN ARNICA. The whole Plant. E. D.--The odour of the fresh plant is rather unpleasant, and the taste acrid, herbaceous, and astringent; and the powdered leaves act as a strong sternutatory.

This plant, according to Bergius, is an emetic, errhine, diuretic, diaphoretic, emmenagogue; and from its supposed power of attenuating the blood, it has been esteemed so peculiarly efficacious in obviating the bad consequences occasioned by falls and bruises, that it obtained the appellation of Panacea Lapsorum.--Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 43.

177. ARTEMISIA Absinthium. WORMWOOD, The Herb. L.--Wormwood is a strong bitter; and was formerly much used as such against weakness of the stomach, and the like, in medicated wines and ales. At present it is rarely employed in these intentions, on account of the ill relish and offensive smell which it is accompanied with. These it may be in part freed from by keeping, and totally by long coction, the bitter remaining entire. An extract made by boiling the leaves in a large quantity of water, and evaporating the liquor with a strong fire, proves a bitter sufficiently grateful, without any disgustful flavour.

178. ARTEMISIA Abrotanum. SOUTHERNWOOD. Leaves. D.--Southernwood has a strong, not very disagreeable smell; and a nauseous, pungent, bitter taste; which is totally extracted by rectified spirit, less perfectly by watery liquors. It is recommended as an anthelmintic; and in cold lencophlegmatic habits, as a stimulant, detergent, aperient, and sudorific. The present practice has almost entirely confined its use to external applications. The leaves are frequently employed in discutient and antiseptic fomentations; and have been recommended also in lotions and unguents for cutaneous eruptions, and the falling off of the hair.

179. ARTEMISIA maritima. SEA WORMWOOD. Tops. D.--In taste and smell, it is weaker and less unpleasant than the common worm-wood. The virutes of both are supposed to be of the same kind, and to differ only in strength.

The tops used to enter three of our distilled waters, and give name to a conserve. They are an ingredient also in the common fomentation and green oil.

180. ARTEMISIA Santonica. ROMAN WORMWOOD. Seeds. E. D.--It is a native of the warmer countries, and at present difficultly procurable in this, though as hardy and as easily raised as any of the other sorts. Sea wormwood has long supplied its place in the markets, and been in general mistaken for it.

Roman wormwood is less ungrateful than either of the others: its smell is tolerably pleasant: the taste, though manifestly bitter, scarcely disagreeable. It appears to be the most eligible of the three as a stomachic; and is likewise recommended by some in dropsies.

181. ARUM maculatum. BITING ARUM. Fresh Root. L. E.--This root is a powerful stimulant and attenuant. It is reckoned a medicine of great efficacy in some cachectic and chlorotic cases; in weakness of the stomach occasioned by a load of viscid phlegm, and in such disorders in general as proceed from a cold sluggish indisposition of the solids and lentor of the fluids. I have experienced great benefit from it in rheumatic pains, particularly those of the fixed kind, and which were seated deep. In these cases I have given from ten grains to a scruple of the fresh root twice or thrice a day, made into a bolus or emulsion with unctuous and mucilaginous substances, which cover its pungency, and prevent its making any painful impression on the tongue. It generally excited a slight tingling sensation through the whole habit, and, when the patient was kept warm in bed, produced a copious sweat.

The only officinal preparation, in which this root was an ingredient, was a compound powder; in which form its virtues are very precarious. Some recommend a tincture of it drawn with wine; but neither wine, water, nor spirit, extract its virtues.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

182. ASARUM Europaeum, ASARABACCA. The Leaves. L. E. D.--Both the roots and leaves have a nauseous, bitter, acrimonious, hot taste; their smell is strong, and not very disagreeable. Given in substance from half a dram to a dram, they evacuate powerfully both upwards and downwards. It is said that tinctures made in spirituous menstrua possess both the emetic and cathartic virtues of the plant: that the extract obtained by inspissating these tinctures acts only by vomit, and with great mildness: that an infusion in water proves cathartic, rarely emetic: that aqueous decoctions made by long boiling, and the watery extract, have no purgative or emetic quality, but prove notable diaphoretics, diuretics, and emmenagogues.

