ALDER (PRINOS VERTICILLATUS)
    COMMON NAME.  Winterberry.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The bark and berries.
    Description. -- This is an indigenous shrub of irregular growth, with a stem six or eight feet in height; bark grayish and alternate branches.  The leaves are ovate, acute at the base, olive green in color, smooth above and downy beneath.  Flowers small and white; calyx small and six-cleft; corolla divided into six obtuse segments.  Fruit a berry.
    History. -- Black Alder is comon throughout the United States and England, growing in moist woods, swamps, etc., flowering from May to July, and maturing its fruit in the latter part of autumn.  It yields its virtues to water by decoction or infusion.  The bark has a bitterish, sub-astringent taste, and the berries have a sweetish taste.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, alterative, and astringent.  It is very beneficial in jaundice, diarrhoea, gangrene, dropsy, and all diseases attended with great weakness.  Two drachms of the powdered bark and one drachm of powdered golden seal infused in a pint of boiling water, and, when cold, taken in the course of the day, in doses of a wineglassful, and repeated daily, has proved very efficacious in dyspepsia.  Externally the decoction forms an excellent local application in gangrene, indolent ulcers, and some affections of the skin.  The berries are cathartic and vermifuge, and form, with cedar apples, a pleasant and effectual worm medicine for children.
    Dose. -- Powdered bark, half a drachm to a drachm; decoction, a teaspoonful three or four tims a day.
 
ALE HOOF (NEPETA GLECHOMA)
    COMMON NAMES. -- Gill-go-by-the-ground, Ground Ivy, Cat's-Foot, Turnhoof, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This plant is a perennial gray, hairy herb, with a procumbent creeping stem, varying in length from a few inches to one or two feet.  The leaves have petioles, cordate, and hairy on both sides.  The flowers are bluish purple.  The corolla is about three times as long as the calyx.
    History. -- This plant is common to the United States and Europe, where it is found in shady places, waste grounds, dry ditches, etc.  It flowers in May or August.  The leaves impart their virtues to boiling water by infusion.  They have an unpleasant odor, and a harsh, bitterish, slightly aromatic taste.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is stimulant, tonic, and pectoral, and is useful in diseases of the lungs and kidneys, asthma, jaundice, hypochondria, and monomania.  An infusion of the leaves is very beneficial in lead-colic, and painters who make use of it are seldom, if ever, troubled with that affection.  The fresh juice snuffed up the nose often cures the most inveterate headache.
    Dose. -- Powder, half a drachm to a drachm; infusion, one or two fluid ounces.
 
ALL-HEAL (PRUNELLA VULGARIS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Hercules Wound Wort, Panay, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This shrub sometimes attains the height of five feet, but is usually much smaller.  The stem is strong and round, with many joints, with some leaves thereat.  The leaves consist of five or six pair of wings, and when chewed have a bitterish taste.  The root is thick and long, the juice of which is hot and biting.  The flower is a small and yellow one, and the seeds whitish yellow, short and flat.
    History. -- This plant is found in England and other parts of Europe.  In England it flowers usually until the end of summer, but in other parts of Europe it flowers from May to December.
    Properties and Uses. -- All-heal is a pungent and bitter tonic and antispasmodic.  It has also vermifuge properties, and is slightly diuretic.  It is excellent for cramps, fits, falling sickness, convulsions, etc. (inferior, however, to Blue Vervain).  In obstructions of the liver it serves a good purpose.  It sometimes cures the toothache by inserting cotton saturated with the juice into the decayed places of the teeth.
 
ALMONDS (AMYGDALUS COMMUNIS)
    AMYGDALA AMARA, Bitter Almonds; AMYGDALA DULCIS, Sweet Almonds.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The kernels.
    Description. -- The almond tree is from ten to eighteen feet high, with a pale-brown rugged bark, and dividing into many branches.  The leaves are of a bright light green, two to four inches long, and about three-fourths of an inch wide.  Flowers are moderately large, pink or white, sessile, in pairs, and appearing before the leaves.  Calyx reddish, petals variable in size.  The fruit is a hoary drupe; stone oblong or ovate, hard in various degrees, always rugged and pitted with irregular holes.  Both the bitter and sweet almonds come from this tree.
    History. -- The almond tree is indigenous to most of the southern parts of Asia and Barbary, but is cultivated in Southern Europe.  The best of the sweet kind comes from Malaga.  The sweet kernel is without odor, and of a pleasant flavor; that of the bitter is also inodorous, unless rubbed with water, when it exhales a smell similar to Prussic acid.  Its taste is similar to that of peach-meats.  Both varieties contain oil -- the sweet a fixed oil, the bitter both a fixed and an essential oil, impregnated with Prussic acid.  The oil of bitter almonds has a golden color, an agreeable odor, an acid bitter taste, combustible, and is a poison acting in the same manner as Prussic acid.  One drachm of this oil, dissolved in three drachms of alcohol, forms the "essence of almonds" much used by confectioners, perfumers, etc.  The oil is also much used by soap-makers.
    Properties and Uses. -- Triturated with water, sweet almonds produce a white mixture called emulsion, or milk of almonds, bearing a remarkable analogy with animal milk.  It is used as a demulcent and vehicle for other medicines.  The oil is demulcent in small quantity, in larger doses laxative.  It is frequently employed in cough, diseases dependent upon intestinal irritation, and for mitigating acrimonious urine in calculous affections.
    Dose. -- Of the oil, a teaspoonful.
 
ALNUS RUBRA (TAG ALDER)
    COMMON NAMES.  Common Alder, Smooth Alder.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark.
    Description. -- This is a well-known shrub, growing in clumps, and forming thickets on the borders of ponds and rivers, and in swamps.  The stems are numerous, and from six to fifteen feet high.  The leaves are obovate, acuminate, smooth, and green, from two to four inches long.
    History. -- The Alnus Rubra is indigenous to Europe and America, and blossoms in March and April.  The bark is the part used medicinally.
    Properties and Uses. -- The bark is universally acknowledged to be alterative and emetic, and is especially recommended for scrofula, secondary syphilis (inferior, however, to Rock Rose or Stillingia), and cutaneous diseases, of which there are many varieties, some of which have and some of which have not been classified.  The active principle of Alnus Rubra, as prepared for practitioners, is called Alnuin, and is most excellent in cases of dyspepsia produced by inactivity of the gastric glands.
 
AMARANTH (AMARANTHUS HYPOCHONDRIASES)
    COMMON NAMES.  Prince's Feather, Red Cock's Comb, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is an annual herb, with a stout upright stem, from three to four feet high.  The leaves are oblong, lanceolate, mucronate, green, with a red purplish spot, clustered flowers, five stamens.
    History. -- This plant is a native of the Middle States, where it is cultivated in gardens as an ornamental plant, but contains more medicinal virtues in its wild state.  It flowers in August.  The leaves impart their virtues to water.
    Properties and Uses. -- Amaranth is astringent.  The decoction drank freely is a valuable domestic remedy for menorrhagia, diarrhoea, dysentery, and hemorrhage from the bowels.  It is useful as a local application to ulcers of the mouth and throat, as an injection for leucorrhoea, and as a wash to foul, indolent ulcers.
 
ANEMONE (ANEMONE NEMOROSA)
    COMMON NAME.  Wind Flower.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  Root, herb, and seed.
    Description. -- This is a delicate and pretty plant, with a creeping root, simple erect stem, six to nine inches high, bearing but a single flower; leaves ternate; sepals, four to six; stamens and ovaries numerous.
    History. -- This plant is common to Europe and the United States, bearing purplish and white flowers in April and May.  The Meadow Anemone of Europe is the most active in its medicinal qualities.  Its active principle is called Anemonine.  This plant affords the Pulsatilla of the Homoeopaths.
    Properties and Uses. -- Anemone in solution has been applied externally to scald head, ulcers, syphilitic nodes, paralysis, cataract, and opacity of the cornea, with benefit.  A decoction is sometimes used as an emmenagogue for secondary syphilis, whooping-cough, etc.  The leaves, fresh and bruised, act as a rubefacient.  Care should be taken in its internal administration, as it is acrid and poisonous.
    A plant of the same family, Anemone Cylindrica, is used by the Indians for the cure of the rattle-snake bite.  They chew some of the tops of the plant, swallowing but little of the saliva, then apply it to the bite; in a few minutes the bite is rendered harmless.
    Dose. -- Decoction, a tablespoonful; anemonine, one grain.
 
ANGELICA (ANGELICA ATROPURPUREA)
    COMMON NAME.  Masterwort.
    MEDICINAL PART. Root, herb, and seed.
    Description. -- This plant is five or six feet high.  The root has a purple color; leaves ternate, with large petioles; calyx five-toothed, with equal petals, and the fruit a nut.
    History. -- The plant is perennial, and grows in fields and damp places, developing greenish-white flowers from May to August.  The plant has a powerful, peculiar, but not unpleasant odor, a sweet taste, afterwards pungent; but in drying it loses much of these qualities.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is aromatic, stimulant, carminative, diaphoretic, expectorant, diuretic, and emmenagogue.  It is used in flatulent colic and heart-burn.  It is serviceable in diseases of the urinary organs.  The A. Archangelica, or Archangel, may be substituted for this.
    Dose. -- Decoction, two to four ounces; powder, thirty to sixty grains.
 
ANISE (PIMPINELLA ANISUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Aniseed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The fruit.
    Description. -- Anise has a perennial, spindle-shaped, woody root, and a smooth erect, branched stem, about ten or twelve inches in height.  The leaves are petiolated, roundish, cordate, serrate; flowers small and white, disposed on long stalks.  Calyx wanting, or minute.  The fruit is ovate, about an eighth of an inch long, dull brown, and slightly downy.
    History. -- It is a native of Egypt, but now cultivated in many of the warm countries of Europe.  The Spanish Aniseed is commonly used for medicinal purposes.  The odor of anise is penetrating and fragrant, the taste aromatic and sweetish.  It imparts its virtues wholly to alcohol, only partially to water.  That used in cordials is the Star Anise, which is procured from the Illicium Anisatum, a plant of Eastern Asia.  Its volatile oil is often fraudulently substituted for the European oil of anise.
    Properties and Uses. -- Stimulant and carminative; used in cases of flatulency, colic of infants, and to remove nausea.  Sometimes added to other medicines to improve their flavor or to correct disagreeable effects.
    Dose. -- Of the seed, twenty to forty grains; essence, thirty drops to a teaspoonful.
 
ALOES (ALOE SPICATA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The inspissated juice of the leaves.
    Description. -- The spiked aloe is an inhabitant of the southern parts of Africa, growing in sandy soil.  The stem is woody, round, and about four feet high, and from three to five inches in diameter.  The leaves are thick and fleshy, with a few white spots.  Spike a foot long; flowers scarlet, and filled with purplish honey.  This tree furnishes the Cape Aloes of commerce.  There are other varieties, the A. Socotrina and the A. Vulgaris.  The Socotrine aloes is an inhabitant of Socotra, and the Aloe Vulgaris is generally found in the East Indies and Barbary.
    History. -- Aloes is of a deep brown or olive color; odor unpleasant, taste peculiar and bitter, powder a bright yellow.  These properties change somewhat in the different varieties.  It is almost completely dissolved in water.
    Properties and Uses. -- Aloes is tonic, purgative, emmenagogue, and anthelmintic.  As a laxative its applications are limitless.  It acts chiefly upon the rectum, causing heat and irritation about the anus; it is therefore improper, unless associated with other medicines, to give it to patients suffering with piles.  It promotes the menstrual flow, but when used for this purpose it had better be combined with myrrh.  Its chief use is as a purgative, and it should never be given in inflammatory affections, in gastritis or enteritis, or to females liable to sudden uterine evacuation, or during pregnancy.
    Dose. -- Two to ten grains in pill.
 
ASARABACCA (ASARUM EUROPAEUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Hazlewort, or Wild Nard.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  Root and leaves.
    Description. -- The stem of this plant is very short, simple round and herbaceous, bearing dark-green reniform leaves; also one drooping flower of purple color, without corolla.  The fruit is a capsule.
    History. -- This is a European plant, growing in moist hilly woods, and flowers from May to August.  The root, when dried, has a pepper-like odor, spicy taste, and yields an ash-colored powder; the leaves give a green powder, and have the same medicinal properties as of the root.  They impart their virtues to water or alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- Emetic, cathartic, and errhine.  Used principally as an errhine in certain affections of the brain, eyes, face, and throat, toothache, and paralysis of the mouth and tongue.  It is used by drunkards in France to promote vomiting.
    Dose. -- Powder, 10 or 12 grains; as an emetic, from one-half to one drachm.
 
AYA-PANA (AYA-PANA EUPATORIUM)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The whole plant.
    Description. -- While traveling in Paraguay, South America, some years ago, I became acquainted with a species of Eupatorium or Lungwort called Aya-pana, possessed of most extraordinary virtues in consumption and other diseases of the chest.  In Paraguay, which is a very paradise on earth, numerous medicinal herbs of exceeding great value grow to the greatest perfection.  The Aya-pana belongs to the class of Eupatorium Perfoliatum, though quite unlike the Lungwort and Thorough-wort, indigenous to North America.  The Aya-pana is only found on the eastern slope of the Andes, on the mountain sides, along the sunny banks of streams, and beautifully luxuriant on all the tributaries to the Amazon, and La Plata especially.  It is a perennial plant, with numerous erect, round, hairy stems, five to ten feet high, the stalk plain below, but branching out in numerous stems near the top.  The leaves grow on the opposite sides of the base.  The direction of each pair of leaves is at right angles with that of the pair either above or beneath.  The leaves are long and narrow, broadest at the base where they coalesce, gradually tapering to a serrated point, wrinkled, palish green on the under surface, and beset with white silken hairs, which add much effect to their greenish-gray color.  The flowers are snow-white, slightly tinged with a purplish hue at the end, very numerous, supported on hairy peduncles.  The calyx is cylindrical, and composed of imbricated, lanceolate, hairy scales, inclosing from twelve to fifteen tubular florets, having their border divided into five spreading segments.  There are five black anthers united in a tube, through which a bifid filiform style projects above the flower, rendering the whole a beautiful and picturesque plant.
    History. -- It flowers constantly during the dry or sunny season, the blossoms and leaves being only used for medicinal purposes.  The flowers are better than the leaves, have an aromatic odor, resembling slightly chamomile, and possess a strong bitter taste, somewhat like horehound or quassia, which virtue is imparted either to water or alcohol.  Resin, gum, balsam, and mucilage are among the principal constituents of the flowers.  The flowers are gathered in the morning on sunny days, carefully dried in the sun or by artificial heat, when they are put up in bags or cedar boxes, and become ready for medicinal use.  Prepared in this way, the flowers and leaves retain their properties for years, improving in their virtues by age, adding to their rich honey-like yellow coloring matter when distilled for medical purposes.
    Properties and Uses. -- This plant may rightly be regarded as a specific in all forms of pulmonary and bronchial affections.  It has also great influence over the valvular action of the heart, in its healthful invigoration of the arterial and venous systems, and its wonderful power in expelling carbonic acid from the air-cells and pulmonary vessels, prior to the elimination of rich vermilion blood through the great aorta of the human economy.
    It is one of the ingredients of my "Acacian Balsam" (see page 469), which, with various other remarkable medicinal agents, forms one of the most wonderful remedies for coughs, colds, and consumption ever compounded.  The plant is not much known in this country, and only imported by myself, and can consequently not be had in apothecaries.
 
BALM (MELISSA OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- Balm is a perennial herb, with upright, branching, four-sided stems, from ten to twnty inches high.  The leaves are broadly ovate, acute, and more or less hairy.  The flowers are pale yellow, with ascending stamens.
    History. -- Balm is a native of France, but naturalized in England and the United States.  It grows in fields, along road-sides, and is well known as a garden plant, flowering from May to August.  The whole plant is officinal or medicinal, and should be collected previous to flowering.  In a fresh state it has a lemon-like odor, which is nearly lost by drying. Its taste is aromatic, faintly astringent, with a degree of persistent bitterness.  Boiling water extracts its virtues.  Balm contains a bitter extractive substance, a little tannin, gum, and a peculiar volatile oil.  A pound of the plant yields about four grains of the oil, which is of a yellowish or reddish-yellow color, very liquid, and possessing the fragrance of the plant in a high degree.  The Nepeta Citriodora, a powerful emmenagogue, is sometimes cultivated and employed by mistake for Balm.  It has the same odor, but may be distinguished by having both surfaces of the leaves hairy.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is moderately stimulant, diaphoretic, and antispasmodic.  A warm infusion, drank freely, is very serviceable to produce sweating, or as a diaphoretic in fevers.  It is also very useful in painful menstruation, and also to assist the courses of females.  When given in fevers, it may be rendered more agreeable by the addition of lemon juice.  The infusion may be taken at pleasure.
 
BALMONY (CHELONE GLARRA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Snake head, Turtle bloom, Saltyrheum weed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a perennial, smooth, herbaceous plant, with simple erect stem about two or three feet high.  The leaves are opposite, sessile, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, serrate, and of a dark shiing green color.  The fruit is a capsule.
    History. -- This valuable medical plant is found in the United States, in damp soils, flowering in August and September.  The flowers are ornamental, and vary in color according to the variety of the plant.  The leaves are exceedingly bitter, but inodorous, and impart their virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, cathartic, and anthelmintic; very valuable in jaundice, liver diseases, and for the removal of worms.  In small doses it is a good tonic in dyspepsia, debility of the digestive organs, and during convalescence from febrile and inflammatory diseases.  An ointment made from the fresh leaves is valuable for piles, inflamed breasts, tumors, and painful ulcers.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered leaves, one drachm; of the tincture, one or two teaspoonsful; of the active principle, Chelonia, one or two grains.
 
BARBERRY (BERBERIS VULGARIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  Bark and berries.
    Description. -- Barberry is an erect, deciduous shrub, from three to eight feet high, with leaves of an obovate-oval form, terminated by soft bristles, about two inches long, and one-third as wide.  The flowers are small and yellow, in clusters, and the fruit bright-red oblong berries, in branches, and very acid.
    History. -- This shrub is found in the New England States, on the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia, among rocks and hard gravelly soil.  Occasionally it is found in the West on rich grounds.  It flowers in April and May, and ripens its fruit in June.  Its active principle is Berberina.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic and laxative, indicated in jaundice, chronic diarrhoea, and dysentery.  The berries form an agreeable acidulous draught, useful as a refrigerant in fevers; the bark is bitter and astringent, and used in the treatment of jaundice.  The bark of the root is the most active; a teaspoonful of the powder will act as a purgative.  A decoction of the bark or berries will be found of service as a wash or gargle in aphthous sore mouth and chronic ophthalmia.
 
BAYBERRY (MYRICA CERIFERA)
    COMMON NAME.  Wax Myrtle.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- This shrub is branching and partially evergreen, and varies in height from two to a dozen feet.  The flowers appear in May, before the leaves are fully expanded.  The fruits are small and globular, resembling berries, which are at first green, but become nearly white.  They consist of a hard stone, inclosing a two-lobed and two-seeded kernel.  On the outside of the stone are gunpowder-like grains, and over these is a crust of dry greenish-white wax.
    History. -- Bayberry is found in woods and fields, from Canada to Florida.  The bark of the root is the officinal part, but the wax is also used.  Water must be employed to extract the astringent principles of the root-bark, alcohol to extract its stimulating virtues.  The period at which the root should be collected is the latter part of fall.  Cleanse it thoroughly, and while fresh separate the bark with a hammer or club.  Dry the bark thoroughly and keep it in a dry place; then pulverize, and keep the powder in dark and sealed vessels.  In order to obtain the wax, boil the berries in water; the wax will soon float on the surface, and may be removed when it becomes cold and hardened.
    Properties and Uses. -- The bark has been successfully used in scrofula, jaundice, diarrhoea, dysentery, and in other cases where astringent stimulants were indicated.  Powdered, it has been employed as a snuff, with curative effect, in catarrh of the head and nasal polypus.  It is sometimes applied, in poultice form, to old ulcers, sores, tumors, etc.; but is better for these when combined with Bloodroot.  The wax possesses mild astringent with narcotic properties.  The real properties of Bayberry bark are found in a preparation called Myricin, which is a stimulant and astringent, and can be employed to the best advantage in dysentery with typhoid symptoms, chronic diarrhoea, scrofula, and follicular stomatitis.  Its greatest and most salutary influence is exerted over a diseased condition of the mucous surface.  Myricin should be administered internally by the advice of a physician acquainted with its virtues.  It may be applied externally to sores, ulcers, etc., by anybody; but its immediate effects must be neutralized by a poultice of slippery elm.
 
BEARBERRY (ARCTOSTAPHYLOS UVA-URSI)
    COMMON NAME.  The upland Cranberry.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The Leaves.
    Description. -- Bearberry is a small, perennial, shrub, having a long fibrous root.  The stems are woody and trailing; bark smooth.  The leaves are alternate, evergreen, obovate, acute, and have short petioles.  The fruit is a small, scarlet-colored drupaceous berry.
    History. -- This plant is a perennial evergreen, common in the northern part of Europe and America.  It grows on dry, sterile, sandy soils, and gravelly ridges.  The berries ripen in winter, although the flowers appear from June to September.  The green leaves, picked from the stems in the fall and dried in a moderate heat, are the parts used.  These leaves are odorless until reduced to powder, when the odor emitted is like that of dried grass.  The powder is of a light brown color, tinged with a yellowish green.  The taste is astringent and bitterish.  The properties of the leaves are extracted by alcohol or water.  A preparation called Ursin is made from them.
    Properties and Uses. -- Uva Ursi is especially astringent and tonic, depending upon these qualities for the most of its good effects.  It is particularly useful in chronic diarrhoea, dysentery, profuse menstruation, piles, diabetes, and other similar complaints.  It possesses rare curative principles when administered for diseases of the urinary organs, more especially in chronic affections of the kidneys, mucous discharges from the bladder, inflammation of the latter organ, and all derangements of the water-passages.  It is also a valuable assistant in the cure of gonorrhoea of long standing, whites, ulceration of the cervix uteri (or neck of the womb), pain in the vesical region, etc.  Many physicians now rely upon it as the basis of their remedy for gonorrhoea which is accompanied by mucous discharges, and for all kindred afflictions.  Its tannic acid gives it great power in rectifying and extirpating the obstinate and disagreeable complaints we have mentioned.
    Dose. -- The dose of the powder is ten to forty grains; of the decoction, one to two fluid ounces--(to make this, boil a pint and a half of pure water, containing one ounce of uva ursi, down to a pint); of the extract, five to ten grains.
 
BEARS BED (POLYTRICHIUM JUNIPERUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Hair-cap Moss, Robin's Rye, Ground Moss.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole plant.
    Description. -- This is an indigenous plant, having a perennial stem, slender, of a reddish color, and from four to seven inches high; leaves lanceolate, and somewhat spreading.  The fruit a four-sided oblong capsule.
    History. -- This evergreen plant is found in high, dry places, along the margins of dry woods, mostly on poor sandy soil.  It is of darker green color than the mosses in general.  It yields its virtues to boiling water.
    Properties and Uses. -- This plant is not much known as a remedial agent, but is nevertheless a valuable remedy.  It is a powerful diuretic, and very serviceable in dropsy.  It is very useful in gravel and urinary obstructions.  It causes no nausea or disagreeable sensations in the stomach, and may be used with the hydragogue cathartics with decided advantage in dropsical affections.
 
BEAD TREE (MELIA AZEDARACH)
    COMMON NAME.  Pride of China.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is an elegant tree, which attains the height of thirty or forty feet, with a trunk about a foot and a half in diameter.  The bark is rough; leaves bipinnate; flowers lilac color; calyx five-parted; corolla has five petals; stamens deep violet; anthers yellow.  The fruit is a five-celled bony nut.
    History. -- It is a native of China, but cultivated in the warm climates of Europe and America.  It does not grow to any extent north of Virginia, and flowers early in the spring.  Its name of Bead Tree is derived from the uses to which its hard nuts are put in Roman Catholic countries, viz., for making rosaries.  The recent bark of the root is the most active part for medicinal purposes.  It has a disagreeably bitter taste and a very unpleasant odor, and imparts its properties to boiling water.
    Properties and Uses. -- The bark is anthelmintic, and in large doses narcotic and emetic.  It is useful in worm fevers and in infantile remittents, in which, although worms are absent, yet the symptoms are similar to those accompanying the presence of worms.
    The fruit is somewhat saccharine, and is an excellent remedy to expel worms.  Its pulp is used as an ointment for destroying lice and other ectozoa, as well as in treatment of scald head and other diseases of the skin.  The oil of the nuts is useful as a local application in rheumatism, cramps, obstinate ulcers, etc.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered bark, twenty grains; of the decoction (which is the best form for administration--two ounces of the bark to a pint of water, and boiled down to a half a pint), a tablespoonful every one, two, or three hours, till the desired effect is obtained.  A purgative should follow its employment. -- See "Renovating Pill," page 469.
 
BELLADONNA (ATROPA BELLADONNA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Deadly Night-shade, Dwale, Black Cherry, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This perennial herb has a thick, fleshy, creeping root, and an annual erect leafy stem about three feet high.  Leaves ovate, acute, entire, on short petioles, and of a dull green color.  The flowers are dark purple, and fruit a many-seeded berry.
    History. -- This plant is common to Europe, growing among ruins and waste places, blossoming from May to August, and maturing its fruit in September.  The leaves should be gathered while the plant is in flower.  They yield their virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- Belladonna is an energetic narcotic.  It is anodyne, antispasmodic, calmative, and relaxant; exceedingly valuable in all convulsive diseases.  It is much used as a preventive of scarlatina, and as a cure for whooping-cough.  It dilates the pupil of the eyes very measurably, and they should always be watched whenever the plant is administered.  In the hands of the educated herbal physician it is a very useful remedy; but I caution my readers not to use it in domestic practice.
 