Its principal use at present is as a sternutatory. The root of asarum is perhaps the strongest of all the vegetable errhines, white hellebore itself not excepted. Snuffed up the nose, in the quantity of a grain or two, it occasions a large evacuation of mucus, and raises a plentiful spitting. The leaves are considerably milder, and may be used to the quantity of three, four, or five grains. Geoffroy relates, that after snuffing up a dose of this errhine at night, he has frequently observed the discharge from the nose to continue for three days together; and that he has known a paralysis of the mouth and tongue cured by one dose. He recommends this medicine in stubborn disorders of the head, proceeding from viscid tenacious matter, in palsies, and in soporific distempers. The leaves are an ingredient in the pulvis sternutatoris of the shops.

183. ASPIDIUM Filix-Mas. Polypodium, Linn. MALE FERN. The Roots. L. E. D.--They are said to be aperient and anthelmintic. Simon Pauli tells us, that they have been the grand secret of some empirics against the broad kind of worms called taenia; and that the dose is one, two, or three drams of the powder. Two other kinds of Ferns used to be recommended; but this, being the strongest, has therefore been made choice of in preference, though the College of Edinburgh still retain them in their Catalogue of Simples.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

184. ASTRAGALUS Tragacanthus. GOATS-THORN. The Gum. L. E. D.--This gum is of a strong body, and does not perfectly dissolve in water. A dram will give to a pint of water the consistence of a syrup, which a whole ounce of gum Arabic is scarce sufficient to do. Hence its use for forming troches, and the like purposes, in preference to the other gums. It is used in an officinal powder, and is an ingredient in the compound powders of ceruss and amber.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

185. ATROPA Belladonna. DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. The Leaves, L. E. D.-- Belladonna was first employed as an external application, in the form of fomentation, to scirrhus and cancer. It was afterwards administered internally in the same affections; and numerous cases, in which it had proved successful, were given on the authority of the German practitioners. It has been recommended, too, as a remedy in extensive ulceration, in paralysis, chronic rheumatism, epilepsy, mania, and hydrophobia, but with so little discrimination, that little reliance can be placed on the testimonies in its favour; and, in modern practice, it is little employed. It appears to have a peculiar action on the eye: hence it has been used in amaurosis; and from its power of causing dilatation of the pupil, when topically applied under the form of infusion, it has been used before performing the operation for cataract. A practice which is hazardous, as the pupil, though much dilated by the application, instantly contracts when the instrument is introduced. When given internally, its dose is from one to three grains of the dried leaves, or one grain of the inspissated juice.--Murray's Mat. Med. p. 174.

I have had a cancer of the lip entirely cured by it: a scirrhosity in a woman's breast, of such kind as frequently proceeds to cancer, I have found entirely discussed by the use of it. A sore, a little below the eye, which had put on a cancerous appearance, was much mended by the internal use of the Belladonna; but the patient having learned somewhat of the poisonous nature of the medicine, refused to continue the use of it; upon which the sore grain spread, and was painful; but, upon a return to the use of the Belladonna, was again mended to a considerable degree; when the same fears again returning, the use of it was again laid aside, and with the same consequence, the sore becoming worse. Of these alternate states, connected with the alternate use of and abstinence from the Belladonna, there were several of these alterations which fell under my own observation [Footnote: See the Poisonous Plants, in a future page].--Cullen's Mat. Med. vol. ii. p. 270.

186. CARDAMINE pratensis. LADIES SMOCK. The Leaves. L. E. D.--Long ago it was employed as a diuretic; and, of late, it has been introduced in nervous diseases, as epilepsy, hysteria, choraea, asthma, &c. A dram or two of the powder is given twice or thrice a-day. It has little sensible operation.

187. CARUM Carui. CARAWAY. The Seeds. L. E. D.--These are in the number of the four greater hot seeds; and frequently employed as a stomachic and carminative in flatulent colics, and the like. Their officinal preparations are an essential oil and a spiritous water; they were used as ingredients also in the compound juniper water, tincture of sena, stomachic tincture, oxymel of garlic, electuary of bayberries and of scammony, and the cummin-seed plaster.

188. CENTAUREA benedicta. BLESSED THISTLE. The Leaves. E. D.--The herb should be gathered when in flower, great care taken in drying it, and kept in a very dry airy place, to prevent its rotting or growing mouldy, which it is very apt to do. The leaves have a penetrating bitter taste, not very strong or very durable, accompanied with an ungrateful flavour, which they are in great measure freed from by keeping.