BETH-ROOT (TRILLIUM PENDULUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wake Robin, Indian Balm, Ground Lily, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is an herbaceous, perennial plant, having an oblong tuberous root, from which arises a slender stem from ten to fifteen inches high.  The leaves are three in number, acuminate, from three to five inches in diameter, with a very short petiole.  The flowers are white, sepals green, petals ovate and acute, styles erect, and stigmas recurved.
    History. -- This plant is common in the Middle and Western States, growing in rich soils and shady woods, flowering in May and June.  There are many varieties, all possessing analogous medicinal properties.  These plants may be generally known by their three net-veined leaves, and their solitary terminal flower, which varies in color in the different species, being whitish-yellow and reddish-white.  The roots have a faint turpentine odor, and a peculiar aromatic and sweetish taste.  When chewed they impart an acid astringent impression to the mouth, causing a flow of saliva and a sensation of heat in the throat and fauces.  Trilline is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is astringent, tonic, and antiseptic, and is successfully employed in bleeding from the lungs, kidneys and womb, excessive menstruation, and likewise in leucorrhoea or white, and cough, asthma, and difficult breathing.  Boiled in milk, it is of eminent benefit in diarrhoea and dysentery.  The root made into a poultice is very useful in tumors, indolent and offensive ulcers, stings of insects, and to restrain gangrene; and the leaves boiled in lard are a good application to ulcers, tumors, etc.  The red Beth-root will check ordinary epistaxis, or bleeding of the nose.  The leaves boiled in lard is a good external application in ulcers and tumors.  A strong infusion of powdered Beth-root, of from two to four tablespoonfuls, is the most pleasant form of administration of this valuable remedy.
    Dose of the powdered root is one drachm, to be given in hot water; of the infusion, two to four ounces.
 
BIRDS' NEST (MONOTROPA UNIFLORA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Ice Plant, Fit Plant, Ova-ova, Indian Pipe.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a dark-colored, fibrous, perennial root, matted in masses like a chestnut vine, from which arise one or more short ivory-white stems, four to eight inches high, adorned with white, sessile, lanceolate leaves.
    History. -- This singular plant is found from Maine to Carolina, and westward to Missouri, growing in shady, solitary places, in rich moist soil, or soil composed of decayed wood and leaves.  The whole plant is ivory-white, resembling frozen jelly, and when handled melts away like ice.  It flowers from June to September.  It is evidently a parasite of the roots at the base of trees.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, sedative, and antispasmodic.  It is useful in fevers, and employed in instances of restlessness, pains, nervous irritability, etc., in place of opium.  It cures remittent and intermittent fevers, and may be employed instead of quinine.  Prompt success has followed its use in convulsive diseases.  The juice of the plant mixed with rose-water forms an excellent application to sore eyes, or as an injection in gonorrhoea.  It is very singular that people will use injurious drugs, or permit themselves to take them, when in this queer little herb that grows all around them, and which by its singular character invites attention to it, they can find a sovereign remedy for numberless ills.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered root, half a drachm to a drachm, two or three times a day.
 
BITTER ROOT (APOCYNUM ANDROSAEMIFOLIUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Dog's-bane, Milk-weed, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a smooth, elegant plant, five or six feet high, with a large perennial root.  The leaves are dark-green above, pale beneath, ovate, and about two or three inches long and an inch wide.  Corolla white, calyx five-cleft, and stamens five.  Fruit a follicle.  Every part of the plant is milky.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to the United States, growing in dry, sandy soils, and in the borders of woods, from Maine to Florida, flowering from May to August.  When any part of the plant is wounded a milky juice exudes.  The large, milky root is the part used for medicinal purposes.  It possesses an unpleasant amarous taste.  It yields its properties to alcohol, but especially to water.   Age impairs its medicinal quality.
    Properties and Uses. -- Emetic, diaphoretic, tonic, and laxative.  It is very valuable in all liver or chronic hepatic affections.  In conjunction with Menispermin, it is excellent in dyspepsia and amenorrhoea.  When it is required to promptly empty the stomach, without causing much nausea or a relaxed condition of the muscular system, the powdered root may be given in two or three scruple doses; but much prostration is apt to ensue.  As a laxative it is useful in constipation.  As a tonic, ten or twenty grains may be given to stimulate the digestive apparatus, and thus effect a corresponding impression on the general system.  It is also useful as an alterative in rheumatism, scrofula, and syphilis.
 
BITTER-SWEET (AMARA DULCIS, SOLANUM DULCAMARA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Mortal, Woody Nightshade, Falon Wort, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  Bark of root and twigs.
    Description. -- Bitter-Sweet is a woody vine, with a shrubby stem several feet in length, having an ashy green bark.  Leaves acute, and generally smooth, lower one cordate, upper ones hastate.  The flowers are purple, and the fruit a scarlet, juicy and bitter berry, which, however, should not be eaten or used.
    History. -- Bitter-Sweet is common to both Europe and America, growing in moist banks, around dwellings, and in low damp grounds, about hedges and thickets, and flowering in June and July.  The berries ripen in autumn, and hang upon the vines for several months.  After the foliage has fallen the twigs should be gathered.  Boiling water and dilute alcohol extract their virtues.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a mild narcotic, diuretic, alterative, diaphoretic, and discutient.  It is serviceable in cutaneous diseases, syphilitic diseases, rheumatic and cachectic affections, ill-conditioned ulcers, scrofula, indurations, sores, glandular swelling, etc.  In obstructed menstruation it serves a good purpose.  It is of incalculable benefit in leprosy, tetter, and all skin diseases.  It excites the venereal functions, and is in fact capable of wide application and use.  I regard this plant as important as any in the herbal kingdom, and too little justice is done to it by those under whose care the sick are entrusted.  It receives but half the homage that is due to it.
    The world knows the virtues of my "Herbal Ointment" (see page 469), and which is in great measure due to Bitter-Sweet, as it is one of the ingredients.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, one or two fluid ounces; extract, two to five grains; powdered leaves, ten to thirty grains.
 
BLUE FLAG (IRIS VERSICOLOR)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The rhizome.
    Description.  Blue Flag is an indigenous plant, with a fleshy, fibrous rhizome.  The stem is two or three feet in height, round on one side, acute on the other, and frequently branched.  The leaves are ensiform, about a foot long, half an inch to an inch wide.  The fruit a three-celled capsule.
    History.  Blue Flag is common throughout the United States, growing in moist places, and bearing blue or purple flowers from May to July.  The root has a peculiar odor, augmented by rubbing or pulverizing, and a disagreeable taste.  It imparts its virtues to boiling water, alcohol, or ether.  The root should be sliced transversely, dried, and placed in dark vessels, well closed, and placed in a dark place; it will then preserve its virtues for a long time.  The oleo-resin obtained from it is called Iridin, its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- This is one among our most valuable medicinal plants, capable of extensive use.  It is alterative, cathartic, sialogogue, vermifuge, and diuretic.  In scrofula and syphilis it acts as a powerful and efficient agent, and I employ it in my special treatment of chronic diseases extensively and successfully.  It is useful in chronic hepatic, renal, and splenitic affections, but had best be combined with mandrake, poke, black cohosh, etc.  It will sometimes salivate, but it need cause no apprehension; and when this effect is established, it may be distinguished from mercurial salivation by absence of stench, sponginess of the gums, and loosening of the teeth.
    Dose. -- Powdered root, five to ten grains; Iridin, one grain.
 
BLUE VERVAIN (VERBENA HASTATA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wild Hyssop, Simpler's Joy.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root and herb.
    Description. -- Vervain is an erect, tall, elegant, and perennial plant, with a four-angled stem three or four feet high, having opposite branches.  The leaves are petiolate, serrate, acuminate, and hastate.  The flower is a small purplish blue one, sessile, and arranged in long spikes.  Seeds, four.
    History. -- Vervain is indigenous to the United States, and grows along roadsides, and in dry, grassy fields, flowering from June to September.  It is also found in England, growing among hedges, by the way-side, and other waste grounds, flowering in July, and the seeds ripening soon after.
    Properties and Uses. -- Vervain is tonic, expectorant, sudorific, and antispasmodic.  It is serviceable in mismenstruation.  It is an antidote to poke-poisoning.  It expels worms, and is a capital agent for the cure of all diseases of the spleen and liver.  If given in intermittent fever, in a warm infusion or powder, it never fails to effect a cure.  In all cases of cold and obstinate menstruation it is a most complete and advantageous sudorific.  When the circulation of the blood is weak and languid, it will increase it and restore it to its proper operation.  The infusion, taken cold, forms a good tonic in cases of constitutional debility, and during convalescence from acute disease.  Its value has been found to be great in scrofula, visceral obstructions, and stone and gravel.  It will correct diseases of the stomach, help coughs, wheezing, and shortness of breath, etc., but its virtues are more wonderful still in the effect they produce upon epilepsy, or falling sickness, and fits.
    This great -- very great -- medicinal value of this plant was brought to my attention by an accidental knowledge of the good it had effected in a long-standing case of epilepsy.  Its effects in that case were of the most remarkable character, and I was, therefore, led to study most carefully and minutely its medicinal peculiarities.  I found, after close investigation and elaborate experiment, that, prepared in a certain way, and compounded with boneset, water-pepper, chamomile blossoms, and the best of whiskey, it has no equal for the cure of fits, or falling sickness, or anything like fits; also for indigestion, dyspepsia, and liver complaints of every grade.  A more valuable plant is not found within the whole range of the herbal pharmacopoeia.  See "Restorative Assimilant," page 469.
    The following application is singularly effective in promoting the absorption of the blood, effusion in bruises, and allaying the attendant pain: Take of Vervain, Senna, and White Pepper, of each equal parts; make a cataplasm or plaster by mixing with white of eggs.
    It is also most valuable as a cure for diarrhoea, stomachic and enteric pains, bowel complaints, and a superexcellent tonic.
 I first brought the notice of physicians to this plant about twelve years ago, previous to which it was unknown as a remedy, but which is now used by very many physicians, whose reports of its virtues in various medical journals, published works, and to me by correspondence, are as flattering as my own.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered root, from one to two scruples; the dose of the infusion is from two to four wine-glassfuls three or four times a day, if an emetic is desired.
 
BLACK COHOSH (CIMICIFUGA RACEMOSA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Rattleroot, Squaw Root, Black Snake Root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant is a tall, leafy perennial herb, with a large knotty root, having long slender fibres.  The stem is simple, smooth, and furrowed, and from three to nine feet high.  The flower is a small and fetid one.
    History. -- It is a native of the United States, inhabiting upland woods and hillsides, and flowering from May to August.  The root is the medicinal part.  It contains a resin, to which the names of Cimicifugin or Macrotin have been given; likewise fatty substances, starch, gum, tannic acid, etc.  The leaves of Cimicifuga are said to drive away bugs; hence its name from cimez, a bug, and fugo, to drive away.
    Boiling water takes up the properties of the root but partially, alcohol wholly.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a very active and useful remedy in many diseases.  It is slightly narcotic, sedative, antispasmodic, and exerts a marked influence over the nervous system.  It is successfully used in cholera, periodical convulsions, fits, epilepsy, nervous excitability, asthma, delirium tremens, and many spasmodic affections, and in consumption, cough, acute rheumatism, neuralgia, and scrofula.  Also, very valuable in amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, and other menstrual and uterine affections, leucorrhoea, etc.  The saturated tincture of the root is a valuable embrocation in all cases of inflammation of the nerves, tic douloureux, crick in the back or sides, rheumatism, old ulcers, etc.  It has an especial affinity for the uterus, and as it reduces very materially the arterial action, it is, hence, very useful in palpitation of the heart, and cardiac affections generally.
    It exerts a tonic influence over mucous and serous tissues, and is a superior remedy in a variety of chronic diseases.  In my special practice I use it largely, and its use, in conjunction with other indicated remedies, has afforded me flattering success in many chronic affections.
    Dose. -- Fluid extract, half a drachm to two drachms; solid extract, four to eight grains; of the tincture the dose is from one to three teaspoonsful; of Cimicifugin the dose is from one to six grains.
 
BLAZING STAR (LIATRIS SQUARROSA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Gay Feather, Devil's Bit, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- There are three varieties of this plant used in medicine.  The above is the most common one.  It has a tuberous root, and an erect annual stem from two to five feet high, linear leaves, and flowers sessile, and of bright purple color.
    Liatris Spicata, or Button Snake Root, is very similar to the above.
    Liatris Scariosa, or Gay Feather, has a perennial tuberous root, with a stout stem from four to five feet high.  The leaves are numerous and lanceolate, lower one on long petioles.
    History. -- The two former are natives of the Middle and Southern States, and the latter is found from New England to Wisconsin.  These splendid natives flower from August to September.  The roots have a hot bitter taste and an agreeable turpentine odor.  The virtues are extracted by alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- These plants are diuretic, tonic, stimulant, and emmenagogue.  The decoction is very useful in gonorrhoea, gleet, and kidney diseases.  It is also of service in uterine diseases.  As a gargle in sore throat it is of great advantage.  These plants are used for, and said to have antidotal powers over snake-bites.
 
BONESET (EUPATORIUM PERFOLLIATUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Thoroughwort.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The tops and leaves.
    Description. -- Boneset is an indigenous perennial herb, with a horizontal crooked root, the stems being round, stout, rough and hairy, from one to five feet high, and the leaves veiny, serrate, rough, and tapering to a long point.  The flowers are white and very numerous.
    History. -- Boneset grows in low grounds, on the borders of swamps and streams, throughout the United States, flowering in August and September.  Alcohol or boiling water extracts the virtues of the parts used.  It has a feeble odor, but a very bitter taste.  It contains tannin and the extractive salts of potassa.  It is called Boneset on account that it was formerly supposed to cause rapid union of broken bones.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a very valuable medicinal agent.  The cold infusion or extract is tonic and aperient, the warm infusion diaphoretic and emetic.  As a tonic it is very useful in remittent, intermittent, and typhoid fevers, dyspepsia, and general debility.  In intermittent fever a strong infusion, as hot as can be comfortably swallowed, is administered for the purpose of vomiting freely.  This is also attended with profuse diaphoresis, and sooner or later, by an evacuation of the bowels.  During the intermission the cold infusion or extract is given every hour as a tonic and antiperiodic.  In epidemic influenza the warm infusion is valuable as an emetic and diaphoretic, likewise in febrile diseases, catarrh, colds, and wherever such effects are indicated.  The warm infusion is also administered to promote the operation of other emetics.  Externally, used alone or in combination with hops or tansy, etc., a fomentation of the leaves applied to the bowels is very useful in inflammation, spasms, and painful affections.
    Boneset is one of the ingredients of my "Restorative Assimilant," and is certainly an excellent adjuvant to the Blue Vervain.  (See page 469.)
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from ten to twenty grains; of the extract, from two to four grains; of the infusion, from two to four wineglassfuls.
 
BLACK ROOT (LEFTANDEIA VIRGINICA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Culver's Physic, Tall Speedwell.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- It is perennial, with a simple, straight, smooth, herbaceous stem, and grows from three to four or five feet in height.  The leaves are short petioled, whorled in fours to sevens, lanceolate, acuminnate, and finely serrated.  The flowers are white, nearly sessile, and very numerous.  Calyx four-parted corolla small and nearly white; stamens, two.  The fruit is a many-seeded capsule.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to the United States, but is to be found in good condition only in limestone countries.  It is often discovered in new soil, in moist woods, in swamps, etc., but its medicinal virtues are feeble, excepting when it is found where there is limestone.  The root is the part used.  It is perennial, irregular, horizontal, woody, and about as thick as the forefinger.  It is gathered in the fall of the second year.  The fresh root should never be used, as it is very violent and uncertain in its operations.  The dried root, after having been properly prepared, is what may be relied upon for beneficial effects.  Leptandrin is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- The fresh root is too irritant to be used, although a decoction of it may, with care, be used in intermittent fever.  The dried root is laxative, cholagogue, and tonic, and very much used in chronic hepatic diseases.  It is an excellent laxative in febrile diseases, and peculiarly applicable in billious and typhoid fevers.  As a laxative and tonic it is very useful in dyspepsia, especially when associated with torpidity of the liver.  In diarrhoea and dysentery, as a cathartic it frequently effects a cure in one active dose.  This admirable remedy is one of the ingredients of my "Renovating Pill," see page 469.
    Dose. -- Powdered root, twenty to sixty grains; infusion, half an ounce; leptandrin, one-fourth grain to a grain.
 
BLOODROOT (SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Red Puccoon.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Bloodroot is a smooth, herbaceous, perennial plant, with a fibrous root, which when cut or bruised emits an orange-colored juice.  From each bud of the root stalk there springs a single leaf about six inches high, and which is cordate and reniform.  The flower is white, stamens short, and anthers yellow.  The fruit is a two-valved capsule.
    History. -- Bloodroot grows throughout the United States, in shaded woods and thickets, and rich soils generally, and flowers from March to June.  Although the whole plant is medicinal, the root is the part chiefly used.  The fresh root is fleshy, round, and from one to four inches in length, and as thick as the fingers.  It presents a beautiful appearance when cut and placed under a microscope, seeming like an aggregation of minute precious stones.  The dried root is dark brown outside, bright yellow inside; has a faint virose odor, and a bitter and acrid taste.  It may be readily reduced to powder.  Its active properties are taken up by boiling water or by alcohol.  Age and moisture impair the qualities of the root, and it is of the utmost consequence to get that which has been properly gathered, and not kept too long.  It yields several principles, among which are sanguinaria, puccine, chelidonic acid, a yellowish fixed oil, lignin, and gum.
    Properties and Uses. -- The actions of Bloodroot vary according to administration.  In small doses it stimulates the digestive organs, acting as a stimulant and tonic.  In large doses it is an arterial sedative.  It is useful in bronchitis, laryngitis, whooping-cough, and other affections of the respiratory organs.  It excites the energies of a torpid liver, and has proved beneficial in scrofula, amenorrhoea, and dysentery.  Applied to fungous growths, ulcers, fleshy excresences, cancerous affections, the powder acts as an escharotic, and the infusion is often applied with benefit to skin diseases.
 Dose.--Of the powder as an emetic, ten to twenty grains; as a stimulant and expectorant, three to five grains; as an alterative, half a grain to two grains.  Tincture, twenty to sixty drops.
 
BOX (BUXUS SEMPERVIRENS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- Box is a small, dense-leaved, hard-wood evergreen tree.  The leaves are ovate, deep shining green, becoming red in autumn; flowers pale yellow; and the fruit is six-seeded globular capsule.
    History. -- The box tree is a native of the west of Asia, but grows on dry hills and sandy elevations generally in Europe, and but rarely on similar soil in America.  A preparation called Buxina is obtained from the powdered bark, but the leaves are the parts mainly used in medical practice.  They readily impart their virtues to alcohol or water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is cathartic, sudorific, and alterative.  The preparations of the leaves are excellent for the expulsion of worms, for purging the bowels, and regulating the action of the liver; for breaking fevers, and for purifying the blood and glandular secretions.  In syrup it is very valuable as a cure for all diseases of a syphilitic character, and may be used alone to great advantage, where the compound syrup of stillingia cannot be obtained.  The stillingia is preferable if it is at all to be had.  The dose of a strong decoction, or syrup, of box, is half a fluid ounce, three times a day.  In very severe cases the dose may be increased to a fluid ounce; but this should not be undertaken excepting by the advice of a physician.  When intestinal worms are to be destroyed or expelled, the powdered leaves are usually administered in, to children, doses of five grains; to adults, in doses of from ten to fifteen grains.  It possesses antispasmodic qualities, and has been given with good effect in hysteria, epilepsy, chorea (St. Vitus' Dance), etc.  Chips of the wood (decoction) are useful in chronic rheumatism.  The chief value of the Buxus Sempervirens, however, centres in its antisyphilitic virtues.  I combine it with corydalis (Turkey pea) and the compound syrup of stillingia, in such a manner that it will surely cure syphilis in the first, second, or third stage; also certain forms of scrofula and scurvy.  In other diseases it is no better than many other plants mentioned in this book.
    The reader will do well to remember that the common garden box possesses the medical qualities of the Buxus Sempervirens to a feeble extent only.  The powerful antisyphilitic virtues of which I have spoken can be procured only from the leaves of the tree reared in Asia, the influences of that climate being requisite to perfect them.
 
BUCHU (BAROSMA CRENATA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This plant has a slender, smooth, upright, perennial stem, between two and three feet high.  The leaves are opposite, flat, about an inch long, ovate or obovate, acute, serrated, and dotted.  The flowers are pink, and fruit an ovate capsule.
    History. -- The Buchu plant is a native of Southern Africa.  It does not grow very prolifically.  There are two other varieties from which the leaves are taken, and which are of equal value with the Barosma Crenata.  The leaves are the parts which are termed officinal.  The Hottentots gather these leaves (which emit a sort of minty odor) and powder them.  "The powder," says a traveler, "they have named Booko, and they use it for anointing their bodies."  They also distil the leaves, and obtain from them a strong spirituous liquor somewhat resembling pale brandy, which they not only use for convivial purposes, but for the cure of various diseases, particularly those which are located in the stomach, bladder, bowels, and kidneys.  A decoction of the leaves is systematically applied by them, with success, we are told, to wounds; but this is an assertion of which we have no direct proof.  As we get them, the leaves are nearly, or quite, an inch in length, and from a sixth to half an inch in width, elliptical, lanceolate, slightly acute, or shorter and obtuse; their margin is serrated and glandular, upper surface smooth, and of a clear shining green, the under surface paler, with scattered oil points.  They taste and smell like pennyroyal; but are neither heating nor bitter when chewed.  They have to be kept very carefully, if their odor and virtues are desired to be thoroughly preserved for any reasonable length of time.  The leaves of all the varieties are somewhat similar, and possess about the same qualities.  They yield their volatile oil and extractive (upon which their virtues are mainly dependent) to alcohol or water.
    Properties and Uses. -- Buchu is aromatic and stimulant, diuretic and diaphoretic.  It is employed in dyspepsia with a palliative effect, but is chiefly administered in chronic inflammation of the bladder, irritation of the membrane of the urethra, uric acid gravel, diabetes in its first stage, and in incontinence of urine.  It is recommended, without good reason, for cutaneous and rheumatic affections.  I have no doubt Buchu is of some importance in chronic diseases of the urino-genital organs, for I have tried it; but I am sure that we have many native remedies which are altogether superior, and which are neglected only because the public is so familiar with them that they do not care to give them a fair trial.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, twenty to thirty grains; infusion, two to four ounces; tincture, one or two drachms; fl. extract, thirty to sixty drops.
 
BURNING BUSH (EUONYMUS ATROPURPUREUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wahoo, Spindle Tree, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- Wahoo is a small shrub or bush, with smooth branches, and from five to ten feet high.  The leaves are from two to five inches in length, lanceolate, acute, and finely serrate.  Flowers dark purple, and the fruit a crimson, five-celled capsule.  There is another variety known as Euonymus Americanus, which is equally useful medicinally, and this and the foregoing are both known by the name of Wahoo better than by any other title.
    History. -- These plants grow in many sections of the United States, in woods and thickets, and in river bottoms, flowering in June.  The bark of the root has a bitter and unpleasant taste in its natural shape, and yields its qualities to water and alcohol.  The active principle is Euonymin.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, laxative, alterative, diuretic, and expectorant.  It is serviceable in dyspepsia, torpid liver, constipation, dropsy, and pulmonary diseases.  In intermittents it serves a good purpose.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, twenty to thirty grains; tincture, one to four drachms; Euonymin, one-eighth to half a grain.
 
BUTTER WEED (ERIGERON CANADENSE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Colt's Tail, Pride Weed, Horse Weed, Canada Flea-Bane.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole plant.
    Description. -- This is an indigenous, annual herb, with a high bristly, hairy stem, from six inches to nine feet high.  The leaves are lanceolate; flowers small, white, and very numerous.
    History. -- Butterweed is common to the Northern and Middle States, grows in fields and meadows, by road-sides, and flowers from June to September.  It should be gathered when in bloom, and carefully dried.  It has a feeble odor, somewhat astringent taste, and yields its virtues to alcohol or water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, diuretic, and astringent.  It is useful in gravel, diabetes, dropsy, and in many kidney diseases.  It can also be employed in diarrhoea, dysentery, etc.  The volatile oil may be used instead of the infusion.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, half a drachm; infusion, two to four ounces; fl.extract, teaspoonful; oil, from four to six drops on sugar.
 
CAHINCA (CHIOCOCCA RACEMOSA)
    COMMON NAME.  Snow Berry.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is a climbing shrub, with a round branched root, and a stem from eight to twelve feet high.  The leaves are ovate and smooth; flowers white and odorless, and become yellow and redolent; calyx, five-cleft; corolla, funnel-shaped; stamens, five.  The fruit is a small white berry.
    History. -- This plant is a native of the West Indies, Florida, and South America.  The root has a coffee-like taste, of a reddish-brown color, and a disagreeable odor.  It affords the Cahincic Acid, its most important medicinal agent.
    Properties and Uses. -- In medium doses it aids the urinary discharge, increases the action of the heart, and promotes perspiration.  It has been found efficient in amenorrhoea, rheumatism, syphilis, etc., and is used in Brazil as an antidote to snake-bites.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from twenty to sixty grains.
 
CALICO BUSH (KALMIA LATIFOLIA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Sheep Laurel, Spoonwood, Mountain Laurel, Lambkill.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description.--This handsome plant is a shrub from four to eight feet high, with crooked stems and a rough bark.  The leaves are evergreen, ovate, lanceolate, acute at each end, on long petioles, and from two to three inchs long.  The flowers are white and numerous.  The fruit is a dry capsule.
    History. -- Sheep Laurel inhabits the rocky hills and elevated grounds of most parts of the United States.  Its beautiful flowers appear in June and July.  The leaves are reputed to be poisonous to sheep and other animals, and it is said that birds which have eaten them will poison those who eat the birds.  The leaves are the officinal part.  Attention was called to their medicinal virtues by the use which the Indians make of them, viz., a decoction by which they commit suicide.
    Properties and Uses. -- The plant, in medicinal doses, is antisyphilitic, sedative to the heart, and somewhat astringent.  It is a most efficient agent in syphilis, fevers, jaundice, neuralgia, and inflammation.  The preparation should be used with great care and prudence.  In cases of poisoning with this plant, either man or beast, whiskey is the best antidote.  Externally, stewed with lard, it is serviceable as an ointment for varioius skin diseases.
    Dose. -- The saturated tincture of the leaves is the best form of administration.  It is given in from ten to twenty drops every two or three hours.  Powdered leaves, from ten to twenty grains.
 
CANCER ROOT (OROBANCHE VIRGINIANA)
    COMMON NAME.  Beech Drops.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The plant.
    Description. -- This is a parasitic plant, with a smooth, leafless stem from a foot to a foot and a half in height, with slender branches given off the whole length of it.  The root is scaly and tuberous.
    History. -- This plant is native to North America, and generally a parasite upon the roots of beech trees, flowering in August and September.  The whole plant is of a dull red color, without any verdure.  It has a disagreeable, astringent taste.  It yields its virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- An eminent astringent.  Used with benefit in fluxes and in diarrhoea, but possesses no property of curing cancer.  It can be used with advantage in erysipelas.  Locally applied to wounds, it prevents or arrests the process of mortification.  It is also useful as an application to obstinate ulcers, aphthous ulcerations, etc., etc.  It exerts the same influence upon the capillary system as the mineral drug tincture of iron.
 
CANNABIS INDICA
    COMMON NAME.  Indian Hemp.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is an herbaceus annual, growing about three feet high, with an erect, branched, angular bright green stem.  The leaves are alternate, or opposite, on long lax foot-stalks, roughish, with sharply serrated leaflets tapering into a long, smooth entire point.  The male flowers are drooping and long, the females simple and erect.  The seeds are small, ash-colored, and inodorous.
    History. -- Cannabis Indica, or Cannabis Sativa, is a native of the Caucasus, Persia, but grows in the hilly regions of Northern India.  It is cultivated in many parts of Europe and Asia; but medicine of value can only be made from the Indian variety, the active principle of the plant being developed only by the heat of the climate of Hindostan.  The dried tops and resin are the parts used.  The preparations called Churrus, Gunjah, Bhang, Hashish, etc., sold in this country are mostly feeble imitations of the genuine articles, and are comparatively worthless.  Even the few specimens of the genuine productions which reach the shops, and are sold at high prices, are crude and inferior, and can in no wise impart the effects which attach to the pure article.  It is a matter of great difficulty to procure the genuine article even direct from dealers in India, unless you have had years of experience as a practising herbal physician, and have established business connections in various parts of the world as an importer of rare and pure medicinal herbs, barks, roots, resins, etc.
    The Cannabis Sativa, or common hemp, possesses similar properties, and can be substituted if the Asiatic hemp is not procurable.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is narcotic, anodyne, and antispasmodic.  It has been successfully employed in gout, neuralgia, rheumatism, locked jaw, convulsions, chorea, hysteria, and uterine hemorrhage; but it is chiefly valuable as an invigorator of mind and body.  Its exhilarating qualities are unequalled, and it is a certain restorative in low mental conditions, as well as in cases of extreme debility and emaciation.  In such cases it may be regarded as a real rejuvenator.  It should be taken by the advice of one experienced in its uses in order that its merits may be properly and fairly experienced.  The spurious hemp should never be taken, as it produces, what the genuine does not, unpleasant consequences.  I have used this article in many a preparation with great success.
 
CASSIA MARILANDICA
    COMMON NAMEES.  American Senna, Wild Senna.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a perennial herb, growing from four to six feet high, with round, smooth, and slightly hairy stems.  The leaves have long petioles, ovate at base; each petiole has eight or ten leaflets, which are oblong, smooth, mucronate, an inch or two long, and quite narrow.  The flowers are bright yellow, and the fruit is a legume from two to four inches long.
    History. -- The American Senna is to be found from New England to Carolina, growing in rich soils here and there.  It flowers from June to September, and the leaves are gathered, for their medicinal virtues, while the plant is in bloom.  They yield their virtues to alcohol or water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is one of the most important herbal cathartics furnished by America, and is mentioned here solely on the gound that it is equally valuable as the foreign Senna, or ordinary Senna of the drug-shope, and costs much less.  The analysis of the leaves shows that they contain albumen, mucilage, starch, yellow coloring matter, volatile oil, fatty matter, resin, lignin, and salts of potassa, and lime.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from a half-drachm to two and a half drachms; infusion, four or five ounces.
 
CATECHU (ACACIA CATECHU)
    COMMON NAMES.  Cutch, Gambir, Terra Japonica.
    MEDICINAL PART.  Extract of the wood.
    Description.--Catechu is a small-sized tree from fifteen to twenty feet high.  The bark is thick, and branches spreading.  Leaves bipinnate.  Flowers numerous, white or pale yellow, and the fruit a legume.
    History. -- This tree is common to the East Indian continent, thriving in Bengal, and on the Malabar coast.  As found in the shops it is in square, round, and irregular pieces, variable in color, friable, odorless, astringent taste.  Soluble in hot water, depositing a reddish matter on cooling.
    Properties and Uses. -- This is a strong astringent.  In chronic diarrhoea, chronic catarrh, chronic dysentery, it proves beneficial, and it is a valuable agent as a local application in throat diseases, especially such as singers are subject to.  The tincture is often useful as a local application to fissured nipples of nursing women.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from five to twenty grains; of the tincture, from twenty minims to half an ounce.
 
CEDRON (SIMARA CEDRON)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The seed.
    Description. -- Simaba is a small tree, with an erect stem about half a foot in diameter, branching luxuriantly at the top.  Leaves obovate, large, and serrated; flowers sessile, pale brown, and the fruit a solitary drupe.
    History. -- This tree grows in New Grenada and Central America.  Its value as a medicinal agent has long been known in Costa Rica, Trinidad, etc., and from thence was communicated to scientific gentlemen in France.  The seed, which is the part used, is about an inch and a half long, nearly an inch broad, and about half an inch thick.  It is hard, but can be easily cut by a common knife.  It is inodoous, but tastes like quassia or aloes, and yields its properties to water or alcohol.  In South America the properties of these seeds were known as early as the year 1700.  At that time they were applied more especially as an antidote to the bites of poisonous serpents, and similar affections.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an antispasmodic, and one of the most valuable articles of the kind known to educated herbalists.  It is very useful in all nervous affections, and is administered in one or two grain doses.  As it can only be obtained from those who, like myself, import it especially, it is unnecessary to say that it should not be administered without the advice of competent herbal physicians.  To give an idea of its value as an antispasmodic, I mention that it is a cure for hydrophobia, and an antidote for the majority of acro-narcotic poisons.
 
CELANDINE (CHELIDONIUM MAJUS)
    COMMON NAME.  Tetter Wort.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  Herb and root.
    Description. -- This plant is an evergreen perennial, with a stem from one to two feet in height, branched, swelled at the joints, leafy, round, and smooth; the leaves are smooth, spreading, very deeply pinnatified; leaflets in from two to four pairs, from one and half to two and a half inches long, and about two-thirds as broad, the terminal one largest, all ovate, cuneately incised or lobed; the lateral ones sometimes dilated at the lower margin, near the base almost as if auricled; color of all, a deep shining green; the flowers are bright yellow, umbellate, on long, often hairy stocks.
    History. -- Celandine is a pale green, fleshy herb, indigenous to Europe and naturalized in the United States; it grows along fences, by roads, in waste places, etc., and flowers from May to October.  If the plant be wounded, a bright yellow, offensive juice flows out, which has a persistent, nauseous, bitter taste, with a biting sensation in the mouth and fauces.  The root is the most intensely bitter part of the plant, and is more commonly preferred.  Drying diminishes its activity.  It yields its virtues to alcohol or water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is stimulant, acrid, alterative, diuretic, diaphoretic, purgative, and vulnerary.  It is used internally in decoction or tincture, and externally in poultice or ointment for scrofula, cutaneous diseases, and piles.  It is likewise good in hepatic affections, or liver complaints, and exerts a special influence on the spleen.  As a drastic hydragogue, or purge, it is fully equal to gamboge.  The juice, when applied to the skin, produces inflammations, and even vesications.  It has long been known as a caustic for the removal of warts; it is also applied to indolent ulcers, fungous growths, etc., and is useful in removing specks and opacities of the cornea of the eye.
    Celandine is from the Greek word Chelidon, which signifies a swallow.  The ancients assert that if you put out the eyes of young swallows when they are in the nest, the old ones will restore their eyes again with this herb.  It is said that we may mar the apple of the bird's eye with a needle, and that the old birds will restore their sight again by means of this herb. Never having made any such cruel experiments, I am not prepared to say whether any such miraculous power of healing loss of sight is a virtue of the plant, or whether it is an instinct or gift inherent of the swallow itself.
    Celandine is also used in curing salt-rheum, tetter, or ringworm. It is superior to arnica as a vulnerary; an alcoholic tincture of the root (three ounces to a pint) will be found an unrivaled application to prevent or subdue traumatic inflammations.
    Dose.--Of the powdered root, from half a drachm to one drachm; of the fresh juice, from twenty to forty drops, in some bland liquid; of the tincture, from one to two fluid drachms; of the aqueous extract, from five to ten grains.
 
CENTAURY (SABBATIA ANGULARIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Rose Pink.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This plant has a yellow fibrous, biennial root, with an erect, smooth, quadrangular stem, with the angles winged, having many opposite branches, and growing from one to two feet in height.  The leaves are opposite, fine-veined, smooth, entire, from one to five inches in length, and from half an inch to one and a half inches wide, clasping the stem.  The flowers are numerous, from an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in diameter, of a rich rose or carnation color, standing, as it were at the tops of one umbril or tuft, very like those of St. John's wort, opening themselves in the day-time and closing at night, after which come seed in little short husks, in forms like unto wheat corn.  There are three varieties of the Centaury in England, one kind bearing white flowers, another yellow, and another red.  All have medicinal properties, although the Americna variety is considered preferable to the European Centaury.
    History. -- This plant is common to most parts of the United States, growing in moist meadows, among high grass, on the prairies, and in damp, rich soils, flowering from June to September.  The whole herb is used.  It has a very bitter taste, and yields its virtues to water or alcohol.  The best time for gathering it is during the flowering season.  In England they use the red Centaury in diseases of the blood, the yellow in choleric diseases, and the white in those of phlegm and water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an excellent tonic.  It is used in all fall periodic febrile diseases, both as a preventive and a remedy.  It is also serviceable as a bitter tonic in dyspepsia and convalescence from fevers.  When administered in warm infusion it is a domestic remedy for worms and so restore the menstrual secretion.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from half a drachm to a drachm; of the cold infusion, a teacupful every two or three hours; of the tincture, a wineglassful; of the extract, from two to six grains.
 
CENTURY PLANT (AGAVE AMERICANA)
    COMMON NAME.  South American Agave.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The inspissated juice.
    Description. -- This plant, which is also sometimes called the Century Plant, from an erroneous idea that it blossoms but once in a hundred years, is the largest of all herbaceous plants.  It is an evergreen, and does not blossom often.
    History. -- It flourishes in the warmer latitudes of South America, where its juice is expressed by the natives and allowed to ferment.  In this condition it is called pulque, and is used as an exhilarating beverage.  The natives can drink large quantities of this liquor without getting very much intoxicated; but it is very severe upon those who are not accustomed to it.
    Properties and Uses. -- The fresh juice is used by the South Americans to regulate the action of the bowels and kidneys, and is considered very valuable for dyspepsia and diseases of the bladder.  The South American women use the juice and the decoction to promote menstruation.  I can say of my own knowledge that, in proper combination, it is a superior anti-syphilitic, and that in scobutic affections it is without many superiors.  The dose is from half a fluid ounce to two ounces, three times a day.
    The Agave Virginica, or False Aloe, is not to be confounded with this, as that plant is a laxative and carminative.
 
CHAMOMILE (ANTHEMIS NOBILIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The Flowers.
    Description. -- This is a perennial herb, with a strong fibrous root.  The stems in a wild state are prostrate, but in gardens more upright, about a span long, round, hollow, furrowed, and downy; the leaves pale green, pinnate, sessile, with thread-shaped leaflets.  The flower-heads terminal, rather larger than the daisy, and of yellow color, or whitish.
    History. -- Chamomile is indigenous to Southern Europe; we have also a common or wild Chamomile (Matricaria Chamomilla) growing in the United States, but it is not considered as good as the Roman Chamomile for medicinal purposes, which is the kind I use.  The white flowers are the best; they have an aromatic, agreeably bitter taste, and peculiar odor.  They yield their properties to alcohol and water.
    Properties and Uses. -- Chamomile is a tonic; one or two teacupfuls of the warm infusion will usually vomit.  The cold infusion is highly useful in dyspepsia, and in all cases of weak or irritable stomachs, also in intermittent and typhoid fevers.  The oil is carminative and antispasmodic, and is used in flatulency, colic, cramp in the stomach, hysteria, nervous diseases, and painful menstruation.
    A poultice of Chamomile will often prevent gangrene, and remove it when present.  It is an ingredient in my "Restorative Assimilant," and is a most excellent adjutant and corrigent in that great remedy.
    Dose. -- Half a drachm to two drachms of the flowers.  Of the infusion, half a teacupful to a teacupful; of the oil, five to fifteen drops on sugar.
 
CHERRY LAUREL (PRUNUS LAUROCERASUS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a small evergreen shrub or tree with smooth branches.  Leaves with short petioles, oval-oblong, serrate, acute, and smooth.  Flowers shorter than the leaves, calyx inferior, corolla has five white petals; stamens about twenty; and fruit a round, black, smooth drupe.
    History. -- Originally a native of Asia Minor, from whence it was introduced into Europe in 1576, and subsequently from Europe to the United States.  It is now common in gardens and shrubberies.  The leaves have scarcely any odor until bruised, then they have a bitter almond odor; taste very bitter, aromatic, and slightly astringent.  They impart their virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- An excellent sedative.  Useful in tic-doulureux, phthisis, spasmodic cough, palpitation of the heart, and in all spasmodic affections.
    Dose. -- Powdered leaves, four to eight grains; laurel water, ten to thirty drops.
 
CHICKWEED (STELLARIA MEDIA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This plant is an annual or biennial weed, from six to fifteen inches in length, with a prostrate, brittle, and leafy stem.  The leaves are ovate-cordate; the lower ones on hairy petioles.  The flowers are small and white, petals two-parted, stamens three, five, or ten.
    History. -- It is a common plant in Europe and America, growing in fields and around dwellings, in moist, shady places.  It flowers from the beginning of spring till the last of autumn.  The seeds are eaten by poultry and birds.  The whole herb is used when recent.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a cooling demulcent.  The fresh leaves bruised and applied as a poultice to indolent, intractable ulcers, even when of many years' standing, will produce most immediate and decided beneficial results, to be changed two or three times a day.  The bruised leaves will likewise be found an invaluable application in acute ophthalmia.  An ointment made by bruising the recent leaves in fresh lard, may be used as a cooling application to erysipelatous and other forms of ulceration, as well as many forms of cutaneous diseases.
 
CHOCOLATE ROOT, GEUM RIVALE (Water Avens), GEUM VIRGINIANUM (White Avens)
    COMMON NAMES.  Throat Root, Purple Avens.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- GEUM RIVALE, or Purple Avens, is a perennial, deep green herb; woody root; leaves nearly lyrate, crenate-dentate, and from four to six inches long.  The flowers are few and yellowish purple in color.
    GEUM VIRGINIANUM, or Throat Root, is also a perennial, with a small, crooked root.  The stem is two or three feet high.  The leaves are pinnate or lyrate; flowers rather small and white; and the fruit an achenium.  The former is common to the United States and Europe, flowering in June or July, and the latter only to the United States, flowering from June to August.
    History. -- These plants, with other varieties, have long been used in domestic practice.  The whole herb contains medicinal properties, but the officinal and most efficient part is the root.  Boiling water or alcohol extracts their virtues.
    Properties and Uses. -- Is tonic and astringent.  It is used in passive and chronic hemorrhages, chronic diarrhoea and dysentery, leucorrhoea, dyspepsia, pulmonary affections, congestions of the abdominal viscera, etc.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from twenty to thirty grains; of the decoction, from two tablespoonfuls to a wineglassful, three or four times a day.
 
CINCHONA
    COMMON NAMES.  Peruvian Bark, Jesuits' Bark.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark.
    Description. -- The bark is obtained from the Cinchona Calisaya, Cinchona Condaminea, Cinchona Succirubra, and Cinchona Lancifolia.  These trees are all evergreen trees or shrubs.  Their generic character is to have opposite entire leaves; flowers white, or usually roseate or purplish, and very fragrant; calyx a turbinated tube; corolla salver-shaped; stamens, five; anthers, linear; style, simple; stigma, bifid.  The fruit a capsule, ovate or oblong, filled with numerous winged seeds.  About thirteen varieties of cinchona are known to commerce, but the above are the most important.  Of these species the former three yield respectively the pale, yellow, and red cinchona barks, and the fourth is one of the sources of quinine.
    History. -- Cinchona is a very old discovery, and takes its name from the wife of the Spanish viceroy, Count de Cinchon, who was cured of fever by it, at Lima, about the year 1638.  For some time after its introduction into Europe, the Jesuits, who received the bark from their brethren in Peru, alone used it, and kept to themselves the secret of its origin; and their use of it was so successful that it received the name which still clings to it of "Jesuits' Bark."  The bark richest in the antiperiodic alkaloids is the Cinchona Calisaya.  The geographical range of the cinchonas appear to be exclusively confined to the Andes, within the boundaries of Peru, Bolivia, Equador, and New Granada.  Thirteen species furnish the barks of commerce, and all of them are found growing from one to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea.  The four species we have named at the head of this article are, however, the only ones recognized by the United States Pharmacopoeia, and are the favorites everywhere.  Since the seventeenth century these barks have been the study of men versed in medical and chemical science, and they and the preparations made from them rank among the most important articles of the Materia Medica.  It contains numerous active principles, but the most important, and one chiefly used is quinine.
    Properties and Uses. -- Cinchona bark is tonic, antiperiodic, astringent to a moderate extent, and eminently febrifuge.  It is topically (or externally) antiseptic, and is of much value when applied to gangrenous ulcerations, or used for gargles and washes in erysipelas, ulcerated sore throat, mouth, etc.  I do not recommend the use of the bark in cases where the stomach is very much weakened (although it is employed in every disease in which there is deficient tone), because the woody fibre in the powder will most generally disagree.  When taken internally it imparts a sensation of warmth to the stomach, which gradually spreads over the whole body; the pulse becomes stronger and is accelerated, and the various organs are gently stimulated.  It may be used with benefit in ordinary cases of dyspepsia, general debility, and all febrile, eruptive, and inflammatory diseases, in whatever stage they may be.  In all cases of night-sweating, or great feebleness, it is valuable.  As an antiperiodic it is not surpassed by anything else used.  When it excites nausea, add an aromatic; if purging, opium; if costiveness, rhubarb.
    Quinine is a white flocculent powder, inodorous, and has a very bitter taste.  It is very sparingly soluble in warm water, still less so in cold water.  It is readily soluble in hot alcohol, and tolerably so in ether.  It is always best to administer quinine instead of the bark, unless some of the effects of the other principles are desired.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, half a drachm to a drachm; fluid extract, ten to sixty drops; of quinine, from one to fifteen grains, according to purpose.
 
CINQUE-FOIL (POTENTILLA CANADENSIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Five-Finger.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description.  This perennial plant has a procumbent stem from two to eighteen inches in length.  The leaves are palmate, leaflets obovate, and flowers yellow, on solitary pedicels.
    There are two varieties of this plant, the P. Pamilla, which is very small and delicate, flowering in April and May, and growing in dry, sandy soils, and the P. Simplex, a larger plant, growing in richer soils, and flowering from June to August.
    History. -- Five-finger is common to the United States, growing by road-sides, on meadow banks and waste grounds, and flowering from April to October.  The root is the part used.  It has a bitterish, styptic taste, and yields its virtues to water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic and astringent.  A decoction is useful in fevers, bowel complaints, night-sweats, menorrhagia, and other hemorrhages.  It makes an excellent gargle for spongy, bleeding gums, and ulcerated mouth and throat.
    The POTENTILLA TORMENTILLA, or Sept.-Foil of Europe, possesses similar qualities, and may be usesd by my readers in that country if the American root is not to be obtained.
 
CLEAVERS (GALIUM APARINE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Goose Grass, Catchweed, Bed-Straw.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- It is an annual succulent plant, with a weak, procumbent, quadrangular, retrosely-prickled stem, which grows from two to six feet high, and is hairy at the joints.  The leaves are one or two inches in length, and two or three lines in breadth; rough on the margin and tapering to the base.  The flowers are white, small, and scattered.
    History. -- This plant is common to Europe and the United States, growing in cultivated grounds, moist thickets, and along banks of rivers, and flowering from June to September.  In the green state the plant has an unpleasant odor; but it is inodorous when dried, with an acidulous, astringent, and bitter taste.  Cold or warm water extracts the virtues of the plant; boiling water destroys them.  The roots dye a permanent red.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a most valuable refrigerant and diuretie, and will be found very beneficial in many diseases of the urinary organs, as suppression of urine, calculous affections, inflammation of the kidneys and bladder, and in the scalding of urine in gonorrhoea.  It is contra-indicated in diseases of a passive character, on account of its refrigerant and sedative effects on the system, but may be used freely in fevers and all acute diseases.  An infusion may be made by macerating an ounce and a half of the herb in a pint of warm water for two hours, of which from two to four fluid ounces may be given three or four times a day when cold.  It may be sweetened with sugar or honey.  It has also been found useful in many cutaneous diseases, as psoriasis, eczema, lichen, cancer, and scrofula, and is more particularly useful in these diseases when they are combined with strumous diathesis.  The best form for administration is that of the implanted juice, which may be in one or two drachm doses, three times a day.
    The plant called GALIUM TINCTORIUM, or Small Clevers, is nervine, anti-spasmodic, expectorant, and diaphoretic.  It is used successfully in asthma, cough, and chronic bronchitis, exerting its influence principally upon the respiratory organs.  The plant has a pungent, aromatic, pleasant, persistent taste.  A strong decoction of the herb may be given in doses of from one to four fluid ounces, and repeated two or three times a day, according to circumstances.  The root of this plant will also dye a permanent red.
 
COCA (ERITHROXYLON COCA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- I first became acquainted with this most remarkable plant many years ago, while traveling in Bolivia, South America, in the beautiful valleys of the Cordilleras.  The Coca is a bush which rarely attains six feet in height, and does not often exceed three.  Its foliage is of a bright green, its flowers white, and its fruit small and red.  When the plants are just about eighteen inches high they are transplanted from the seed-beds into fields called cocales.  The ripe leaves are gathered with the fingers.  They are dried by spreading them in the sun, sometimes on woollen cloths.  The operation requires great care, for the plant must be protected from all dampness, which changes its color, and thus diminishes its value.  It is then packed in bags, weighing from fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds, which are often transported to great distances.  In the Vice-royalty of Lima, in the latter part of the last century, CASTELNAU represents the consumption of the leaf at three and a half millions of pounds, and worth one million and a quarter of Spanish dollars, while at the same time the total consumption in Peru was two and a half millions of dollars.  The importance of the Coca trade, however, is diminishing as the Red Man disappears.  The Indians mix the Coca with a small quantity of lime, and constantly carry a small bag of it on all their excursions.  They take it from three to six times a day.  Dr. GECHUDI (Travels in Peru, page 453) mentions an indian of sixty-two years of age, who was employed by him, and though at very hard work for five days, took no other nourishment, and rested but two hours of the night.  Immediately, or soon after this, he accomplished a journey of one hundred miles in two days, and said that he was ready to do the same thing again if they would give him a new supply of Coca.  CASTELNAU says he himself knew of instances as extraordinary.  In the time of the Incas the Coca was regarded as sacred.
    Properties and Uses. -- Its physiological actions are as follows:
    1.  It stimulates the stomach and promotes digestion.
    2.  In large doses it augments animal heat and accelerates the pulse and respiration.
    3.  It induces slight constipation.
    4.  In moderate doses, from one to four drachms, it stimulates the nervous system, so as to render it more tolerant of muscular fatigue.
    5.  In larger doses it gives rise to hallucinations and true delirium.
    6.  Its most precious property is that of inducing the most pleasant visions ("phantamagoria") without any subsequent depression of the nervous energies.
    7.  Probably it diminishes some of the secretions.
    The Coca has doubtless many other medical properties of a high order, and deserves further investigation.
    It stimulates powerfully the digestive functions, while at the same time it exercises a calmative influence over the mucous membranes of the stomach and bowels.  In this double action upon the stomach--stimulant and calmative--it resembles Columbo.
    It is anti-spasmodic, and is of great service in many nervous disorders, and particularly in spermatorrhoea and all debilities of the generative organs.
    I make a pill from the solid extract of Coca, combined with lime and valuable Herbal remedial agents, which I call the Napoleon Herb Pill, owing to its powerful tonic properties.  It is designed to cure all forms of debility afflicting either sex.  Its powers are promptly manifested in cases of sexual debility, whether from self-produced causes, long study, severe mental excitement, or general breaking-down of the nervous system from whatever cause.  It is equally effectual for the female weakness and debility so universal among women at the present day.  These pills are, with explicit directions, put up in sealed bottles.  Sent, prepaid by mail, to any address, on receipt of $3.00 for 100 pills.  We also use Coca in various forms in our prepared courses of medicine for special cases.
 
COLOCYNTH (CUCUMIS COLOCYNTHIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Bitter Cucumber.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The fruit divested of its rind.
    Description. -- Colocynth is an annual plant, with a whitish root, and prostrate, angular, and hispid stems.  The leaves are alternate, cordate, ovate, many-lobed, white with hairs beneath.  Flowers yellow and solitary; petals small; and fruit globose, smooth, size of an orange, yellow when ripe, with a thin solid rind, and a very bitterish flesh.
    History. -- This plant is a native of the south of Europe, Asia, and Africa.  The fruit assumes a yellow or orange color externally during the autumn, at which time it is pulled and dried quickly, either in the stove or sun.  That which is deprived of its rind, very white, light spongy, and without seeds, is the best article; all others are more or less inferior in quality.  It contains, besides oils, resins, and gums, bassorin and the sulphates of lime and magnesia.  Colocynthin is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a powerful hydragogue cathartic, producing copious watery evacuations.  It should never be used alone, but be combined with other cathartics. It may be used advantageously in passive dropsy and cerebral derangements.  In combination with hyoscyamus it loses its irritant properties, and may be so employed whenever its peculiar cathartic effects are desired.  Hippocrates used colocynth as a pessary to promote menstruation.
    Dose. -- Five to ten grains.
 
COLT'S FOOT (TUSSILAGO FARFARA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Cough Wort, Foal's Foot, Horse Hoof, and Bull's Foot.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- Colt's foot has a long, perennial, creeping, fibrous rhizome.  The leaves are erect, cordate, sharply dentate, smooth green above, and pure white and cottony beneath.  They do not appear until the flowers are withered, and are from five to eight inches long, and about an inch broad.  The flowers are large and bright yellow.
    History. -- This plant grows in Europe, the Crimea, Persia, Siberia, and the East Indies, from the seashore to elevations of nearly eight thousand feet.  It also grows in the United States, in wet places, on the sides of brooks, flowering in March and April.  Its presence is a certain indication of a clayey soil.  The leaves are rather fragrant, and continue so after having been carefully dried.  The leaves are the parts used, though all parts of the plant are active, and should always be employed, especially the leaves, flowers, and root.  The leaves should be collected at about the period they have nearly reached their full size, the flowers as soon as they commence opening, and the root immediately after the maturity of the leaves.  When dried, all parts have a bitter mucilaginous taste, and yield their properties to water or diluted alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is emollient, demulcent, and slightly tonic.  The decoction is usually administered in doses of from one to three or four fluid ounces, and is highly serviceable in coughs, asthma, whooping-cough, and other pulmonary complaints; also useful in scrofula.  The powdered leaves form a good errhine for giddiness, headache, nasal obstructions, etc.  It is also used externally in form of poultice in scrofulous tumors.
 
COLUMBO (COCCULUS PALMATUS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Columbo, so important in the present practice of medicine, is a climbing plant, with a perennial sort which is quite thick and branching.  The root is covered with a thin brown skin, marked with transverse warts.  The stems, of which one or two proceed from the same root, are twining, simple in the male plant, branched in the female, round, hairy, and about an inch or an inch and a half in circumference.  The leaves stand on rounded glandular hairy footstalks, and are alternate, distant, cordate, and have three, seven, or nine lobes and nerves.  The flowers are small and inconspicuous.
    History. -- This plant inhabits the forests near the southeastern coast of Africa, in the neighborhood of Mozambique, where the natives call it Kalumb.  The root is dug up in the dry season in the month of March, and is cut in slices, strung on cords, and hung up to dry.  The odor of Columbo is slightly aromatic; the taste bitter, and also mucilaginous.  The root is easily pulverized, but spoils by keeping after having been reduced to a powder.  It is best to powder it only as it is required for use.  The active principle of Columbo is called Columbin.  The root also yields Berberin, an excellent stomachic, which is produced from the Barberry.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is one of the purest bitter tonics in the world, and in dyspepsia, chronic diarrhoea, and dysentery, as well as in convalescence from febrile and inflammatory diseases, it can hardly be surpassed as a remedial agent.  It is most useful in the remittent and intermittent fevers of hot climates.  It is used in many combinations, according to indications.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, ten to thirty grains; of the infusion, one or two ounces; of the tincture, from one to two drachms.
 
COMFREY (SYMPHYTUM OFFICINALE)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Comfrey has an oblong, fleshy, perennial root, black on the outside and whitish within, containing a glutinous or clammy, tasteless juice, with divers very large, hairy, green leaves lying on the ground, so hairy, or so prickly, that if they touch any tender parts of the hands, face, or body, it will cause it to itch.  The stalks are hollowed and cornered, very hairy, having leaves that grow below, but less and less up to the top; at the joints of the stalk it is divided into many branches, at the ends of which stand many flowers, in order one above another, which are somewhat long and hollow like the finger of a glove, of a pale, whitish color; after them come small black seeds.  There is another sort which bears flowers of a pale purple color, having similar medicinal properties.
    History. -- Comfrey is a native of Europe, but naturalized in the United States, growing on low grounds and moist places, and flowering all summer.  The root is officinal and contains a large amount of mucilage, which is readily extracted by water.
    Properties and Uses. -- The plant is demulcent and slightly astringent.  All mucilaginous agents exert an influence on mucous tissues, hence the cure of many pulmonary and other affections in which these tissues have been chiefly implicated, by their internal use.  Physicians must not expect a serous disease to yield to remedies which act on mucous membranes only; to determine the true value of a medicinal agent, they must first ascertain the true character of the affection, as well as of the tissues involved.  Again, mucilaginous agents are always beneficial in scrofulous and anaemic habits.  Comfrey root is very useful in diarrhoea, dysentery, coughs, hemoptysis or bleeding of the lungs, and other pulmonary affections; also in leucorrhoea and female debility; all these being principally affections of mucous membranes.
    It may be boiled in water, wine, or made into a syrup, and taken in doses of from a wineglassful to a teacupful of the preparation, two or three times a day.
    Externally the fresh root, bruised, forms an excellent application to bruises, ruptures, fresh wounds, sore breasts, ulcers, white swellings, etc.
 
CUNDURANGO (EQUATORIA GARCIANA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the vine.
    Description. -- Cundurango, or Condor Vine, a name derived from two words, cundur and angu, whose marvellous medicinal properties have lately been made known to the world, and which is now so greatly interesting the medical profession, is a climbing vine, resembling much in its habits the grape vine of our forests.  The vines are from three to five inches in diameter.  They are quite flexible when fresh, but when dry very brittle.  The bark is externally of a greenish-gray color, and has numerous small, warty excrescenccs.  The leaves are large, sometimes reaching six inches in length by five in breadth, opposite, simple, entire, dentate, cordate, and of a dark green color.  The flowers are small, arranged in complete umbels; stamens five; petals five; sepals five; and filaments small.  The fruit is a pair of pods, and seeds numerous and dark brown.  It should be more properly called Cundurangu, as there is no o in the language of the Incas.
    History. -- This plant is a native of the Andes Mountains in South America, especially the southern portion of Equador, and found most plentifully in the mountains surrounding the city of Loja.  It is generally found on the western exposure of the Andes, at an altitude of 4,000 or 5,000 feet.  Its virtues were known to the Indians of the locality for a long time.  The tradition is that it was regarded by them as poisonous, and that an Indian woman unintentionally cured her husband, who suffered from a very painful cancer, giving him to drink bowlfuls of decoction of Cundurango, believing and hoping it would prove fatal.  It was introduced into medical practice by Dr. Egulguren, brother of the Governor of the province of Loja, both of whom cured many cases of syphilis and cancerous ulcers in the trial of it.  The subject was brought to the notice of our government by our minister at Quito.  The Department of State, at once realizing the value of the discovery and the intense interest with which our people would seek after information concerning it, published a circular, setting forth its great value as a remedy.  This action of the government at once inspired that confidence to which the plant is entitled.  It was tested in a case of cancer afflicting the mother of Vice-President Colfax, and at once asserted its value.  It has since been used by progressive physicians, and the success it has given in cancerous and syphilitic affections renders it worthy of the name of a specific, equally as much so as cinchona.  It is a singular coincidence that these two specific products of the herbal world should grow in the same regions.  The natives insist that there are two varieties of the bark, the amarillo, or yellow, and blanco, or white; but upon inspection I find they are the same, the difference in color depending upon the strong rays of the sun.  When freshly cut the vines give an abundance of milky, viscous juice or sap, the odor of which is balsamic, and flavor decidedly bitter and aromatic.
    Its price is exceedingly high, but this has not deterred me from using it where I deemed it necessary in special cases.  I can furnish it by mail, put up in sealed bags, at $5.00 per half pound, with directions for making it into syrup (which is the best method of preparing it), with dose, etc.  The fluid extract is much higher, $3.00 per ounce.
    Properties and Uses. -- An unequalled remedy for cancer, syphilis, ulcers, etc.  In a short period, when taken, the typical symptoms subside, the pain is diminished, the discharge thickens and becomes less offensive, the tumor becomes softer, the deposits lessen, the expression improves, and a cure is speedily effected.  It has also diuretic and tonic powers, and cures many nervous diseases.  I have given this remedy competent trials in cases of cancer and syphilis, and the results were so satisfactory as to surprise me.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, one to two drachms; fluid extract, one drachm.  (Much that is spurious is sold in the market.)
 
OOPAIBA (COPAIFERA OFFICINALIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Balsam of Copaiba.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The oleo-resinous juice.
    Description. -- Copaiba is a tall and handsome tree, with many small, crooked branches, and a grayish-brown bark.  The leaves are large and equally pinnated, leaflets in pairs of from two to five, petioles short.  The flowers are white; calyx four-parted; stamens, ten; fruit obovate, two-valved, and one-seeded.
    History. -- There are several species which furnish oil of copaiba, all natives of South America and West Indies.  The juice is obtained by deep incisions being made in the trunk during or following the wet season; the balsam (which, however, is not a balsam, as it contains no benzoic acid) flows freely, being clear, transparent, and fluid, but becoming pale yellowish in time.  The oil is unpleasant in smell and taste.
    Properties and Uses. -- In large doses, Copaiba is an irritant, but in proper doses it is stimulant, cathartic, and diuretic.  It exerts a favorable influence on the mucous tissues of the system, diminishing excessive secretions, and for this purpose it is chiefly employed.  Taken internally it gives warmth to the gastric region, and sometimes provokes nausea and emesis.  It is especially useful in chronic mucous affections, as gonorrhoea, bronchitis, diseases of the bladder, gleet, chronic catarrh, diarrhoea, and dysentery, etc., etc.  It was formerly regarded as a specific for gonorrhoea, but has lost some of its prestige.  Locally it is an excellent application to fistulas, chilblains, old ulcers, etc.
    Dose. -- From twenty to sixty drops in emulsion with yolk of egg and mint or cinnamon water.
 
CRANBERRY (High). -- (VIBURNUM OPULUS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark.
    Description. -- It is a nearly smooth and upright shrub, or small tree, usually from five to twelve feet in height, with several stems from the same root branched above; the leaves are three-lobed, three-veined, broadly-wedged shape, and crenately toothed on the side.  The flowers are white, or reddish-white; the fruit ovoid, red, very acid, ripens late, and remains upon the bush after the leaves have fallen.  It resembles the common cranberry, and is sometimes substituted for it.
    History. -- It is indigenous to the northern part of the United States and Canada, being a handsome shrub, growing in low rich lands, woods, and borders of fields, flowering in June, and presenting at this time a very showy appearance.  The flowers are succeeded by red and very acid berries, resembling low cranberries, and which remain through the winter.  The bark is the officinal part, as met within drug-stores.  It is frequently put up by Shakers, when it is somewhat flattened from pressure.  It has no smell, but has a peculiar, not unpleasant, bitterish, and astringent taste.  It yields its properties to water, or diluted alcohol.  Viburnine is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a powerful antispasmodic, and hence generally known among American practitioners as Cramp Bark.  It is very effective in cramps and spasms of all kinds, as asthma, hysteria, cramps of females during pregnancy, preventing the attacks entirely if used daily for the last two or three months of gestation.
    The following forms an excellent preparation for the relief of spasmodic attacks, viz.: take of Cramp bark, two ounces; scull-cap, skunk cabbage, of each one ounce; cloves, half an ounce; capsicum, two drachms.  Have all in powder, coarsely bruised, and add to them two quarts of sherry or native wine.  Dose of this, half a wineglassful two or three times a day.
    It may here be remarked that a poultice of the fruit of the Low Cranberry is very efficacious in indolent and malignant ulcers, malignant scarlet fever, applied to the throat; in erysipelas, and other similar diseases.  Probably the High Cranberry will effect the same result.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, or vinous tincture, one glassful two or three times a day.
 
CRANESBILL (GERANIUM MACULATUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Dove's Foot, Crow Foot, Alum Root, Spotted Geranium, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.   The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial, horizontal, thick, rough, and knotty root, with many small fibres.  The stems are grayish-green, erect, round, and a foot or two high.  The leaves are spreading and hairy, and the blossoms large, and generally purple, mostly in pairs.  The Dove's Foot, or Cranebill, which grows in England, is a different plant, bearing many small bright-red flowers of five leaves apiece, though it possesses medicinal properties similar to the American varieties.
    History. -- Geranium is a native of the United States, growing in nearly all parts of it, in low grounds, open woods, etc., blossoming from April to June.  The root is the officinal part.  Its virtues are yielded to water or alcohol.  Geranin is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a powerful astringent, used in the second stage of dysentery, diarrhoea, and cholera infantum; in infusion, with milk.  Both internally and externally it may be used wherever astringents are indicated, in hemorrhages, indolent ulcers, aphthous sore mouth, ophthalmia, leucorrhoea, gleet, hematuria, menorrhagia, diabetes, and excessive chronic mucous discharges; also to cure mercurial salivation.  Relaxation of the uvula may be benefited by gargling with a decoction of the root, as well as aphthous ulceration of the mouth and throat.  From its freedom from any nauseous or unpleasant qualities, it is well adapted to infants and persons with fastidious stomachs.  In cases of bleeding piles, a strong decoction of the root should be injected into the rectum, and retained as long as possible.  Troublesome epistaxis, or bleeding from the nose, wounds, or small vessels, and from the extraction of teeth, may be checked effectually by applying the powder to the bleeding orifice, and, if possible, covering with a compress of cotton.  With Aletri's Farinosa (Unicorn root) in decoction, and taken internally, it has proved of superior efficacy in diabetes and in Bright's disease of the kidneys.  A mixture or solution of two parts of hydrastin and one of geranin will be found of unrivalled efficacy in all chronic mucous diseases, as in gleet, leucorrhoea, ophthalmia, gastric affections, catarrh, and ulceration of the bladder, etc.  A decoction of two parts of geranium and one of sanguinaria (bloodroot) forms an excellent injection for gleet and leucorrhoea.
    Dose of geranium powder, from twent to thirty grains; of the decoction, a tablespoonful to a wineglassful.
 
CRAWLEY (CORALLORHIZA ODONTORHIZA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Dragon's Claw, Coral root, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a singular, leafless plant, with coral-like root-stocks.  The root is a collection of small fleshy tubers; the flowers, from ten to twenty in numer, are of a brownish-green color, and the fruit a large oblong capsule.
    History. -- The plant is a native of the United States, growing about the roots of trees, in rich woods, from Maine to Florida, flowering from July to October.  The entire plant is destitute of verdure.  The root only is used for medical purposes.  It is small, dark brown, resembling cloves, or a hen's claws; has a strong, nitrous smell, and a mucilaginous, slightly bitter, astringent taste.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is probably the most powerful, prompt, and certain diaphoretic in the materia medica; but its scarcity and high price prevents it from coming in general use.  It is also sedative, and promotes perspiration without producing any excitement in the system.  Its chief value is as a diaphoretic in fevers, especially in typhus, and inflammatory diseases.  It has proved effectual in acute erysipelas, cramps, flatulency, pleurisy, and night-sweats; it relieves hectic fever without debilitating the patient.  Its virtues are especially marked in the low stages of fevers.
    Combined with caulophyllin it forms an excellent agent in amenorrhoea and dysmenorrhoea, or scanty or painful menstruation, and is unsurpassed in after-pains, suppression of lochia, and the febrile symptoms which sometimes occur at the parturient period.
    In fevers Crawley may be advantageously combined with leptandrin or podophyllin, when it is found necessary to act upon the bowels or liver; and mixed with dioscorein it will be found almost a specific in flatulent and billious colic.
    Dose. -- From twenty to thirty grains of the powdered root, given in water as warm as the patient can drink, and repeated every hour or two, according to circumstances.  The powder should always be kept in well-closed vials.  It constitutes the fever powders of some practitioners.
 
CROWFOOT (RANUNCULUS BULBOSUS)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The cormus and herb.
    Description. -- This plant is not to be confounded with the Geranium maculatum, which is also called Crowfoot.  The cormus or root of this herb is a perennial, solid, fleshy, roundish, and depressed, sending out radicles from its under sides.  The root sends up annually erect hairy stems, six to eighteen inches in height.  The leaves are on long petioles, dentate and hairy.  Each stem supports several solitary golden-yellow flowers; sepals, oblong and hairy; petals, five, cordate; stamens numerous and hairy.
    History. -- This plant is common in Europe and the United States, growing in fields and pastures, and flowering in May, June, and July.  There a great many varieties, but all possess similar qualities, and designated by the general name of Butter-cup.  When any part of these plants is chewed, it occasions much pain, inflammation, excoriation of the mouth, and much heat and pains in the stomach, if it be taken internally.
    Properties and Uses. -- This plant is too acrid to be used internally, especially when fresh.  When applied externally it is powerfully rubefacient and episgastic.  It is employed in its recent state in rheumatic neuralgia and other diseases where vesication and counter-irritation are indicated.  Its action, however, is generally so violent that it is seldom used.  The beggars use it to produce and keep open sores to excite sympathy.  It has been used with success in obstinate cases of nursing sore-mouth -- an infusion being made by adding two drachms of the recent root, cut into small pieces, to one pine of hot water, when cold a tablespoonful being given two or three times a day, and the mouth frequently washed with a much stronger infusion.

CUBEBS (PIPER CUBEBA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The berries.
    Description. -- This is a perennial plant, with a climbing stem, round branches, about as thick as a goose-quill, ash-colored, and rooting at the joints.  The leaves are from four to six and a half inches long by one and a half to two inches broad, ovate-oblong, acuminate, and very smooth.  Flowers arranged in spikes at the end of the branches; fruit, a berry rather longer than that of black pepper.
    History. -- Cubeba is a native of Java and other islands of the Indian Ocean, growing in the forests without cultivation.  The fruit is gathered before fully ripe, and then dried.  It affords a volatile oil, which is much used.  Cubeba has a pleasant, aromatic odor, and a hot, bitter taste.  Cubebin is the active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is mildly stimulant, expectorant, stomachic, and carminative.  It acts particularly on mucous tissues, and arrests excessive discharges, especially from the urethra.  It exercises an influence over the urinary apparatus, rendering the urine of deeper color.  It is successfully employed in gonorrhoea, gleet, leucorrhoea, chronic bladder diseases, bronchial affections, and atony of the stomach and bowels.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, half a drachm to a drachm; tincture, two fluid drachms; oil, ten to thirty drops.
 
DAISY (LEUCANTHEMUM VULGARE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Ox-eye Daisy, White Weed.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and flowers.
    Description. -- This is a perennial herb, having an erect, branching, and furrowed stem, from one to two feet high.  The leaves are few, alternate, lanceolate-serrate, the lower ones petiolate; the upper ones small, subulate, and sessile.
    History. -- The plant was introduced into the United States from Europe, and is a very troublesome weed to farmers in nearly every section.  It bears white flowers in June and July.  The leaves are odorous and somewhat acid; the flowers are bitterish; they impart their virtues to water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, diuretic, and anti-spasmodic, and, in large doses, emetic.  It is used as a tonic instead of Chamomile flowers, and is serviceable in whooping-cough, asthma, and nervous excitability.  Very beneficial externally and internally in leucorrhoea.  Its internal use is highly recommended in colliquative perspiration.  Externally it is a good application to wounds, ulcers, scald-head, and some other cutaneous diseases.  Dose of the decoction, from a wineglassful to a teacupful, two or three times a day.  The fresh leaves or flowers will destroy or drive away fleas.
 
DANDELION (LEONTODON TARAXACUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Dandelion is a perennial, top-shaped herb, having a very milky root.  The leaves are all radical, shining green in color, sessile, and pinnate.  The scape or flower stem is longer than the leaves, five or six inches in height, and bearing a single yellow flower.  The fruit is an achenium.
    History. -- This plant is a native of Greece, but is now found growing abundantly in Europe and the United States, in fields, gardens, and along road-sides, flowering from April to November.  The root only is the officinal part, and should be collected when the plant is in flower.  Alcohol or boiling water extracts its properties.  The young plant is frequently used as a salad or green, and possesses some slight narcotic properties.
    Properties and Uses. -- The dried root possesses but little medicinal virtue; but when fresh, is a stomachic and tonic, with slightly diuretic and aperient actions.  It has long been supposed to exert an influence upon the biliary organs, removing torpor and engorgement of the liver as well as of the spleen; it is also reputed beneficial in dropsies owing to want of action of the abdominal organs, in uterine obstructions, chronic diseases of the skin, etc.  Its virtues, however, are much over-rated.

DEVIL'S BIT (HELONIAS DIOCIA)
    COMMON NAMES.  False Unicorn Root, Drooping Star Wort, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is an herbaceous perennial plant, with a large bulbous root, from which arises a very smooth angular stem one or two feet in height.  The cauline leaves are lanceolate, acute, and small; the radical leaves (or those springing from the root) are broader and from four to eight inches in length.  The flowers are small, very numerous, greenish-white, disposed in long, terminal, nodding racemes, resembling plumes.  The fruit is a capsule.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to the United States, and is abundant in some of the Western States, growing in woodlands, meadows, and moist situations, and flowering in June and July.
    Properties and Uses. -- In large doses it is emetic, and when fresh, sialagogue.  In doses of ten or fifteen grains of the powdered root, repeated three or four times a day, it has been found very beneficial in dyspepsia, loss of appetite, and for the removal of worms.  It is beneficial in colic, and in atony of the generative organs.  It is invaluable in uterine diseases, acting as a uterine tonic, and gradually removing abnormal conditions, while at the same time it imparts tone and vigor to the reproductive organs.  Hence, it is much used in leucorrhoea, amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, and to remove the tendency to repeated and successive miscarriage.  The plant will kill cattle feeding on it, and the decoction, insects, bugs, and lice.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from twenty to forty grains; of the decoction, from a wineglassful to a teacupful.
 The Helonias Bullata, with purple flowers, and probably some other species possess similar medicinal virtues.
 
DOCK (RUMEX CRISPUS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- There are four varieties of Dock which may be used in medicine: the Rumex Aquaticus (Great Water Dock); and the R. Crispus, or Yellow Dock.  They all possess similar medicinal qualities, but the Yellow Dock is the only one entitled to extensive consideration.  It has a deep, spindle-shaped yellow root, with a stem two or three feet high.  The leaves are lanceolate, acute, and of a light green color.  The flowers are numerous, pale green, drooping, and interspersed with leaves below.  The fruit is a nut contracted at each end.
    History. -- The Docks are natives of Europe, excepting the blunt-leaved, which is indigenous, but they have all been introduced into the United States.  Yellow Dock grows in cultivated grounds, waste grounds, about rubbish, etc., flowering in June and July.  The root has scarcely any odor, but an astringent bitter taste, and yields its virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- Yellow Dock is an alterative, tonic and detergent, and eminently useful in scorbutic, cutaneous, scrofulous, cancerous and syphilitic affections, leprosy, elephantiasis, etc.  For all impurities of the blood it has no equal, especially if properly compounded with appropriate adjutants and corrigents.  The fresh root bruised in cream, lard, or butter, forms a good ointment for various affections.  The admirable alterative is one of the ingredients of my Blood Purifier (see page 469), in which it is associated with other eminent alteratives, making the compound worthy of the reputation it has achieved.

DOGWOOD (CORNUS FLORIDA)
    COMMON NAMES. Boxwood, flowering cornel, Green ozier.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark.
    Description. -- Dogwood is a small indigenous tree from twelve to thirty feet high, with a very hard and compact wood, and covered with a rough and brownish bark.  The tree is of slow growth.  The leaves are opposite, smooth, ovate, acute, dark green above, paler beneath.  The flowers are very small, of a greenish yellow color, and constitute the chief beauty of the tree when in bloom.  The fruit is an oval drupe of a glossy scarlet color, containing a nut with two cells and two seeds.
    History. -- This tree grows in various parts of the United States; it flowers in April and May.  The fruit matures in autumn.  The wood is used for many purposes.  The bark yields its virtues to water and alcohol.  The chemical qualities are tannic and gallic acids, resin, gum, oil, wax, lignin, lime, potassa, and iron.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, astringent, and slightly stimulant.  It is an excellent substitute for Peruvian bark, and may be used when the foreign remedy is not to be obtained, or when it fails or where it cannot be administered.  The bark should only be used in its dried state.  Cornine, its active principle, is much used as a substitute for quinine.
    Dogwood, or green ozier, exerts its best virtues in the shape of an ointment.  It is detergent in all inflammatory conditions, destructive to morbid growths, and at variance with diseased nutrition.  It stimulates granulations, increases the reparative process, induces circulation of healthy blood to the parts, removes effete matter, vitalizes the tissues, and speedily removes pain from the diseased parts.  It fulfils these conditions in my great healing remedy, the "Herbal Ointment," see page 469.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, twenty to sixty grains; extract, five to ten grains; cornine, from one to ten grains.

DRAGON ROOT (ARUM TRIPHYLLUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wake Robin, Indian Turnip, Jack in the Pulpit, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The cormus or root.
    Description. -- This plant has a round, flattened, perennial rhizome; the upper part is tunicated like an onion.  The leaves are generally one or two, standing on long, sheathing footstalks; leaflets oval, mostly entire, acuminate, smooth, and paler on the under side.
    History. -- It inhabits North and South America, is found in wet locations, and flowers from May to June.  The whole plant is acrid, but the root is the only part employed.  It is of various sizes, turnip-shaped, dark and corrugated externally, and milk-white within, seldom exceeding two and a half inches in diameter.  When first dug it is too fiercely acrid for internal employment, as it will leave an impression upon the tongue, lips, and fauces, like that of a severe scald, followed by inflammation and tenderness, which, however, may be somewhat mollified by milk.  It exerts no such influence upon the external skin, except upon long and continued application.  The root loses its acrimony by age, and should always be used when partially dried.  In addition to its acrid principle, it contains a large proportion of starch, with a portion of gum, albumen, and saccharine matter.  When the acrid matter is driven off by heat, the root yields a pure, delicate, amylaceous matter, resembling arrow-root, very white and nutritive.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is acrid, expectorant, and diaphoretic, used in asthma, whooping-cough, chronic bronchitis, chronic rheumatism, pains in the chest, colic, low stages of typhus, and general debility; externally in scrofulous tumors, scald-head, and various skin diseases.
    Dose. -- Of the grated root in syrup or mucilage, ten grains, three or four times a day.
 
ELDER (SAMBUCUS CANADENSIS)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The flowers and berries.
    Description. -- This is a common, well-known native American plant, from five to twelve feet high, with a shrubby stem, filled with a light and porous pith, especially when young.  The bark is rather scabrous and cinereous.  The leaves are nearly bipinnate, antiposed.  The flowers are numerous, white, in very large level-topped, five-parted cymes, and have a heavy odor.  The European Elder, though larger than the American kind, is similar in its general characteristics and properties.
    History. -- It is an indigenous shrub, growing in all parts of the United States, in low, damp grounds, thickets, and waste places, flowering in June and July, and maturing its berries in September and October.  The officinal parts are the flowers, the berries, and the inner bark.
    Properties and Uses. -- In warm infusion the flowers are diaphoretic and gently stimulant.  In cold infusion they are diuretic, alterative, and cooling, and may be used in all diseases requiring such action, as in hepatic derangements of children, erysipelas, erysipelatous diseases etc.  In infusion with Maiden-hair and Beech-drops, they will be found very valuable in all erysipelatous diseases.  The expressed juice of the berries, evaporated to the consistence of a syrup, is a valuable aperient and alterative; one ounce of it will purge.  An infusion of the young leaf-buds is likewise purgative, and sometimes acts with violence.  The flowers and expressed juice of the berries have been beneficially employed in scrofula, cutaneous diseases, syphilis, rheumatism, etc.  The inner green bark is cathartic; an infusion of it in wine, or the expressed juice, will purge moderately in doses from half a fluid ounce to a fluid ounce.  Large doses produce emesis or vomiting.  In small doses it producs an efficacious deobstruent, promoting all the fluid secretions, and is much used in dropsy, especially that following scarlatina and other febrile and exanthematous complaints, as well as in many chronic diseases.  Beaten up with lard or cream, it forms an excellent discutient ointment, of much value in burns, scalds, and some cutaneous diseases.  The juice of the root in half-ounce doses, taken daily, acts as a hydragogue cathartic, and stimulating diuretic, and will be found valuable in all dropsical affections.  The inner bark of Elder is hydragogue and emetico-cathartic.  Has been successfully used in epilepsy, by taking it from branches one or two years old, scraping off the gray outer bark, and steeping two ounces of it in five ounces of cold or hot water for forty-eight hours.  Strain and give a wineglassful every fifteen minutes when the fit is threatening: the patient fasting.  Resume it every six or eight days.

ELECAMPANE (INULA HELENIUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a thick, top-shaped, aromatic, and perennial root, with a thick, leafy, round, solid stem, from four to six feet high.  The leaves are large, ovate, dark green above, downy and hoary beneath, with a fleshy mid-rib.  The flowers are of a bright yellow color, and the fruit an achenium.
    History. -- Elecampane is common in Europe, and cultivated in the United States.  It grows in pastures and along road-sides, blossoming from July to September.  The root is the part used, and should be gathered in the second year of its development, and during the fall months.  It yields its properties to water and alcohol, more especially to the former.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is aromatic, stimulant, tonic, emmenagogue, diuretic, and diaphoretic.  It is much used in chronic pulmonary affections, weakness of the digestive organs, hepatic torpor, dyspepsia, etc.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from one scruple to one drachm; of the infusion, one to two fluid ounces.

ERGOT (SECALE CORNITUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Spurred or Smut Rye.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The degenerated seeds.
    Description. -- Ergot is the name given to the fungoid, degenerated seeds of the common rye, which is the result of a parasitic plant called Oidium Abortifaciens.
    History. -- Ergot consists of grains, varying in length, of a violet-black color; odor fishy, peculiar, and nauseous.  Their taste is not very marked, but is disagreeable and slightly acrid.  They should be gathered previous to harvest.
    Properties and Uses. -- Ergot has a remarkable effect upon the human system, and when persisted in for a length of time as an article of food manifests certain symptoms termed ergotism.  Its chief use as a medicine is to promote uterine contractions in slow, natural labors.  It is also useful in checking menorrhagia, uterine hemorrhages, and to expel polypi.  It is also employed in gonorrhoea, amenorrhoea, paraplegia, paralysis of the bladder, fever and ague.
    This is a valuable remedy to the obstetrician and midwife, but its use should not be persisted in too long, as it often produces dangerous symptoms.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, five, ten, or fifteen grains; fluid extract, thirty drops.

EYE-BRIGHT (EUPHRASIA OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is an elegant little annual plant, with a square, downy, leafy stem, from one to five inches in height.  The leaves are entirely opposite, ovate or cordate, and downy; the flowers very abundant, inodorous, with a brilliant variety of colors.  The fruit is an oblong pod, filled with numerous seeds.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to Europe and America, bearing red or white flowers in July.  The leaves are commonly employed; they are inodorous, but of a bitter, astringent taste.  Water extracts their virtues.
    Properties and Virtues. -- Slightly tonic and astringent.  Useful in form of infusion or poultice, in catarrhal ophthalmia; also of service in all mucous diseases attended with increased discharges; also, in cough, hoarseness, ear-ache, and head-ache, which have supervened upon catarrhal affections.  Four fluid ounces of the infusion taken every morning upon an empty stomach, and also every night at bed-time, has been found successful in helping epilepsy.
 
FERNS (FILICES)
    ROYAL FLOWERING FERN.  Osmunda Regalis.
    COMMON NAME.  Buckhorn Brake.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This Fern has a hard, scaly, tuberous root, quite fibrous, and a whitish core in the centre.  The fronds are three or four feet high, bright green, and doubly pinnate.  The numerous leaflets are sessile and oblong, some of the upper ones cut.
    History. -- This beautiful Fern is found in meadows, and low, moist grounds, throughout the United States, blossoming in June.  The main root or caudex is the officinal part; it is about two inches long, and has the shape of a buck's horn.  It contains an abundance of mucilage, which is extracted by boiling water.  The roots should be collected in August, or about the latter part of May, and dried with great care, as they are apt to become mouldy.
    The Osmunda Cinnamomea, or cinnamon-colored Fern, is inferior to the preceding, but is frequently used for the same medical purposes.
    Properties and Uses. -- Mucilaginous, tonic, and styptic.  Used in coughs, diarrhoea, and dysentery; also used as a tonic during convalescence from exhausting diseases.  One root, infused in a pint of hot water for half an hour, will convert the whole into a thick jelly, very valuable in leucorrhoea and other female weaknesses.  The mucilage mixed with brandy is a popular remedy as an external application for subluxations and debility of the muscles of the back.  For internal use the roots may be infused in hot water, sweetened, and ginger, cinnamon, brandy, etc., added, if not contra-indicated.

FEMALE FERN (POLYPODIUM VULGARE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Rock Polypod, Brake Root, Common Polypody.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and tops.
    Description. -- This perennial has a creeping, irregular, brown root.  The fronds are from six to twelve inchs high, green, smooth, and deeply pinnatified.  The fruit on the lower surface of the fronds is in large golden dots or capsules.
    History. -- This fern is common on shady rocks in woods and mountains throughout the United States.  The root has a peculiar and rather unpleasant odor, and somewhat sickening taste.  Water extracts its properties.
    Properties and Uses. -- This plant is pectoral, demulcent, purgative, and anthelmintic.  A decoction of syrup has been found very valuable in pulmonary and hepatic diseases.  A strong decoction is a good purgative, and will expel tenia and other worms.  Dose of the powdered plant, from one to four drachms.  Of the decoction or syrup, from one to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.

MALE FERN (ASPIDIUM FILIX MAS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The rhizome.
    Description. -- Male Fern has a large, perennial, tufted, scaly rhizome, sending forth yearly several leaves, three or four feet high, erect, oval, lanceolate, acute, pinnate, bright green, and leafy nearly to the bottom; their stalks and midribs having tough, brown, and transparent scales throughout.  Leaflets numerous, crowded, oblong, obtuse, and crenate throughout.
    History. -- Male Fern grows in all parts of the United States and Europe.  The root has a dark brown epiderm, is almost inodorous, and a nauseous sweet taste.  It contains a green fat oil, gum, resin, lignin, tannic acid, pectin, albumen, etc.  It should be gathered from June to September.  After gathering, it should be carefully prepared, as on the preparation its virtues depend.  It loses its virtues in two years if not properly preserved.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is used for the expulsion of worms, especially tape-worms.  It was used as such by Pliny, Dioscorides, Theophrastus, and Galen.  It was the celebrated secret remedy of Madame Nouffer, the widow of a Swiss surgeon, who sold her secret to Louis XVI, for 18,000 francs.  It is, in fact, a royal anthelmintic, and worthy of all the high commendations it has received from ages past up to the present time.  It is one of the ingredients of my "Male Fern Vermifuge," See page 469.
 
FEVERFEW (PYRETHRUM PARTHENIUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- Feverfew is a perennial herbaceous plant, with a tapering root, and an erect, round, and leafy stem about two feet high.  The leaves are alternate, petiolate, hoary green, with leaflets inclining to ovate and dentate.  The flowers are white and compound, and the fruit a wingless, angular, and uniform achenium.
    History. -- The plant is a native of Europe, but common in the United States; found occasionally in a wild state, but generally cultivated in gardens, and blossoms in June and July.  It imparts its virtues to water, but much better to alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, carminative, emmenagogue, vermifuge, and stimulant.  The warm infusion is an excellent remedy in recent colds, flatulency, worms, irregular menstruation, hysteria suppression of urine, and in some febrile diseases.  In hysteria or flatulency, one teaspoonful of the compound spirits of lavender forms a valuable addition to the dose of the infusion, which is from two to four fluid ounces.  The cold infusion or extract makes a valuable tonic.  The leaves, in poultice, are an excellent local application in severe pain or swelling of the bowels, etc.  Bees are said to dislike this plant very much, and a handful of the flower-heads carried where they are will cause them to keep at a distance.
 
FIGWORT (SCROPHULARIA NODOSA)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and root.
    Description. -- Figwort has a perennial, whitish, and fibrous root, with a leafy, erect, smooth stem from two to four feet high.  The leaves are opposite, ovate; the upper lanceolate, acute, of deep green color, and from three to seven inches in length.  The flowers are small, and dark purple in color.  The fruit is an ovate-oblong capsule.
    History. -- This plant is a native of Europe, but is found growing in different parts of the United States, in woods, hedges, damp copses, and banks, blossoming from July to October.  The plants known by the names of Carpenter's Square, Heal All, Square Stalk, etc. (S. Marilandica and S. Lanceolata), are all mere varieties of Figwort, possessing similar medicinal properties.  The leaves and root are the officinal parts, and yield their virtues to water or alcohol.  The leaves have an offensive odor, and a bitter, unpleasant taste; the root is slightly acrid.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is alterative, diuretic, and anodyne; highly beneficial in hepatic or liver diseases, dropsy, and as a general deobstruent to the glandular system when used in infusion or syrup.  Externally, in the form of fomentation or ointment, it is valuable in bruises, inflammation of the mammae, ringworm, piles, painful swellings, itch, and cutaneous eruptions of a vesicular character.  The root, in decoction and drunk freely, will restore the lochial discharge when suppressed, and relieve the pains attending difficult menstruation.  This plant possesses many valuable and active medicinal properties.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion or syrup, from a wineglassful to a teacupful.

FIREWEED (ERECTHITES HIERACTIFOLICS)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and herb.
    Description. -- This plant has an annual, herbaceous, thick, fleshy, branching, and roughish stem, from one to five feet high.  The leaves are simple, alternate, large, lanceolate or oblong, acute, deeply dentate, sessile, and light green.  The flowers are whitish, and the fruit an achenium, oblong and hairy.
    History. -- This indigenous rank weed grows in fields throughout the United States, in moist woods, in recent clearings and is especially abundant in such as have been burned over.  It flowers from July to October, and somewhat resembles the Sowthistle.  The whole plant yields its virtues to water or alcohol.  It has a peculiar, aromatic, and somewhat fetid odor, and a slightly pungent, bitter, and disagreeable taste.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is emetic, cathartic, tonic, astringent, and alterative.  The latter three qualities are the most valuable.  It is an unrivalled medicine in diseases of the mucous tissues.  The spirituous extract which I use in my practice is most excellent in cholera and dysentery, promptly arresting the discharges, relieving the pain, and effecting a speedy cure.  It is invariably successful in summar complaints of children, even in cases where other means have failed.

FROST-WEED (HELIANTHEMUM CANADENSE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Rock Rose, Frost Plant, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- Rock Rose is a perennial herb, with a simple, ascending downy stem, about a foot high.  The leaves are alternate, from eight to twelve inches long, about one-fourth as wide; oblong, acute, lanceolate, erect, and entire.  The flowers are large and bright yellow, some with petals, and some without petals.  The flowers open in sunshine and cast their petals next day.
    History. -- It is indigenous to all parts of the United States, growing in dry, sandy soils, and blossoming from May to July.  The leaves and stems are covered with a white down, hence its name.  The whole plant is officinal, having a bitterish, astringent, slightly aromatic taste, and yields its properties to hot water.  Prof. Eaton, in his work on botany, records this curious fact of the plant: "In November and December of 1816 I saw hundreds of these plants sending out broad, thin, curved ice crystals, about an inch in breadth from near the roots.  These were melted away by day, and renewed every morning for more than twenty-five days in succession."
    Properties and Uses. -- This plant has long been used as a valuable remedy for scrofula, in which disease it performs some astonishing cures.  It is used in form of decoction, syrup, or fluid extract, but had better be used in combination with other remedies.  In combination with Corydalis Formosa and Stillingia it forms a most valuable remedy.  It is tonic and astringent, as well as antiscrofulous.  It can be used with advantage in diarrhoea, as a gargle in scarlatina and aphthous ulcerations, and as a wash in scrofulous ophthalmia.  Externally, a poultice of the leaves is applied to scrofulous tumors and ulcers.  An oil has been procured from the plant which is said to be highly valuable in cancerous affections.
    The Helianthemum Corymbosum, or Frost-weed, growing in the pine barrens and sterile lands of the Southern and Middle States, possesses similar qualities, and may be employed if the former frost-weed is not to be had.  This excellent alterative is a constituent of that happy combination of alteratives composing my "Blood Purifier," see page 469.

FUMITORY (FUMARIA OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- Fumitory is an annual, glaucous plant, with a sub-erect, much branched, spreading, leafy and angular stem, growing from ten to fifteen inches high.  The leaves are mostly alternate.  Culpepper, who knew the plant which is now used, better than anybody else, said that "at the top of the branches stand many small flowers, as it were in a long spike one above another, made like little birds, of a reddish purple color, with whitish bellies, after which come small round husks, containing small black seeds.  The root is small, yellow, and not very long, and full of juice when it is young."  The fruit, or nut, is ovoid or globose, one-seeded or valveless.  The seeds are crestless.
    History. -- Fumitory is found growing in cultivated soils in Europe and America, and flowers in May, June, and July.  The leaves are the parts used.  Culpepper recommended the whole plant, but the modern decision is to use the leaves, gathered at the proper times, alone.  They have no odor, but taste bitter under all circumstances.  They are to be used when fresh, and possess the same qualities as Culpepper affixes to the fresh root, viz.: malate of lime and bitter extractive principles.
    Properties and Uses. -- Its virtues are chiefly tonic, and those who suffer from diseases of the stomach know too well that a tonic, if properly defined, is, simple as it may be, one of the most important remedies for human ailments nature has provided.  Its chief value is found in its action upon the liver.  It is used, in combination, with excellent effect in cutaneous diseases, liver complaints, such as jaundice, costiveness, scurvy, and in debility of the stomach.  An infusion of the leaves is usually given in a wineglass (full) every four hours.  The flowers and tops have been applied, macerated in wine, to dyspepsia, with partial good effect.
 
GAMBIR PLANT (UNCARIA GAMBIR)
    MEDICINAL PART.  Extract of the leaves and young shoots.
    Description. -- Gambir is a stout climbing shrub with round branches.  Leaves ovate, lanceolate, acute, smooth, and have short petioles.  Flowers in loose heads, green and pink; calyx short, corolla funnel-shaped; stamens five, and the fruit a two-celled capsule.
    History. -- It is an inhabitant of the East Indian Archipelago, where it is extensively cultivated.  On the island of Bingtang alone there are 60,000 Gambir plantations.  It affords what is known as pale catechu.  It is chiefly imported from Singapore.  It is found in cubes which float on water, externally brown, internally pale brick red, breaking easily.  Taste bitter, very astringent, and mucilaginous.  Boiling water almost completely dissolves it.  It is used in the arts for tanning.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is employed as an astringent.  In various affections of the mouth it is an efficacious astringent.  It is also excellent as a stomachic in dyspeptic complaints, especially when accompanied with pyrosis.  It should be used just before taking food.  It is an excellent astringent in chronic diarrhoea and dysentery.
    Dose. -- From ten to forty grains.

GELSEMIN (GELSEMINUM SEMPERVIRENS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Yellow Jessamine, Woodbine, Wild Jessamine.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a twining, smooth, glabrous stem, with opposite, perennial, lanceolate, entire leaves, which are dark green above and pale beneath.  The flowers are yellow, and have an agreeable odor.  Calyx is very small, with five sepals, corolla funnel-shaped, stamens five, pistils two, and the fruit a two-celled capsule.
    History. -- Yellow jessamine abounds throughout the Southern States, growing luxuriantly, and climbing from tree to tree, forming an agreeable shade.  It is cultivated as an ornamental vine, and flowers from March to May.  The root yields its virtues to water and alcohol.  Gelsemin is its active principle.  It also contains a fixed oil, acrid resin, yellow coloring matter, a heavy volatile oil, a crystalline substance, and salts of potassa, lime, magnesia, iron, and silica.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an unrivalled febrifuge, possessing relaxing and antispasmodic properties.  It is efficacious in nervous and bilious headache, colds, pneumonia, hemorrhages, leucorrhoea, ague-cake, but especially in all kinds of fevers quieting all nervous irritability and excitement, equalizing the circulation, promoting perspiration, and rectifying the various secretions, without causing nausea, vomiting, and purging, and is adapted to any stage of the disease.  It may follow any preceding treatment with safety.  Its effects are clouded vision, double-sightedness, or even complete prostration, and inability to open the eyes.  These, however, pass completely off in a few hours, leaving the patient refreshed, and completely restored.  When the effects are induced no more of the remedy is required.  It is also of great service in various cardiac diseases, spermatorrhoea, and other genital diseases; but its use should be confined entirely to the advice of the physician.
    Dose. -- The tincture is the form in which it is employed.  The dose is from ten to fifty drops in a wineglass half full of water; to be repeated every two hours, as long as required.
 
GENTIAN (GENTIANA LUTEA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a long, thick, cylindrical, wrinkled, ringed, forked, perennial root, brown externally, and yellow within, with a stem three or four feet high, hollow, stout, and erect; leaves ovate-oblong, five-veined, pale, bright green; the blossoms are large, of a bright yellow, in many-flowered whorls; and the fruit is a capsule, stalked oblong, and two-valved.
    History. -- This plant is common in Central and Southern Europe, especially on the Pyrenees and Alps, being found from 3,000 to 5,000 feet above the level of the sea.  The root affords the medicinal portion, and is brought to America chiefly from Havre and Marseilles.  It has a feeble aromatic odor, and a taste at first faintly sweetish, and then purely, intensely, and permanently bitter.  It imparts its virtues readily to cold or hot water, alcohol, wine, spirits, or sulphuric ether.
    Properties and Uses. -- Is a powerful tonic, improves the appetite, strengthens digestion, gives force to the circulation, and slightly elevates the heat of the body.  Very useful in debility, exhaustion, dyspepsia, gout, amenorrhoea, hysteria, scrofula, intermittents, worms, and diarrhoea.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, ten to thirty grains; of the extract, one to ten grains; of the infusion, a tablespoonful to a wineglassful; of the tincture, one or two teaspoonfuls.
    GENTIANA CATESBEI, or the Blue, or American Gentian, has a perennial, branching, somewhat fleshy root, with a simple, erect, rough stem, eight or ten inches in height, and bears large blue flowers.  It grows in the grassy swamps and meadows of North and South Carolina, blossoming from September to December.  The root is little inferior to the foreign gentian, and may be used as a substitute for it in all cases, in the same doses and preparations.
    GENTIANA QUINQUEFLORA, or Five-flowered Gentian, sometimes called Gall-weed, on account of its intense bitterness, is very useful in headache, liver complaint, jaundice, etc.  The plant is found from Vermont to Pennsylvania, and a variety of it is common throughout the Western States.  It grows in woods and pastures, and flowers in September and October.  It may be regarded as a valuable tonic and cholagogue, and deserves further investigation of its therapeutic properties.
    There is another kind of gentian (Gentiana Ochroleuca), known by the names of Marsh Gentian, Yellowish-white Gentian, Straw-colored Gentian, and Sampson Snake-weed.  It has a stout, smoothish, ascending stem, one or two inches in height, its leaves two to four inches long, and three fourths to an inch and a half in width, with straw-colored flowers two inches long by three-quarters thick, disposed in a dense, terminal cyme, and often in axillary cymes.  It is found in Canada and the Southern and Western States, though rarely in the latter, blossoming in September and October; the root is the officinal part, although the tops are often employed.  They are bitter, tonic, anthelmintic, and astringent.  Used in dyspepsia, intermittents, dysentery, and all diseases of periodicity.
    To two ounces of the tops and roots pour on a pint and a half of boiling water, and when nearly cold add a half-pint of brandy.  Dose, from one to three tablespoonfuls every half-hour, gradually increasing as the stomach can bear it, lengthening the intervals between the doses.  It is also used for bites of snakes, etc.

GILLENIA (GILLENIA TRIFOLIATA)
    COMMON NAME.  Indian Physic.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- Gillenia is an indigenous, perennial herb, with an irregular, brownish, somewhat tuberous root, having many long, knotted, stringy fibres.  The several stems are from the same root, about two or three feet high, erect, slender, smooth, and of a reddish or brownish color.  The leaves are alternate, subsessile; leaflets lanceolate, acuminate, sharply dentated; flowers are white, with a reddish tinge; and the fruit a two-valved, one-celled capsule.  Seeds are oblong, brown, and bitter.
    History. -- This species is found scattered over the United States from Canada to Florida, on the eastern side of the Alleghanies, occurring in open hilly woods, in light gravelly soil.  The period of flowering is in May, and the fruit is matured in August.  The root yields its virtues to boiling water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is emetic, cathartic, diaphoretic, expectorant, and tonic.  It resembles ipecac in action.  It is useful in amenorrhoea, rheumatism, dropsy, costiveness, dyspepsia, worms, and intermittent fever.  It may be used in all fevers where emetics are required.
    Dose. -- As an emetic, twenty to thirty-five grains of the powder, as often as required; as a tonic, two to four grains; as a diaphoretic, six grains in cold water, and repeated at intervals of two or three hours.
 
GOSSYPIUM HERBACEUM
    COMMON NAME.  Cotton.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The inner bark of the root.
    Description. -- Cotton is a biennial or triennial herb, with a fusiform root, with a round pubescent branching stem about five feet high.  The leaves are hoary, palmate, with five sub-lanceolate, rather acute lobes; flowers are yellow; calyx cup-shaped, petals five, deciduous, with a purple spot near the base; stigmas, three or five; and the fruit a three or five-celled capsule, with three or five seeds involved in cotton.
    History. -- It is a native of Asia; but is cultivated extensively in many parts of the world, and in the Southern portions of America more successfully than anywhere else.  The inner bark of the recent root is the part chiefly used in medicine.  Its active principle, which is that administered by all educated herbal physicians, is called Gossypiin.
    Properties and Uses. -- The preparation Gossypiin is most excellent for diseases of the utero-genital organs.  In these diseases it evinces its sole and only virtues, and it ought, on every occasion where it can be procured in its purity, to be used in the stead of ergot, or smut rye, in cases of difficult labor.  The latter will produce uterine inflammation and puerperal fever, while gossypiin will achieve the beneficial effects for which ergot is usually administered, and leave the system perfectly free from any prejudicial after-results.  The active principle of fresh cotton root forms a most wonderful uterine tonic, and, if correctly prepared, will be found invaluable in sterility, vaginitis, whites, menstrual irregularities, green sickness, etc.  I do not recommend the use of the decoction of the root by inexperienced persons.  The seeds are said to possess superior anti-periodic properties.

GLOBE FLOWER (CEPHALANTHUS OCCIDENTALIS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Button Busy, Pond Dogwood, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a handsome shrub, growing from six to twelve or more feet high, with a rough bark on the stem, but smooth on the branches.  The leaves are opposite, oval, acuminate, in whorls of three, from three to five inches long by two to three wide.  The flowers are white, and resemble those of the sycamore, and the fruit a hard and dry capsule.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous, and found in damp places, along the margins of rivers, ponds, etc., flowering from June to September.  The bark is very bitter, and yields its virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- Tonic, febrifuge, aperient, and diuretic.  It is used with much success in intermittent and remittent fevers.  The inner bark of the root forms an agreeable bitter, and is employed in coughs and gravel.  It deserves more notice than it receives, for my experience with it teaches me that it is a valuable medicinal plant.

GOLDEN SEAL (HYDRASTIS CANADENSIS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Yellow Puccoon, Ground Raspberry, Turmeris Root, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This indigenous plant has a perennial root or rhizome, which is tortuous, knotty, creeping, internally of a bright yellow color, with long fibres.  The stem is erect, simple, herbaceous, rounded, from six to twelve inches high, bearing two unequal terminal leaves.  The two leaves are alternate, palmate, having from three to five lobes, hairy, dark-green, cordate at base, from four to nine inches wide when full grown.  The flower is a solitary one, small, white or rose,colored, and the fruit resembles a raspberry, is red, and consists of many two-seeded drupes.
    History. -- Golden seal is found growing in shady woods, in rich soils, and damp meadows in different parts of the United States and Canada, but is more abundant west of the Alleghanies.  It flowers in May and June.  The root is the officinal part.  Its virtues are imparted to water or alcohol.  The root is of a beautiful yellow color, and when fresh is juicy, and used by the Indians to color their clothing, etc.
    Properties and Uses. -- The root is a powerful tonic, at the same time exerting an especial influence upon the mucous surfaces and tissues, with which it comes in contact.  Internally, it is successfully administered in dyspepsia, chronic affections of the mucous coats of the stomach, erysipelas; remittent, intermittent, and typhoid fevers; torpor of the liver, and wherever tonics are required. In some instances it proves laxative, but without any astringency and seems to rank in therapeutical action between rhubarb and blood-root.
    A strong decoction of two parts of Golden Seal and one part of Geranium or Cranebill, is very valuable in gleet, chronic gonorrhoea, and leucorrhoea, used in injection.  It is likewise of much benefit in incipient stricture, spermatorrhoea, and inflammation and ulceration of the internal coat of the bladder, and held there as long as the patient can conveniently retain it.  To be repeated three or four times a day, immediately after emptying the bladder.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from ten to thirty grains; of the tincture, from one to two fluid drachms.

GOLD THREAD (COPTIS TRIFOLIA)
    COMMON NAME.  Mouth-root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a small, creeping, perennial root, of a bright yellow color; the stems are round, slender, and at the base are invested with ovate, acuminate, yellowish scales.  The leaves are evergreen, on long, slender petioles; leaflets roundish, acute at base, small and smooth, and veiny and sessile.  The flower is a small starry white one, and the fruit an oblong capsule, containing many small black seeds.
    History. -- Goldthread is found growing in dark swamps and sphagnous woods in the northern parts of the United States and in Canada, Greenland, iceland, and Siberia.  It flowers early in the spring to July. The root is the medicinal part, and autumn is the season for collecting it.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a pure and powerful bitter tonic, somewhat like quassia, gentian, and columbo, without any astringency.  It may be beneficially used in all cases where a bitter tonic is required, and is decidedly efficacious as a wash or gargle, when a decoction, in various ulcerations of the mouth.  In dyspepsia, and in chronic inflammation of the stomach, equal parts of gold thread and golden seal, made into a decoction, with elixir vitriol added in proper quantity, will not only prove effectual, but in many instances will permanently destroy the appetite for alcoholic beverages.
    Dose. -- Of the powder or tincture, from half a drachm to a drachm; of the decoction, the dose is from one wineglassful to a teacupful.  The tincture, made by adding an ounce of the powdered root to a pint of diluted alcohol, is preferable to the powder.  The dose is from twenty drops to a teaspoonful, three times a day.

GUAIAC (GUAIACUM OFFICINALE)
    COMMON NAME.  Lignum Vitae.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The wood and resin.
    Description. -- This is a tree of slow growth, attaining a height of from thirty to forty feet; stem commonly crooked; bark furrowed; wood very hard, heavy, the fibres crossing each other diagonally.  Leaves bijugate; leaflets obovate or oval, obtuse, and evergreen.  Flowers light blue, and the fruit an obcordate capsule.
    History. -- This tree is an inhabitant of the West Indian Islands, and on the neighboring part of the continent.  The wood is used by turners for making block-sheaves, pestles, etc., and is very hard and durable.  Both the wood and resin are used in medicine.  Alcohol is the best solvent.
    Properties and Uses. -- The wood or resin, taken internally, commonly excites a warmth in the stomach, a dryness of mouth, or thirst.  It is an acrid stimulant, and increases the heat of the body and accelerates the circulation.  If the body be kept warm while using the decoction, it is diaphoretic; if cool, it is diuretic.
    It is used in chronic rheumatism, cutaneous diseases, scrofula, and syphilitic diseases.
    Dose. -- Decoction of the wood, two to four ounces; of powdered resin, five to twenty grains; tincture, one to four fluid drachms.

HAZEL (WITCH) (HAMAMELIS VERGINICA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Winterbloom, Snapping-hazelnut, Spotted Alder.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The bark and leaves.
    Description. -- This indigenous shrub consists of several crooked, branching stems, from the same root, from four to six inches in diameter and ten to twelve feet high, covered with a smooth gray bark.  The leaves are on short petioles, alternate, oval or obovate; flowers yellow; calyx small, petals four, and the fruit a nut-like capsule or pod.
    History. -- It grows in damp woods, in nearly all parts of the United States, flowering from September to November, when the leaves are falling, and maturing its seeds the next summer.  The barks and leaves are the parts used in medicine.  They possess a degree of fragrance, and when chewed are at first somewhat bitter, very sensibly astringent, and then leave a pungent sweetish taste, which remains for a considerable time.  Water extracts their virtues.  The shoots are used as divining rods to discover water and metals under ground by certain adepts in the occult arts.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, astringent, and sedative.  A decoction of the bark is very useful in hemoptysis, hematemesis, and other hemorrhages or bleedings, as well as in diarrhoea, dysentery, and excessive mucous discharges.  It is employed with great advantage in incipient phthisis or consumption, in which it is supposed to unite anodyne influences with its others.
    The Indians use it in the form of poultice, in external inflammations, swellings, and all tumors of a painful character.
    The decoction may be advantageously used as a wash or injection for sore mouth, painful tumors, external inflammations, bowel complaints, prolapsus ani and uteri, leucorrhoea, gleet, and ophthalmia.
    An Ointment made with lard, and a decoction of white-oak bark, apple-tree bark, and witch-hazel, is a very valuable remedy for hemorrhoids or piles.
    The following forms a useful preparation: Take equal parts of witch-hazel bark, golden seal, and lobelia leaves, the two first made into a strong decoction, after which add the lobelia to the hot liquid, and cover; when cold, strain.  This decoction, as a collyrium, will frequently and speedily cure the most obstinate and long-standing cases of ophthalmia.
    Dose of the witch-hazel decoction alone, from a wineglassful to a teacupful, three or four times a day.

HELLEBORE (AMERICAN) (VERATRUM VIRIDE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Swamp Hellebore, Indian Poke, Itch-weed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The rhizome.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial, thick, and fleshy rhizome, tunicated at the upper part, sending off a multitude of large whitish roots.  The stem is from three to five feet high; lower leaves from six inches to a foot long, oval, acuminate; upper leaves gradually narrower, linear, lanceolate, and all alternate.  The flowers are numerous and green, part of them barren.
    History. -- American Hellebore is native to the United States, growing in swamps, low grounds, and moist meadows, blossoming in June and July.  The roots should be gathered in autumn, and as it rapidly loses its virtues, it should be gathered annually and kept in well-closed vessels.  When fresh, it has a very strong unpleasant odor, but when dried is inodorous.  It has a sweetish-bitter taste, succeeded by a persistent acridity.
    Properties and Uses. -- It has many very valuable properties.  It is slightly acrid, confining this action to the mouth and fauces.  It is unsurpassed by any article as an expectorant.  As a diaphoretic, it is one of the most certain of the whole material medica, often exciting great coolness and coldness of the surface.  In suitable doses it can be relied upon to bring the pulse down from a hundred and fifty beats in a minute to forty, or even to thirty.  Sometimes it renders the skin merely soft and moist, and at others produces free and abundant perspiration.  In fevers, in some diseases of the heart, acute rheumatism, and in many other conditions which involve an excited state of the circulation, it is of exceeding great value.  As a deobstruent or alterative, it far surpasses iodine, and therefore used with great advantage in the treatment of cancer, scrofula, and consumption.  It is nervine, and never narcotic which property renders it of great value in all painful diseases, or such as are accompanied with spasmodic action, convulsions, morbid irritability and irritative mobility, as in chorea, epilepsy or fits, pneumonia, puerperal fever, neuralgia, etc., producing these effects without stupefying and torpifying the system, as opium is known to do.  As an emetic , it is slow, but certain and efficient, rousing the liver to action, and vomits without occasioning prostration or exhaustion like other emetics, being the more valuable in not being cathartic.  It is peculiarly adapted as an emetic in whooping-cough, croup, asthma, scarlet fever, and in all cases where there is much febrile or inflammatory action.  As an arterial sedative it stands unparalleled and unequalled, while in small doses it creates and promotes appetite beyond any agent known to medical men.  It has recently come into use, and may be justly regarded as one of the most valuble contributions to the list of medicines in a hundred years.
    Dose. -- Veratrum is usually given in the form of a tincture, the formula being of the dried root, eight ounces to sixteen ounces diluted .835 alcohol, macerating for two weeks, then to be expressed and filtered.  To an adult eight drops are given, which should be repeated every three hours, increasing the dose one or two drops every time until nausea or vomiting, or reduction of the pulse to sixty-five or seventy, ensue, then reduce to one-half in all cases. Females and persons from fourteen to eighteen should commence with six drops and increase as above.  For children, from two to five years, begin with two drops, and increase one drop only.  Below two years of age, one drop is sufficient.  If taken in so large a dose as to produce vomiting or too much depression, a full dose of morphine or opium, in a little brandy or ginger, is a complete antidote.  In pneumonia, typhoid fever, and many other diseases, it must be continued from three to seven days after the symptoms have subsided.  In typhoid fever, while using the veratrum, quinia is absolutely inadmissible.  It is administered in a little sweetened water, and its employment in moderate doses, or short of nausea, may be continued indefinitely without the least inconvenience.
    The HELLEBORUS NIGER, Black Hellebore, inhabiting the subalpine and southern parts of Europe, was formerly much used in palsy, insanity, apoplexy, dropsy, epilepsy, etc., but is now more or less discarded.  It has diuretic and emmenagogue properties, but as it is very toxical in effects, its use is not to be advised in domestic practice.

HENBANE (HYOSCYAMUS NIGER)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and seeds.
    Description. -- Henbane is a biennial plant.  It has a long, thick, spindle-shaped, corrugated root, which is of a brown color externally, but whitish internally.  The stem sometimes reaches the height of two feet, but often stops at an altitude of six inches.  The leaves are large, oblong, acute, alternate, and of a pale, dull green color.  They have long, glandular hairs upon the midrib.  The flowers are funnel-shaped, of a dull yellow color, with purple veins and orifice.  The seeds are many, small, obovate, and brownish.
    History. -- Henbane is original with Europe, but has been naturalized in America.  It grows in waste grounds, and flowers from July to September.  The leaves and seeds are the parts medicinally used.  The leaves are collected in the second year, when the plant is in flower; the seeds are gathered when perfectly ripe.  It grows more plentifully than elsewhere in America, in the waste grounds of old settlements, in graveyards, and around the foundations of ruined houses.  Bruise the recent leaves, and they emit a strong narcotic odor, like tobacco.  Dry them and they have little smell or taste.  Their virtues area completely extracted by diluted alcohol.  The active principle of Henbane is called Hyosciamia, but all the recognized preparations are now known by the general name of Hyoscyamus.
    Properties and Uses. -- Henbane is a powerful narcotic, but, unless improperly and injudiciously used, it is not "dangerously" poisonous, as we learn from King.  All narcotics are "dangerously" poisonous if dangerously administered.  Nature grows wild her most potent medicinal herbs, and those which, if used by persons who understand them, are curative of the very worst afflictions of the human race, are also destructive to a small extent if applied and administered by parties who have not thoroughly studied their properties.  Medicinally used, Henbane is calmative, hypnotic, anodyne, and antispasmodic.  It is much better than opium, as it does not produce constipation.  It is always given, where opium does not agree, with the very best effects.  I use it principally to cause sleep, and remove irregular nervous action.  Combined with other preparations mentioned in many parts of this volume, it is most excellent for gout, rheumatism, asthma, chronic cough, neuralgia, irritations of the urinary organs, etc.  The leaves make fine external preparations for glandular swelling or ulcers, etc.  I instruct my patients never to use it, under any circumstances, without the advice of a good herbal physician.

HOARHOUND (MARRUBIUM VULGARE)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This well-known herb has a fibrous, perennial root and numerous annual, bushy stems, leafy, and branching from the bottom to one or two feet in height.  The leaves are roundish-ovate, rough and veiny above, woolly on the under surface, one or two inches in diameter; the flowers small and white.
    History. -- Hoarhound is a native of Europe, but has been naturalized in the United States, where it is very common.  It grows on dry, sandy fields, waste grounds, and road-sides, flowering from June to September.  The entire plant has a white or hoary appearance; the whole herb is medicinal, and should be gathered before its efflorescence.  It has a peculiar, rather agreeable, vinous, balsamic odor, and a very bitter, aromatic, somewhat acrid and persistent taste.  Its virtues are imparted to alcohol or water.
    Properties and Uses. -- A stimulant, tonic, expectorant, and diuretic.  It is used in the form of syrup, in coughs, colds, chronic catarrh, asthma, and all pulmonary affections.  The warm infusion will produce perspiration and flow of urine, and is used with great benefit in jaundice, asthma, hoarseness, amenorrhoea, and hysteria.  The cold infusion is an excellent tonic in some forms of dyspepsia.  It will expel worms and act as a purgative in large doses.  It enters into the composition of several syrups and candies.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, one drachm; of the infusion or syrup, from half to a teacupful.

HOUND'S TONGUE (CYNOGLOSSUM OFFICINALE)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and root.
    Description. -- This biennial plant has an erect stem one or two feet high.  The leaves are hoary, with soft down on both sides, acute, lanceolate, radical ones petiolate, cauline ones sessile, with cordate bases.  The flowers are in clusters, calyx downy, corolla reddish purple, and fruit a depressed achenium.
    History. -- Cynoglossum Officinale grows on the road-sides and waste places of both Europe and America.  The leaves and the root are the parts used in medicine; but the preference I give to the root.  This, upon being gathered, emits an unpleasant and somewhat heavy odor, which vanishes when it is dried.  Its taste is bitter and mawkish.  The fresh root is spoken of by several herbalists as being better than the desiccated or dried, but this probably arises from the fact that the roots they used had not been gathered at the proper time, dried in the correct way, or kept in a skilful manner.  The dried root is quite as active as the fresh, if prepared by a person who knows its qualities.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is chiefly valuable for coughs, catarrhs, bleeding from the lungs, and other disorganizations of the respiratory apparatus.  The leaves and root are both applied, with great benefit, as a poultice to old ulcers, scrofulous tumors, burns, goitre, and recent bruises and abrasions.  In my several remedies the values of many of the plants described at length in these pages are most thoroughly embraced.  The object in giving such plants a descriptive space each is to enable the reader, in extraordinary emergencies, to be his own physician until he can get a better one, and to show him that what he treads on may, without his knowledge, contain the germs of the rejuvenation.
    CYNOGLOSSUM MORRISONI, or Virginia Mouse-ear, Beggar's Lie, Dysentery Weed, etc., is an annual weed with an erect hairy, leafy stem, two to four feet high.  Leaves three to four inches long, oblong lanceolate; flowers very small, white, or pale blue.  It grows in rocky grounds and among rubbish.  The whole plant has an unpleaseant odor.  The root is the medicinal part.  It is very efficacious in diarrhoea and dysentery.  The root may be chewed or given in powder or infusion ad libitum.

HOPS (HUMULUS LUPULUS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The strobiles or cones.
    Description. -- This well-known twining plant has a perennial root, with many annual angular stems.  The leaves are opposite, deep green, serrated, venated, and very rough.  The flowers are numerous and of a greenish color.  Fruit a strobile.
    History. -- This plant is found in China, the Canary Islands, all parts of Europe, and in many places in the United States.  It is largely cultivated in England and the United States for its cones or strobules, which are used medicinally, and in the manufacture of beer, ale, and porter.  The odor of hops is peculiar and somewhat agreeable, their taste slightly astringent and exceedingly bitter.  They yield their virtues to boiling water, but a better solvent than water is diluted alcohol.  Lupulin is the yellow powder procured by beating or rubbing the strobiles, and then sifting out the grains, which form about one-seventh part of the Hops.  Lupulin is in globose kidney-shaped grains, golden yellow and somewhat transparent and preferable to the Hops itself.  Lupulite is the bitter principle of Hops, and is obtained by making an aqueous solution of Lupulin.
    Properties and Uses. -- Hops are tonic, hypnotic, febrifuge, antilithic, and anthelmintic.  They are principally used for their sedative or hypnotic action--producing sleep, removing restlessness, and abating pain, but sometimes failing to do so.  A pillow stuffed with Hops is a favorite way for obtaining sleep.  The lupulin or its tincture is used in delirium tremens, nervous irritation, anxiety, exhaustion and does not disorder the stomach, nor cause constipation, as with opium.  It is also useful in after-pains, to prevent chordee, suppress venereal desires, etc.  Externally, in the form of a fomentation alone, or combined with Boneset or other bitter herbs, it has proved beneficial in pneumonia, pleurisy, gastritis, enteritis, and as an application to painful swellings and tumors.  An ointment, made by boiling two parts of Stramonium leaves and one of Hops in lard, is an excellent application in salt rheum, ulcers, and painful tumors.  It is a powerful antaphrodisiac, composing the genital organs, quieting painful erections in gonorrhoea., etc.
    Dose. -- Fluid extract, half a drachm to a drachm; solid extract, five to twenty grains; tincture (two and a half ounces of hops to one pint of alcohol), three to six drachms; infusion (four drachms to one pint of hot water), a wineglass to a cupful of Lupulin, the dose six to ten grains; tinct. of Lupulin (two ounces of Lupulin to one pint of alcohol), one to two teaspoonfuls in sweetened water.  Fifteen to twenty grains well rubbed up with white sugar in a mortar is very efficacious in priapism, chordee, and spermatorrhoea.
 
HOUSE-LEEK (SEMPERVIVUM TECTORUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- House-leek has a fibrous root, with several tufts of oblong, acute, extremely succulent leaves.  The stem from the centre of these tufts is about a foot high, erect, round, and downy; flowers large, pale rose-colored, and scentless.  Offsets spreading.
    History. -- This perennial plant is a native of Europe, and is so succulent that it will grow on dry walls, roofs of houses, etc.  It flowers in August.  It is much cultivated in some places.  The leaves contain super-malate of lime.
    Properties and Uses. -- The fresh leaves are useful as a refrigerant when bruised, and applied as a poultice in erysipelatous affections, burns, stings of insects, and other inflammatory conditions of the skin.  The leaves, sliced in two, and the inner surface applied to warts is a positive cure for them.  It can be used for many skin diseases.  The leaves also possess an astringent property, serviceable in many cases.

HYSSOP (HYSSOPUS OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The tops and leaves.
    Description. -- Hyssop is a perennial herb, with square stems, woody at the base, and a foot or two in height, with rod-like branches.  The leaves are opposite, sessile, linear, and lanceolate, green on each side; flowers, bluish-purple, seldom white; stamens four.
    History. -- It is an inhabitant of Europe and this country, being raised principally in gardens, and flowers in July.  The taste of the leaves is hot, spicy, and somewhat bitter, and yield their virtues to water and alcohol.  They contain yellow oil and sulphur.
    Properties and Uses. -- Stimulant, aromatic, carminative, and tonic.  Generally used in quinsy and other sore-throats, as a gargle with sage.  As an expectorant it is beneficial in asthma, coughs, etc.  The leaves applied to bruises speedily relieve the pain and remove the discoloration.

IBERIS AMARA
    COMMON NAME.  Bitter Candy Tuft.
    Description and History. -- Iceland Moss is a perennial, foliaceous plant from two to four inches high; a native of Britain and the northern countries of Europe, particularly Iceland.  It is diversified in its color, being brownish or grayish-white in some parts, and of a reddish hue in others.  It is without odor, with a mucilaginous, bitter, somewhat astringent taste, and when dry the lichen is crisp, cartilaginous, and coriaceous, and is convertible into a grayish-white powder.  It swells up on water, absorbing more than its own weight of that fluid, and communicating a portion of its bitterness to it, as well as a little mucilage; when long chewed it is converted into a mucilaginous pulp, and when boiled in water the decoction becomes a firm jelly on cooling.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is demulcent, tonic, and nutritious.  Used as a demulcent in chronic catarrh, chronic dysentery, and diarrhoea, and as a tonic in dyspepsia, convalescence, and exhausting diseases.  Boiled with milk it forms an excellent nutritive and tonic in phthisis and general debility.  Its tonic virtues depend upon its cetrarin, which, if removed renders the lichen merely nutritious.

IRON WEED (VERNONIA FASACICULATA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is an indigenous, perennial, coarse, purplish-green weed, with a stem from three to ten feet high.  The leaves are from four to eight inches long, one or two broad, lanceolate, tapering to each end.  Corolla showy, and dark purple.
    History. -- This is a very common plant to the Western States, growing in woods and prairies, and along rivers and streams, flowering from July to September.  The root is bitter, and imparts its virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a bitter tonic, deobstruent and alterative.  In powder or decoction the root is beneficial in amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, leucorrhoea, and menorrhagia.  It is useful in scrofula and some cutaneous diseases.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, one or two fluid ounces; of the tincture, one or two fluid drachms.  The leaves or powdered root make an excellent discutient application to tumors.

IVY (AMERICAN) (AMPELOPSIS QUINQUEFOLIA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Woodbine, Virginia Creeper, Five Leaves, False Grape, Wild wood-vine.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The bark and twigs.
    Description. -- This is a woody vine, with a creeping stem, digitate leaves; leaflets acuminate, petiolate, dentate, and smooth; flowers inconspicuous, greenish, or white; and the fruit a berry, acid, dark blue, and small.
    History. -- The American Ivy is a common, familiar, shrubby vine, climbing extensively, and, by means of its radiating tendrils, supporting itself firmly on trees, stone walls, churches, etc., and ascending to the height of from fifty to a hundred feet.  The bark and the twigs are the parts usually used.  Its taste is acrid and persistent, though not unpleasant, and its decoction is mucilaginous.  The bark should be collected after the berries have ripened.  It is like the ivy of England and other countries.
    Properties and Uses. -- Alterative, tonic, astringent, and expectorant.  It is used principally in form of syrup in scrofula, dropsy, bronchitis, and other pulmonary complaints.  An old author affirms that there is a very great antipathy between wine and ivy, and therefore it is a remedy to preserve against drunkenness, and to relieve or cure intoxication by drinking a draught of wine in which a handful of bruised ivy leaves have been boiled.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction of syrup, from one to four tablespoonfuls, three times a day.

JALAP (IPOMOEA JALAPA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Jalap has a fleshy, tuberous root, with numerous roundish tubercles.  It has several stems, which are smooth, brownish, slightly rough, with a tendency to twine.  The leaves are on long petioles, the first hastate, succeeding ones cordate, acuminate, and mucronate.  The calyx has no bracts; corolla funnel-shaped, purple, and long.  Fruit a capsule.
    History. -- This plant grows in Mexico, at an elevation of nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea, near Chicanquiaco and Xalapa, from which it is exported, and from which last-named place it also receives its name.  It is generally imported in bags, containing one or two hundred pounds.  The worm-eaten root is the most energetic, as the active part is untouched by them.  It is soluble in water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- Jalap is irritant and cathartic, operating energetically, and produces liquid stools.  It is chiefly employed when it is desired to produce an energetic influence on the bowels, or to obtain large evacuations.  In intestinal inflammations it should not be used.
    Dose. -- Powder, ten grains.

JAMESTOWN WEED (DATURA STRAMONIUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Thorn-Apple, Stinkweed, Apple-peru, etc.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and seeds.
 Description.--This plant is a bushy, smooth, fetid, annual plant, two or three feet in height, and in rich soil even more.  The root is rather large, of a whitish color, giving off many fibres.  The stem is much branched, forked, spreading, leafy, of a yellowish-green color.  The leaves are large and smooth, from the forks of the stem, and are uneven at the base.  The flowers are about three inches long, erect, large, and white.  The fruit is a large, dry, prickly capsule, with four valves and numerous black reniform seeds.  There is the Datura Tatula, or purple Stramonium, which differs from the above in having a deep purple stem, etc.
    History. -- Stramonium is a well-known poisonous weed, growing upon waste grounds and road-sides, in all parts of the United States.  It is found in very many parts of the world.  The whole plant has a fetid, narcotic odor, which diminishes as it dries.  Almost every part of the plant is possessed of medicinal properties, but the officinal parts are the leaves and seeds.  The leaves should be gathered when the flowers are full-blown, and carefully dried in the shade.  They impart their properties to water, alcohol, and the fixed oils.  The seeds are small, reniform, compressed, roughish, dark brown or black when ripe, grayish-brown when unripe.  They yield what is called Daturia, which may be obtained by exhausting the bruised seeds with boiling rectified alcohol, and then proceeding as for the active principle of other seeds of a similar character.
    Properties and Uses. -- In large doses it is an energetic narcotic poison.  The victims of this poison suffer the most intense agonies, and die in maniacal delirium.  In medicinal doses it is an anodyne, antispasmodic, and is often used as a substitute for opium.  It is used with fair effect in cases of mania, epilepsy, gastritis, delirium tremens, and enteritis; also in neuralgia, rheumatism, and all periodic pains.  The dried and smoked leaves are useful in spasmodic asthma, but as there are other means much more certain to cure, and less dangerous, I, and other herbalists, seldom or never recommend them.  Daturia is seldom employed in medicine, being a very active and powerful poison.  I should advise my readers never to employ it, unless they be physicians; but I deemed proper to give it a place in this work, as its medicinal qualities are quite important, if its use is intrusted to proper and educated persons.

JUNIPER (JUNIPERUS COMMUNIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The berries.
    Description. -- This is a small evergreen shrub, never attaining the height of a tree, with many very close branches.  The leaves are attached to the stem in threes.  The fruit is fleshy, of dark-purplish color, ripening the second year from the flower.
    History. -- Juniper grows in dry woods and hills, and flowers in May.  The American berries contain less virtue than those imported from Europe.  The oil is contained in the spirituous liquor called Holland gin.  The berries yield their properties to hot water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- The berries and oil are stimulating, carminative, and diuretic.  It is especially useful in averting mucous discharges, especially from the urethra.
    Dose. -- Of the berries, from one to two drachms; of the oil, from four to twenty minims.

KINO (PTEROCARPUS MARSUPIUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  Concrete juice.
    Description. -- Kino is a leafy tree, with the outer coat of the bark brown, and the inner red, fibrous, and astringent.  Branches smooth, leaves alternate; leaflets, from five to seven, alternate, elliptical, and rather emarginate; flowers very numerous, white, with a tinge of yellow; fruit a legume on a long petiole.
    History. -- Kino is the juice of the tree, obtained by making longitudinal incisions in the bark.  It flows freely, is of a red color, and by drying it in the sun it cracks into irrregular angular masses.  The fragments are reddish, black, translucent, and ruby-red on the edges, inodorous, and very astringent.  When chewed it tinges the saliva blood-red.  Alcohol dissolves about two-thirds of it.  It is chiefly imported from Malabar.  It inhabits the Circur mountains and forests of the Malabar coast.
    Properties and Uses. -- Employed in medicine as an energetic astringent only, principally in obstinate chronic diarrhoea.  It is also administered as an astringent in leucorrhoea and sanguineous exudations.  As a topical remedy, it is applied to flabby ulcers, and used as a gargle, injection, and wash.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from ten to thirty grains.

KIDNEY LIVER-LEAF (HEPATICA AMERICANA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The plant.
    Description. -- This is a perennial plant, the root of which consists of numerous strong fibres.  The leaves are all radical, on long, hairy petioles, smooth, evergreen, cordate at base, the new ones appearing later than the flowers.  The flowers appear almost as soon as the snow leaves the ground in the spring.  Fruit an ovate achenium.
    History. -- These plants are common to the United States, growing in woods and upon elevated situations--the former, which is the most common, being found on sides of hills, exposed to the north, and the latter on the southern aspect.  The plants yield their virtues to water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a mild, mucilaginous astringent, and is freely used in infusion, in fevers, diseases of the liver; and for bleeding from the lungs, coughs, etc., it is a most valuable curative.
    Dose. -- Infusion taken ad libitum.

KOUSSO (BRAYERA ANTHELMINTICA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a tree, growing about twenty feet high, with round rusty branches.  The leaves are crowded, alternate; leaflets oblong, acute, and serrate; flowers small, greenish, and becoming purple; the fruit so far unknown.
    History. -- This tree grows upon the table-lands of Northeastern Abyssinia, at an elevation of several thousand feet.  The flowers are the parts used.  They are gathered when in full bloom, and are used in their fresh state, but are equally valuable when properly dried.  After drying they are powdered, and in this form they are mixed with warm water and administered.  The value of this medicine has been known for a long time, having been introduced in the French practice over forty years ago.  It is quite difficult to procure even the adulterated or spurious article in America or England; the genuine is not to be obtained at any price in the drug-stores.  In the stores, however, can be obtained, at great cost, an active resinous principle, extracted from the flowers, and sometims the unripe fruit, to which the names of Toeniin and Koussin have been given.  The dose of this is set down at twenty grains.
    Properties and Uses. -- In large doses it will produce heat of the stomach, nausea, and sometimes vomiting, and occasionally will act powerfully on the bowels; but this is only when injudiciously taken. Its chief property is developed in the destruction and expulsion of worms, especially the tape-worm.  It is the surest of all remedies for that distressing affliction, when compounded with other ingredients which I have mentioned elsewhere.  Taken in the proper dose, it seems to have no general effect, but operates wholly and solely upon the worms.  The dose of the powdered flowers in infusion is half an ounce to half a pint of warm water.  It must be reduced for children.  If the medicine does not operate in four hours, use castor-oil.  It is one of the ingredients of my Male Fern Vermifuge.  (See page 469.)
 
LADIES' SLIPPER (CYPRIPEDIUM PUBESCENS)
    COMMON NAMES.  American Valerian, Umbel, Nerve-root, Yellow-Moccasin flowers, Noah's Ark.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This indigenous plant has a perennial, fibrous, fleshy root, from which arise several round leafy stems, from twelve to eighteen inches high.  The leaves are from three to six inches long, by two or three broad, oblong, lanceolate, acuminate, pubescent, alternate, generally the same number on each side.  Flowers large and very showy, and pale yellow.
    History. -- This plant grows here in rich woods and meadows, and flowers in May and June.  There are several varieties of it, but as they all possess the same medicinal properties, a description of each is not requisite or desirable.
    Properties and Uses. -- The fibrous roots are the parts used in medicine, and they should be gathered and carefully cleansed in August or September.  The properties and uses are various.  The preparations made from these roots are tonic and stimulant, diaphoretic, and antispasmodic, and are considered to be unequalled in remedying hysteria, chorea, nervous headache, and all cases of nervous irritability Combined with a certain foreign plant of a mucilaginous character, and growing near the sea-shore, it is an unfailing cure of fever and ague.  The preparation has, however, to be skilfully compounded.  Any one afflicted by fever and ague may write to me for particulars and I will gladly and promptly furnish them.  They are also used for delirium, neuralgia, and hypochondria.  The form of preparation is an alcoholic extract.
    Dose. -- From ten to twenty grains; tincture, from one to three fluid drachms; infusion, from one to four fluid ounces.  When made into powder, one drachm in warm water is a dose, and may be repeated, in season, as often as may be required.

LARCH (ABIES LARIX)
    MEDICINAL PART.  Resinous exudation.
    Description. -- Larch is a very lofty and graceful tree, with widespreading branches.  The buds are alternate, perennial, cup-shaped, scaly, producing annually a pencil-like tuft.  Male flowers drooping, about half an inch long, yellow; female flowers erect, larger than the male flowers, and variegated with green and pink; cones erect, ovate, about an inch long, purple when young, reddish-brown when ripe.
    History. -- The Larch grows in the mountainous regions of Europe, and yields the article of use and commerce known as Venice turpentine.  The bark contains a large amount of tannic acid.
    Properties and Uses. -- The medicinal properties are those known to be confined to turpentine.

LARGE FLOWERING SPURGE (EUPHORBIA COROLLATA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Blooming Spurge, Milk-weed, Bowman's Root, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is a perennial plant with a round, slender, erect stem, one or two feet high, with a yellowish, large, and branching root.  The leaves are scattered, sessile, oblong-obovate, smooth in some plants, very hairy in others, and from one to two inches in length.  Flowers white and showy, and fruit a three-celled capsule.
    History. -- This plant grows plentifully in Canada and the United States, in dry fields and woods, and flowers from June to September.  The bark of the root is the part used.  The plant is readily detected by a milky fluid which exudes from the st em, when that is broken.  The fluid, if applied to warts or wens, is of great benefit, in most cases banishing the offensive excrescences.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is emetic, diaphoretic, expectorant, and epispastic.  As an emetic the powdered bark of the root (say from fifteen to twenty grains) is mild, pleasant, and efficacious.
    Dose. -- As an expectorant it is administered three grains at a time, mixed with honey, molasses, or sugar; as a cathartic, from four to ten grains are required.  It is regarded, in doses of fifteen or twenty grains, as one of the very best remedies ever discovered for the dropsy.  It has cured hydrothorax and ascites when all other means have failed.

LARKSPUR (DELPHINUM CONSOLIDA)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and seeds.
    Description. -- Larkspur is an annual herb, with a simple slender root, a leafy stem, from a foot and a half to two feet high, with alternate spreading branches.  The leaves are sessile; flowers bright blue and purple.
    DELPHINUM STAPHISAGRIA, or Stavesacre, which possesses the same properties as Larkspur, but to a greater degree, is an elegant upright herb, about the same height as Larkspur.  Leaves broad, palmate, and petioled.  Flowers bluish-gray.  Fruit a capsule.
    History. -- Larkspur is a native of Europe, but has become naturalized in the United States, growing in woods and fields.  Stavesacre is native to Europe, growing in waste places.
    Properties and Uses. -- In medicinal doses emetic, cathartic, and narcotic.  It has also vermifuge properties.  The whole plant contains an acid principle which is sure death to all kinds of domestic vermin.  The flowers and leaves were extensively used in the United States army during the rebellion, to kill lice, and it is pretty well authenticated that the same substance forms the basis of the many preparations offered for the destruction of all noxious insects whose room is better than their company.  The flowers are emmenagogue, diuretic, and vermifuge.  A tincture of the seeds, it is said, will cure asthma and dropsy.  Also a specific for cholera morbus.
    Dose. -- Two ounces of the seed added to one quart of diluted alcohol makes the tincture, of which ten drops may be given three times a day.  This, however, should be used only in extreme cases.

LAVENDER (LAVANDULA VERA AND LAVANDULA SPICA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The flowers.
    Description. -- Lavandula Vera is a small shrub from one to two feet high, but sometimes attaining six feet.  The leaves are oblong-linear or lanceolate, entire, opposite, and sessile.  The flowers are of lilac color, small and in whorls.
 Lavandula Spica is more dwarfish and more hoary than the last.  Leaves oblong-lanceolate.  This plant is not used in medicine, but furnishes the oil of spike, much used in the preparation of artistical varnishes and by porcelain painters.
    History. -- Lavandula Vera grows in the dry soils of Southern Europe, and flowers in July and August.   It is largely cultivated in this country.  The whole plant is aromatic, but the flowers are the parts used, and should be gathered shortly after their appearance, and carefully dried.  The disease to which this plant is subject can only be prevented by not allowing them to grow too closely together.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a tonic, stimulant, and carminative, useful mostly in diseases of the nervous system.

LEVER WOOD (ASTRYA VIRGINICA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Iron-wood, Hop-hornbeam.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The inner wood.
    Description. -- This small tree of from twenty-five to thirty feet in height is remarkable for its fine, narrow, brownish bark.  The wood is white, hard, and strong; leaves oblong-ovate, acuminate, serrate, and somewhat downy.  Flowers, fertile and sterile, green, and appear with the leaves.
    History. -- The inner wood and bark are the parts in which reside the curative virtues, and the latter, which are immense, readily yield to water.  The tree flowers in April and May, and is common to the United States.  The bark and wood should be gathered in August or September.
    Properties and Uses. -- Lever-wood is anti-periodic, tonic, and alterative.  It is very good in cases of intermittent fever, neuralgia, nervous debility, scrofula, and dyspepsia.  It is sometimes administered, with fair success, as a remedy for fever and ague.
    Dose. -- Decoction, one or two fluid ounces, three or four times a day.

LIFE-ROOT (SENECIO AUREUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Squaw-weed, Ragwort, False Valerian, Golden Senecio, and Female Regulator.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and herb.
    Description. -- Life-root has an erect, smoothish stem, one or two feet high.  Radical leaves are simple and rounded, mostly cordate and long petioled, lower cauline leaves lyrate, upper ones few, dentate and sessile.  Flowers golden yellow.
    History. -- The plant is perennial and indigenous, growing on low marshy grounds, and on the banks of creeks.  The northern and western parts of Europe are where it is mostly found, and the flowers culminate in May and June.  The root and herb are the parts employed for medical purposes.  There are several varieties of this plant, but as all possess the same medicinal properties, it is unnecessary to specify them.  The whole herb is used of all the varieties.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diuretic, pectoral, diaphoretic and tonic, and exerts a very powerful and peculiar influence upon the reproductive organs of females.  This has given it the name of Female Regulator.  Combined with the Lily, and other native and foreign plants, it is one of the most certain cures in the world for aggravated cases of leucorrhoea; also in cases of menstrual suppression.  It will operate excellently in gravel, and other urinary affections.
    Dose. -- Ordinary decoction, four ounces.

LILY (MEADOW) (LILIUM CANDIDUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- The thick stem of this plant is from three to four feet high, and arises from a perennial bulb or root.  Leaves scattered, lanceolate, and narrowed at the base.  Flowers are large, snow-white, and smooth inside.
    History. -- The Meadow Lily is an exotic.  It is a native of Syria and Asia Minor.  The flowers are regarded as being very beautiful, but are not used for medical purposes.  The plant is principally cultivated for the flowers.  The bulb is the part used for its curative properties.  Water extracts its virtues.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is mucilaginous, demulcent, tonic, and astringent.  It is chosen by some of our best botanical practitioners as a certain remedy for leucorrhoea and falling of the womb, and for those affections, when combined with Life-Root and other herbal preparations, is without an equal.  Sometimes the recent root is used to advantage in dropsy.  Boiled in milk, it is also useful for ulcers, inflammations, fever-sores, etc.  I use it in combination with other indicated plants as an injection in leucorrhoea, with very gratifying success.

LION'S FOOT (NABULUS ALBUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  White Lettuce, Rattle-snake Root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The plant.
    Description. -- This indigenous perennial herb has a smooth stem, stout and purplish, from two to four feet high.  Radical leaves angular-hastate, cauline ones lanceolate, and all irregularly dentate.
    History. -- This plant grows plentifully in moist woods and in rich soils, from New England to Iowa, and from Canada to Carolina.  The root, leaves, and juice of the plant are employed.
    Properties and Uses. -- A decoction of the root taken internally will operate most favorably in cases of dysentery.  The milky juice of the plant is taken internally, while the leaves, steeped in water, are applied as a poultice (and frequently changed) for the bite of a serpent.

LOBELIA (LOBELIA INFLATA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Indian Tobacco, Wild Tobacco.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and seeds.
    Description. -- Lobelia is an annual or biennial indigenous plant, with a fibrous root, and an erect, angular, very hairy stem, from six inches to three feet in height.  The leaves are alternate, ovate-lanceolate, serrate, veiny, and hairy; flowers small, numerous, pale-blue; fruit a two-celled ovoid capsule, containing numerous small brown seeds.
    History. -- Lobelia flowers from July to November, and grows in nearly all parts of the United States, in fields, woods, and meadows.  The whole plant is active, and the stalks are used indiscriminately with the leaves by those who are best acquaianted with its properties.  The root is supposed to be more energetic, medicinally, than any other part of the plant.  The proper time for gathering is from the last of July to the middle of October.  The plant should be dried in the shade, and then be preserved in packages or covered vessels, more especially if it be reduced to powder.  It was used in domestic practice by the people of New England long before the time of Samual Thompson, its assumed discoverer.
    Properties and Uses. -- Administered internally it is emetic, nauseant, expectorant, relaxant, sedative, anti-spasmodic, and secondarily cathartic, diaphoretic, and astringent.  It is extensively used to subdue spasms, and will give relief in epilepsy, tetanus, cramps, hysteria, chorea, and convulsions; but it is merely a temporary relief when administered internally, and if not used with great skill and caution in that way, may do as much harm as good.  Applied externally, in the form of an ointment, combined with healing and soothing barks and roots, it is decidedly the best counter-irritant known to mankind.  In this shape its equal has never been discovered, and probably never will be This is one of the ingredients of the "Herbal Ointment," a full-description of which will be found on page 469 of this work.  There are any number of officinal preparations of Lobelia, but it is the opinion of the author that its chief value consists in being made into an ointment, with other rare and potent ingredients.  There is nothing in nature that can favorably compare with it in this form.  In other shapes it may be useful; but it is also dangerous unless given with care.

LOUSEWORT (GERARDIA PEDICULARIA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Fever-weed, American Foxglove, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- The stem of this plant is bushy, tall, two or three feet in height.  The leaves are numerous, opposite, ovate-lanceolate; flowers large, yellow, and trumpet-shaped; calyx five-cleft, corolla yellow, and fruit a two-celled capsule.
    History. -- This most elegant plant grows in dry copses, pine ridges, and barren woods and mountains, from Canada to Georgia, flowering in August and September.  Water or alcohol extracts its virtues.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diaphoretic, antiseptic, and sedative.  Used principally in febrile and inflammatory diseases; a warm infusion produces a free and copious perspiration in a short time.  Very valuable in ephemeral fever.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion, from one to three fluid ounces.

LUNGWORT (PULMONARIA OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This rough plant has a stem about one foot high.  The radical leaves ovate, cordate; cauline one, ovate and sessile.  Flowers, blue; calyx, five-angled; corolla, funnel-shaped; stigma, emarginate; and the fruit a roundish, obtuse achenium.  (See Illustration, page 16.)
    History. -- Lungwort is a herbaceous perennial, growing in Europe and this country in northern latitudes.  In Europe it is a rough-leaved plant, but in this country the entire plant is smooth, which exhibits the peculiar climatic influence.  It is showy, and freely cultivated.  It flowers in May.  The leaves are used for medical purposes.  They are without any particular odor.  Water extracts their properties.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is demulcent and mucilaginous, and in decoction very useful in bleeding from the lungs, and bronchial and catarrhal affections, and other disorders of the respiratory organs.  Its virtues seem to be entirely expended upon the lungs, and it is certainly an efficacious remedial agent for all morbid conditions of these organs.  It is an ingredient in the "Acacian Balsam," see page 469.

MADDER (RUBIA TINCTORUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial, long, cylindrical root, about the thickness of a quill, and deep reddish-brown.   It has several herbaceous, brittle stems.  The leaves are from four to six in a whorl, lanceolate, mucronate, two or three inches long, and about one-third as wide.  Flowers small and yellow.
    History. -- Madder is a native of the Mediterranean and Southern European countries.  The drug is chiefly imported from Holland and France.  The root is collected in the third year of the plant, when it is freed from its outer covering and dried.  It is valued as a dye-stuff for its red and purple.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is sometimes used to promote the menstrual and urinary discharges, but is not in very great favor.  Combined in a preparation with other ingredients, it is of some considerable remedial value.
    Dose. -- Thirty grains, three or four times a day.  If used frequently, it will color the bones red.

MAD-DOG WEED (ALISMA PLANTAGO)
    COMMON NAME.  Water Plantain.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This perennial herb has all radical, oval, oblong, or lanceolate leaves from four to six inches in length, on long radical petioles.  The flowers are small and white, and the fruit a three-cornered achenium.
    History. -- It inhabits the North American continent as well as Europe, grows in watery places, and flowers in July.
    Properties and Uses. -- It was once considered a capital remedy for hydrophobia, hence its name; but experience has demonstrated that as a cure for this horrible infliction it is impotent.  In urinary diseases and affections, an infusion of the leaves, which must be dried and powdered, is very efficacious.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion above mentioned, from four to six fluid ounces, three or four times a day.  The fresh leaves, when bruised, form a very good but mild counter-irritant.

MAIDENHAIR (ADIANTUM PEDATUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This is a most delicate and graceful fern, growing from twelve to fifteen inches high, with a slender, polished stalk.  Frond pedate, with pinnate branches.
    History. -- Maidenhair is perennial, and grows throughout the United States in deep woods on moist, rich soil.  The leaves are bitterish and somewhat aromatic, and part with their virtues upon being immersed in boiling water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is refrigerant, expectorant, tonic, and subastringent.  A decoction of the plant is most gratefully cooling in febrile diseases, and it is a great benefit in coughs, catarrh, hoarseness, influenza, asthma, pleurisy, etc.  The decocton, or syrup, can be used freely.

MAGNOLIA (MAGNOLIA GLAUCA)
    COMMON NAMES.  White Bay, Beaver-tree, Sweet Magnolia, Swamp Sassafras, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark.
    Description. -- This tree varies in height from six to thirty feet, being taller in the South than in the North.  The leaves are alternate, petioled, entire, and of elliptical shape.  The flowers are large and solitary, and of grateful odor.  The fruit is a cone.
    History. -- The therapeutical virtues of these trees are found in the bark and fruit.  The bark of both the trunk and the root is employed.  The odor is aromatic, and the taste bitterish, warm, and pungent.  It is gathered during the spring and summer.  It has smooth and ash-colored bark, elegant, odoriferous, cream-colored flowers, and can be found in morasses from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico.  It flowers from May to August.  There are other varieties which do not require especial mention or description.
    Properties and Uses. -- The bark is an aromatic, tonic bitter, and is also anti-periodic.  It is used much in the stead of cinchona, and will remedy the intermittent fevers when cinchona has failed.  It is used frequently as a substitute for Peruvian Bark, as it can be continued for a longer time and with more safety.  Properly prepared it may be used as a substitute for tobacco, and will break the habit of tobacco-chewing.
    Dose. -- In powder, half-drachm or drachm doses, five or six times a day.  The infusion is taken in wineglassful doses, five or six times a day.  The tincture, made by adding two ounces of the cones to a pint of brandy, will be found beneficial in dyspepsia and chronic rheumatism.

MALLOW (COMMON) (MALVA SYLVESTRIS)
    COMMON NAME.  High-mallow.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This plant is a perennial, and has a round stem two or three feet high, and a tapering, branching, whitish root.  The leaves are alternate, deep green, soft, and downy.  The flowers are large, numerous, and of purple color; calyx five-cleft; petals five; stamens indefinite; pollen large, whitish.
    History. -- The mallow is a native of Europe, but is naturalized in this country.  It grows abundantly in fields, waysides, and waste places, and flowers from May to October.  The whole plant, especially the root, abounds in mucilage.
    Properties and Uses. -- It possesses the properties common to mucilaginous herbs, and an infusion thereof forms an excellent demulcent in coughs, irritations of the air-passages, flux, affections of the kidney and bladder, etc.  In inflammatory conditions of the external parts, the bruised herb forms an excellent application, making, as it does, a natural emollient cataplasm.
    MALVA ROTUNDIFOLIA, or Low-mallow, called by children, who are fond of eating the fruit, cheeses, possesses similar qualities.

MANDRAKE (PODOPHYLLUM PELTATUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  May-Apple, Wild Lemon, Raccoon-berry, Wild Mandrake.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant, which is illustrated by a cut, is an indigenous perennial herb, with a jointed, dark-brown root, about half the size of the finger, very fibrous, and internally yellow.  The stem is simple, round, smooth, erect, about a foot high, dividing at the top into two petioles, from three to six inches long, each supporting a leaf.  The leaves are large, palmate, oftener cordate, smooth, yellowish-green on top, paler beneath.  The flower is solitary in the fork of the stem, large, white and somewhat fragrant.  The fruit is fleshy, of a lemon color, and in flavor resembles the strawberry.
    There is another plant called mandrake, but which is the Atropa Mandragora, a plant belonging to the night-shade family.  The cut I give of this plant is quite truthful.  It is not used in medicine.  It inhabits the shores of the Mediterranean, and found lurking in dark woods, in the gloomy thickets on the banks of sluggish rivers.  It is fetid, poisonous, and repulsive.  Even its golden fruit has this nauseous odor.  How, then, came it ever to usurp its dominion over men?  Its strong narcotic powers may have had some influence; but the peculiar form of its root, in which the resemblance of the human shape as will be observed, is quite apparent, probably led to its use in magic.
    In popular belief, it became invested with half-human attributes; and cries and groans attested its pain when torn from the ground.  Gathered with peculiar rites under the shadow of a gallows, it caused money to multiply, but death overtook the daring searcher for mandrake who committed an error in the ritual.  There is nothing new under the sun, and as no small number of the old-time magical effects are renewed under new names, our book may reach some spot where the mandrake has been brought forward by some new schemer, and play its part in deluding the silly.
    History. -- The Mandrake is found throughout the United States, in low, shady situations, rich woods, and fields, and flowers in May and June.  The fruit matures in September and October.  It is scarcer in New England than elsewhere.  The Indians were well acquainted with the virtues of this plant.  The proper time for collecting the root is in the latter part of October or early part of November, soon after the fruit has ripened.  Its active principle is podophyllin, which acts upon the liver in the same manner, but far superior to mercury, and with intelligent physicians it has dethroned that noxious mineral as a cholagogue.
    Properties and Uses. -- Mandrake is cathartic, emetic, alterative, anthelmintic, hydragogue, and sialagogue.  It is an active and certain cathartic.  As a deobstruent it has no superior, acting through and upon all the tissues of the system, and its action continues for a long time.  In bilious and typhoid febrile diseases it is very valuable as an emeto-cathartic, breaking up the disease quickly.  In chronic liver diseases it has no equal in the whole range of medicine.  It can also be used as an alterative.  In constipation it acts upon the bowels without disposing them to subsequent costiveness.  It is also very beneficial in uterine diseases, and its office as a great remedy is extensive. It is one of the ingredients of my "Renovating Pill."  See page 469.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered root, as a cathartic, from ten to thirty grains; of the tincture, from ten to forty drops.

MATICO (PIPER ANGUSTIFOLIUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a tall shrub, presenting a singular appearance from its pointed stem and branches.  The leaves are harsh, short-stalked, oblong-lanceolate, and acuminate.  Flowers hermaphrodite.
    History. -- This plant grows at Huanaco and elsewhere in Peru.  The dried leaves are the parts used, and have a strong fragrant odor, and a warm, aromatic taste.  They contain a dark-green resin, chlorophyll, brown and yellow coloring matter, gum, nitrate of potassa, maticine, a volatile oil, salts, and lignin.  The plant has long been used by the Indians of Peru in venereal diseases, but mostly for diseases of the mucous membranes, over which it has a complete mastery.  Having been employed as a mechanical agent to stanch blood by a soldier, it has received the name of Soldiers' Herb.
    Properties and Uses. -- Matico is an aromatic stimulant.  It is extremely useful to arrest discharges from mucous surfaces, leucorrhoea, gonorrhoea, and catarrh of the bladder.  As a topical agent for stanching blood it is excellent, and is used by surgeons to arrest venous hemorrhage.  For the above affections Matico serves its office well, but its greatest use and efficacy is exhibited in nasal catarrh.  It is an absolute specific for this disease.  I have long employed it -- even before it was admitted in the various pharmacopoeias -- in my special treatment for catarrh, and I have yet to find a case in which it failed.  I use it both internally and topically, and combine it with such other remedial agents as are suggested by the character of each individual case.  Catarrh (see page 262) has long been regarded by the profession as incurable, but in this remedy the incontrovertible sphorism that "every disease has its specific" is still further exemplified, and human progress will ere long complete the analogy, if they but investigate the majestic tree, the lowly shrub, or creeping herb.
 
MECHAMECK (CONVOLVULUS PANDURATUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wild Jalap, Man-in-the-Earth, Man-in-the-Ground, Wild Potato.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This has a perennial, very large tapering root, from which arises several long, round, slender, purplish stems, from four to eight feet high.  The leaves are cordate at base, alternate, and acuminate, and about two or three inches long.  Flowers large and white, opening in the forenoon; fruit an oblong, two-celled capsule.
    History. -- Mechameck belongs to the United States, and grows in light, sandy soils.  It flowers from June to August, but is rarely found in northern latitudes.  The root is the officinal part.  Its best solvent is alcohol or spirits.  Water will extract its active properties.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a cathartic if powdered and taken in doses of from forty to sixty grains.  The infusion, taken in wineglassful doses every hour, is useful in dropsy, strangury, and calculous affections.  It seems to exert an influence over the lungs, liver, and kidneys, without excessive diuresis or catharsis.  The milky juice of the root is said to be a protection against the bite of the rattlesnake.

MEADOW SAFFRON (COLCHICUM AUTUMNALE)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The cormus and seeds.
    Description.--The cormus of this plant is large, ovate, and fleshy.  The leaves are dark-green, very smooth, obtuse, about a foot long, an inch and a half broad, keeled, produced in the spring along with the capsules.  Flowers several, bright-purple, with a white tube appearing in the autumn without the leaves.  Fruit a capsule, seeds whitish and polished.
    History. -- It grows in meadows and low, rich soils in many parts of Europe, and is common in England.  The plant is annual or perennial, according to the manner in which it is propagated.  The root resembles that of the tulip, and contains a white acrid juice.  The bulb should be gathered about the beginning of July, and the seeds early in August.  Colchicia is the active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is sedative, cathartic, diuretic, and emetic.  Used in gout and gouty rheumatism, dropsy, palpitation of the heart; care should be used in its employment.  The tincture is the best form of administration, of which the dose is from twenty to sixty drops.

MONKSHOOD (ACONITUM NAPELLUS)
    COMMON NAME. Wolf's bane.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  Leaves and root.
    Description. -- This plant has a small napiform root, and simple, straight, erect stems, about five feet high.  The leaves are alternate, petioled, dark-green above, paler beneath.  The flowers are large, deep bluish-purple, sometimes white, and hairy; fruit a capsule.
    History. -- This perennial herb is a native of most parts of Europe, growing in wooded hills and plains, and is much cultivated in gardens.  It flowers in May and June.  All parts of the plant contain powerfully poisonous properties; but the root is the part most generally employed for medical purposes.  It yields Aconitina.
    Properties and Uses. -- Although Aconite in the hands of the intelligent physician is of great service, it should not be used in domestic practice.  In improper doses all preparations of aconite act as an energetic acro-narcotic poison.  As a sedative and anodyne, it is useful in all febrile and inflammatory diseases, and, indeed, in all affections in which there is an increase of nervous, vascular, or muscular action.  In acute rheumatism, pneumonia, peritonitis, gastritis, and many other acute disorders, it has been used with the most decided advantage.  Its action is more especially displayed in the highest grades of fever and inflammation.
    Dose. -- The best preparation is the alcoholic extract, formed by evaporating a tincture made of a pound of aconite and a quart of alcohol.  The dose of this is one-eighth of a grain.

MOSS (CORSICAN), (FUCUS HELMINTHICORTON)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole plant.
    Description. -- This marine plant has a cartilaginous, tufted, entangled frond, with branches marked indistinctly with transverse streaks.  The lower part is dirty-yellow, the branches more or less purple.
    History. -- It is found growing on the Mediterranean coast, and especially on the Island of Corsica.  It is cartilaginous in consistence, is of a dull and reddish-brown color, has a bitter, salt, and nauseous taste, but its odor is rather pleasant.  Water dissolves its active principles.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an excellent anthelmintic.  The influence it exercises upon the economy is entirely inappreciable, but it acts very powerfully on intestinal worms.  Dr. Johnson says: "It destroys any worms domiciliating in the bowels as effectually as choke-damps would destroy the life of a miner."  This excellent vermifuge plant is one of the ingredients of my Male Fern Vermifuge, see page 469.
    Dose. -- From ten to sixty grains, mixed with molasses or syrup, or in infusion.
    The FUCUS VESICULOSIS, Sea-wrack, or Bladder Fucus, possesses analogous properties.

MOTHERWORT (LEONURUS CARDIACA)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The tops and leaves.
    Description. -- This perennial plant has stems from two to five feet in height.  The leaves are opposite, dark-green, rough, and downy.  The flowers are purplish or whitish-red; calyx, rigid and bristly; corolla, purplish; anthers in pairs, and fruit an oblong achenium.
    History. -- Motherwort is an exotic plant, but extensively introduced into the United States, growing in fields and pastures, and flowering from May to September.  It has a peculiar, aromatic, not disagreeable odor, and a slightly aromatic bitter taste.  It yields its properties to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is antispasmodic, emmenagogue, nervine, and laxative.  In amenorrhoea from colds it is excellent, if given in warm infusion.  It is very useful in hysteria, nervous complaints, pains peculiar to females, delirium tremens, wakefulness, liver affections, etc., etc.  It is a very valuable remedy for many purposes, and deserves greater attention than it receives.
    Dose. -- Decoction, two to four ounces; extract, three to six grains.

MULLEIN (VERBASCUM THAPSUS)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The leaves and flowers.
    Description. -- This biennial plant has a straight, tall, stout, woolly, simple stem.  The leaves are alternate, oblong, acute, and rough on both sides.  The flowers are of a golden-yellow color; calyx, five-parted; corolla, five-lobed; stamens, five; and fruit, a capsule or pod.
    History. -- Mullein is common in the United States, but was undoubtedly introduced from Europe.  It grows in recent clearings, slovenly fields, and along the side of roads, flowering from June to August.  The leaves and the flowers are the parts used.  They have a faint, rather pleasant odor, and a somewhat bitterish, albuminous taste, and yield their virtues to boiling water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is demulcent, diuretic, anodyne, and antispasmodic, the infusion being useful in coughs, catarrh, bleeding from the mouth or lungs, diarrhoea, dysentery, and piles.  It may be boiled in milk, sweetened, and rendered more palatable by aromatics for internal use, especially bowel complaints.  A fomentation of the leaves in hot vinegar and water forms an excellent local application for inflamed piles, ulcers, and tumors, mumps, acute inflammation of the tonsils, malignant sore throat, etc.  A handful of them may be also placed in an old teapot, with hot water, and the steam be inhaled through the spout, in the same complaints.

MYRRH (BALSAMODENDRON MYRRHA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The resinous exudation.
    Description. -- This plant has a shrubby, arborescent stem, spinescent branchs, a very pale gray bark, and yellowish-white wood.  The leaves are ternate, on short petioles; leaflets, obovate; flowers, unknown.
    History. -- The Myrrh-tree grows in Arabia, and in the regions between Abyssinia and the Red Sea.  The juice flows naturally, like cherry-tree gum, upon the bark.  At first it is soft and pale yellow, but by drying becomes hard, darker and redder, and forms the medicinal Gum Myrrh.  It is readily powdered, and has a peculiar, agreeable, balsamic odor, and a bitter, aromatic, not unpleasant taste.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a stimulant of the mucous tissue, and used to promote expectoration, as well as menstruation; and is highly useful in enfeebled conditions of the body excessive mucous secretion, chronic catarrh, leucorrhoea, etc.  Also in laryngitis, bronchitis, humoral asthma, and other diseases of the air-tubes, accompanied with profuse secretion, but expelled with difficulty.  It is valuable in suppressed menses and cases of anaemia; also as a local application to indolent sores, gangrenous ulcers, aphthous or sloughy sore throat, spongy and ulcerated condition of the gum, caries of the teeth, etc.
    Dose. -- In powder and pill, ten to thirty grains; of the tincture, from half to two teaspoonsuls.

NARROW LEAF VIRGINIA THYME (PYCANTHEMUM VIRGINICUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Prairie Hyssop.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The plant.
    Description. -- This pubescent plant has a simple stem, growing from one to two feet high.  The leaves are sessile, entire, and linear; flowers are white, and fruit an achenium.
    History. -- It is found in low grounds, dry hills, and plains, from Ohio and Illinois extending southward, and flowering in Juy and August.  The whole plant is used, and has the taste and odor peculiar to the mint family.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diaphoretic, stimulant, antispasmodic, carminative, and tonic.  A warm infusion is very useful in puerperal, remittent, and other forms of fever, coughs, colds, catarrhs, etc., and is also of much benefit in spasmodic diseases, especially colic, cramp of the stomach, and spasms of infants.  The cold infusion is a good tonic and stimulant during convalescence from exhausting diseases.  It forms a most certain remedy for catarrh when combined with other native and foreign herbs and roots.
    Dose. -- From one to four fluid ounces of the warm or cold infusion, several times a day.
    The P. Pilosum, P. Aristatum or Wild Basil, and P. Incanum, have similar properties.

NETTLE (URTICA DIOCA)
    COMMON NAME.  Great Stinging Nettle.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and leaves.
    Description. -- This is a perennial, herbaceous, dull-green plant, armed with small prickles, which emit an acrid fluid when pressed.  The stem is from two to four feet high; root creeping and branching.  The leaves are opposite, cordate, lance-ovate, and conspicuously acuminate.  Flowers are small and green.
    History. -- The Common Nettle is well known both in America and in Europe, and grows in waste places, beside hedges and in gardens, flowering from June to September.  The leaves and root are the parts used.  The prickles of the Common Nettle contain Formic Acid.  The young shoots have been boiled and eaten as a remedy for scurvy.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is astringent, tonic, and diuretic.  In decoction they are valuable in diarrhoea, dysentery, and piles; also in hemorrhages, scorbutic and febrile affections, gravel, and other nephritic complaints.  The leaves of the fresh Common Nettle stimulate, inflame, and raise blisters upon those portions of the skin to which they may be applied, and they have, as a natural consequence, often been used as a powerful rubefacient.  They are also an excellent styptic, checking the flow of blood from surfaces almost immediately upon their application.  The seeds and flowers are given in wine for agues.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered root or leaves, from twenty to forty grains; of the decoction from two to four fluid ounces.
    URTICA URENS, or Dwarf Nettle, possesses similar qualities, and is very efficacious in uterine hemorrrhage.
    URTICA PAMILA, Cool-weed, Rich-weed, or Stingless Nettle, has also active properties.  It gives relief in inflammations, painful swellings, erysipelas, and the topical poison of rhus.

NET LEAF PLANTAIN (GOODYERA PUBESCENS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Scrofula-weed, Adder's Violet, Rattle-snake Leaf, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- The scape or stem of this plant is from eight to twelve inches high, springing from a perennial root.  The leaves are radical, ovate, and dark green.  The flowers are white, numerous, and pubescent.
    History. -- This herb grows in varous parts of the United States, in rich woods and under evergreens, and is commoner southward than northward, although there is a variety (Goodyera Repens) which is plentiful in colder regions of America.  It bears yellowish-white flowers in July and August.  The leaves are the parts employed, and yield their virtues to boiling water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is anti-scrofulous, and is known to have cured severe cases of scrofula.  The fresh leaves are steeped in milk and applied to scrofulous ulcers as a poultice, or the bruised leaves may be laid on them, and in either case they must be removed every three hours; at the same time an infusion must be taken as freely as the stomach will allow.  It is also good as a wash in scrofulous ophthalmia.  In my opinion scrofula is one of the most obstinate and many-shaped afflictions to which the human race is subjected, but in the production of this and other native and foreign plants, nature has shown her great charity and kindness towards us.

NIGHTSHADE (GARDEN) (SOLANUM NIGRUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a fetid, narcotic, bushy herb, with a fibrous root, and an erect, branching, thornless stem, one or two feet high.  Leaves are ovate, dentated, smooth, and the margins have the appearance as if gnawed by insects.  Flowers white or pale violet; fruit, a berry.
    History. -- This plant is also called Deadly Nightshade, but is not to be confounded with Belladonna.  It is found growing along old walls, fences, and in gardens, in various parts of the United States, flowering in July and August.   The leaves yield their virtues to water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a narcotic and sedative, producing, when given in large doses, sickness and vertigo. One to three grains of the leaves, infused in water, will produce a copious perspiration and purge on the day following.  They have been freely used in cancer, scurvy, and scrofulous affections, in the form of an ointment.  Very small doses are taken internally.  These should always be prescribed, and their effects watched by a physician.  It is better to use the plant only in the form of an ointment.  The berries are poisonous, and will produce torpor, insensibility, and death.

NORWAY PINE (ABIES EXCELSA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The concrete juice.
    Description. -- This is a large tree, often having a diameter exceeding four feet, and attaining an altitude of one hundred and forty feet.  Leaves are short, scattered, mucronate, dark-green, and glossy above.
    History. -- It is an inhabitant of Germany, Russia, and Norway, and other northern parts of Europe, as well as of Asia.  It affords the Frankincense of commerce, which, when boiled in water and strained, forms the officinal Burgundy Pitch.
    Properties and Uses. -- Burgundy Pitch is generally used externally to produce a redness of the surface, with a slight serous exhalation.  It is employed as a counter-irritant in chronic diseases of the lungs, stomach, intestines, etc., and is regarded with favor as a local application in rheumatic affections.

NUX VOMICA (STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The seeds.
    Description. -- This is a moderate-sized tree, with a short and pretty thick trunk.  The wood is white, hard, and bitter.  The leaves are opposite, oval, and smooth on both sides.  Flowers small, greenish-white, funnel-shaped, and have a disagreeable odor.  The fruit is a berry, round, and about the size of a large apple, enclosing five whitish seeds.
    History. -- It is an inhabitant of Coromandel, Ceylon, and other parts of the East Indies.  The active principles of the seeds are strychnine and brucia.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an energetic poison, exerting its influence chiefly upon the cerebro-spinal system.  It is supposed to affect the spinal cord principally.  It is a favorite medicine for paralysis and nervous debility generally.  If a poisonous dose is given it will produce spasms like tetanus or lock-jaw.  It is tonic, and increases the action of various excretory organs.  Where want of nervous energy exists it is an admirable remedy.  Its range of service is quite extensive, and valuable for many indications; but as great caution is required in its administration, it should only be employed by the educated physician.

OAK -- WHITE, RED, AND BLACK (QUERCUS ALBA, RUBRA, AND TINCTORIA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark.
    Description. -- These forest-trees vary in size, according to the climate and soil.  In diameter they are from three to six feet; in height, from sixty to a hundred feet.  They are too well-known to require any botanical description.
    History. -- Quercus is a very extensive and valuable genus, consisting of many species, a large proportion of which grow in the United States.  Their usual character is that of astringent, and the three above described are those which have been more partticularly employed in medicine.  The bark of the tree is the portion used.  White Oak bark is the one chiefly used in medicine.  It is of a pale brownish color, faintly odorous, very astringent, with a slight bitterness, tough, breaking with a stringy or fibrous fracture, and not readily powdered.  It contains a very large proportion of tannic acid.  Black oak bark is also used as an astringent externally, but is rarely employed internally, as it is liable to derange the bowels.  It is also used in tanning and for dyeing.  Red oak bark also contains considerable tannin, and is chiefly applied externally in the treatment of cancers, indolent ulcers, etc.
    Properties and Uses. -- The bark is slightly tonic, powerfully astringent, and antiseptic.  It is useful internally in chronic diarrhoea, chronic mucous discharges, passive hemorrhages, and wherever an internal astringent is required.  In colliquative sweats the decoction is usually combined with lime-water.  The gargle and injection are extensively used for sore throat, whites, piles, etc.  A bath of the decoction is often advantageous in cutaneous diseases, but should only be used when ordered by a physician.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, one or two fluid ounces; of the extract, from five to twenty grains.

OLD MAN'S BEARD (CHIONANTHUS VIRGINICA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Fringe Tree, Poison Ash.
    MEDICINAL PART.  Bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is a shrub or small tree, growing from eight to twenty-five feet high.  The leaves are opposite, oval, oblong, veiny, and smooth; flowers are in dense panicles; calyx very small; corolla snow-white, consisting of four petals; and fruit a fleshy, oval, purple drupe.
    History. -- This plant is very ornamental, and is much cultivated in gardens, from Pennsylvania to Tennessee.  It grows on river-banks and on elevated places, presenting clusters of snow-white flowers in May and June.  The bark of the root, which imparts its properties to water or alcohol, is the part used.
    Properties and Uses. -- The bark is aperient, alterative, and diuretic, with some narcotic properties.  An infusion is recommended for bilious, typhoid, and intermittent fevers.  To convalescents who are suffering from the effects of exhaustive diseases it is an excellent tonic and restorative.  It can be used to advantage as a poultice for ulcers, wounds, and external inflammations.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion, from the half a fluid ounce to two fluid ounces, repeated several times through the day, according to the influence it exerts upon the system.

OLD FIELD BALSAM (GNAPHALIUM POLYCEPHALUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Indian Posy, Sweet-scented Life Everlasting, White Balsam, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This indigenous herbaceous annual has an erect, whitish, woolly, and much branched stem, one or two feet high.  The leaves are alternate; sessile, lanceolate, acute, and entire; flowers tubular and yellow.
    History. -- Old Field Balsam is found in Canada and various parts of the United States, growing in old fields and on dry barren lands, flowering in July and August.  The leaves have a pleasant, aromatic smell, and are the parts used.  They readily yield their properties to water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an astringent.  Ulcerations of the mouth and throat are relieved by chewing the leaves and blossoms.  In fevers a warm infusion is found to be very serviceable; also in quinsy, and pulmonary and tronchial complaints.  It is also valuable, in infusion, for diseases of the bowels and hemorrhages; and the leaves, applied to bruises, indolent tumors, and other local affections, are very efficacious.
    ANTEMARIA MARGARITACEA, or Pearl-flowered Life Everlasting, a perennial, possesses similar medicinal qualities.

OPIUM (PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Poppy.
    MEDICINAL PART.  Concrete juice of unripe capsule.
    Description. -- An annual herb, with an erect, round, green, smooth stem, from two to four feet high.  Leaves large, oblong, green; margins wavy, incised, and toothed; teeth sometimes tipped with a rigid hair.  Flowers large, calyx smooth, and the fruit a large, smooth, globose capsule.  There are two varieties, the black and white.
    History. -- A native of Asia and Egypt.  It grows apparently wild in some parts of Europe and in England, but has escaped the gardens.  Cultivated in Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and India, for the opium obtained from it.  The white variety is cultivated on the plains of India, and the black in the Himalayas.  Its virtues have been known to the ancients; for Homer speaks of the poppy growing in gardens.  Poppy capsules contain a small quantity of the principles found in opium, and the effect is similar, but much weaker than it possesses.  They are used medicinally; but opium is almost universally used.
    Properties and Uses. -- Opium is a narcotic and stimulant, acting under various circumstances as a sedative, antispasmodic, febrifuge, and diaphoretic.  It is anodyne, and extensively used for that purpose.  It contains many active principles, morphia and codeia being, however, the most important.  There is no herbal medicine more extensively used, as well as abused, than Opium, and though a valuable remedy, its indiscrimate use is pernicious, as it is capable of doing great harm.  Laudanum and paregoric are the forms mostly used in domestic practice, but the "soothing syrups" and "carminatives" found in every nursery and household all contain Opium in some form, and work a great deal of mischief.
    Dose. -- Opium, one grain; laudanum, twenty drops; paregoric, a teaspoonful.

PAPOOSE ROOT (CAULOPHYLLUM THALICTROIDES)
    COMMON NAMES.  Blue Cohosh, Squaw Root, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a smooth, glaucous plant, purple when young, with a high, round stem, one to three feet high.  Leaves biternate or triternate, leaflets oval, petiolate, pale beneath, and from two to three inches long.  The flowers appear in May or June.
    History. -- It is a handsome perennial plant, growing in all parts of the United States, near running streams, and in low, moist, rich grounds; also in swamps and on islands.  The seeds, which ripen in August, make a decoction which closely resembles coffee.  The berries are dry and rather mawkish.  Its active principle is Caulophyllin.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is principally used as an emmenagogue, parturient, and antispasmodic.  It also possesses diuretic, diaphoretic, and anthelmintic properties.  It is employed in rheumatism, colic, cramps, hiccough, epilepsy, hysteria, uterine inflammation, etc.  It is a valuable remedy in all chronic uterine diseases, but should be given in combination with such other remedies as the case requires.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, from two to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.

PAREIRA BRAVA (CISSAMPELOS PARETRA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Velvet Leaf, Ice Vine.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant is a shrub, with a round woody root and smooth stems.  Leaves roundish, peltate, subcordate, and smooth above when full grown.  Flowers small, and the fruit a scarlet, round, reniform, shrivelled berry.
    History. -- This is a native of the West India Islands and the Spanish Main.  It is sometimes imported under the name of abuta or butna root.  It comes in cylindrical pieces, sometimes flattened, and some as thick as a child's arm, and a foot or more in length.  The alkaloid obtained from it has been called Cissampelin, or Pelosin.
    Properties and Uses. -- Tonic, diuretic, and aperient.  Used in chronic inflammation of the bladder, and various disorders of the urinary organs.  It is also serviceable in leucorrhoea and gonorrhoea.  It is highly beneficial in calculous affections, rheumatism, and jaundice.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion, one to four ounces; extract, ten to twenty grains.

PARSLEY (PETROSELINUM SATIVUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This biennial plant has a fleshy, spindle-shaped root, and an erect, smooth, branching stem.  The radical leaves are biternate, bright green, and on long petioles; leaflets wedge-shaped.  Flowers white or greenish, and petals rounded and barely emarginate.
    History. -- Although Parsley is reared in all parts of the civilized world as a culinary vegetable, it is a native of Europe.  The root is the officinal part.  From the seeds French chemists have succeeded in obtaining an essential oil, named Apiol, which has proved to be a good substitute for quinia in intermittent fevers, and for ergot as a parturient.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diuretic, and very excellent in dropsy, especially that following scarlatina and other exanthematous diseases.  It is also frequently used to remedy retention of urine, strangury, and gonorrhoea.  The seeds are sometimes used as carminatives.  They kill vermin in the head.  The leaves, bruised, are a good application for contusions, swelled breasts, and enlarged glands.  The bruised leaves applied to the breasts are used by wet-nurses to "dry up" the milk.
    Dose. -- Of the oil, for diuretic purposes, three or four drops a day; of the infusion, two to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.

PARTRIDGE BERRY (MITCHELLA REPENS)
    COMMON NAMES.  One Berry, Checkerberry, Winter Clover, Deerberry, Squaw-vine, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The vine.
    Description. -- This indigenous evergreen herb has a perennial root, from which arises a smooth and creeping stem.  The leaves are ovate, slightly cordate, opposite, flat and dark-green; flowers are white, often tinged with red, in pairs, very fragrant, and have united ovaries.  Calyx four-parted; corolla funnel-shaped; stamens four, inserted on the corolla.  The fruit is a dry berry-like double drupe.
    History. -- Partridge Berry is indigenous to the United States.  It grows both in dry woods and swampy places, and flowers in June and July.  The berry is bright scarlet and edible, but nearly tasteless.  The leaves, which look something like clover, remain green throughout the winter.  The whole plant is used, readily imparting its virtues to alcohol or boiling water.
    Properties and Uses. -- Partridge Berry is parturient (producing or promoting child-birth, or labor), diuretic, and astringent.  In all uterine diseases it is highly beneficial.  The Indian women use it for weeks before confinement, in order to render parturition safe and easy.  Ladies who wish to use it for that purpose, however, should consult an herbal physician of experience for a proper, safe, and effectual preparation.  The remedy is exclusively American, not being used, or even noticed, by European practitioners.
    Dose. -- Of a strong decoction, from two to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.  The berries are good for dysentery.  They are also highly spoken of as a cure for sore nipples.  The application for the nipples is made by boiling a strong decoction of the leaves down to a thick liquid, and then adding cream to it.  It is not, however, equal to the Herbal Ointment, for an account of which see page 469.

PENNYROYAL (HEDEOMA PULEGIOIDES)
    COMMON NAMES.  Tickweed, Squawmint, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This is an indigenous annual plant, with a fibrous, yellowish root, and an erect, branching stem, from six to twelve inches high.  The leaves are half an inch or more long, opposite, oblong, and on short petioles; floral leaves similar.  The flowers are quite small and light-blue in color.
    History. -- This plant should not be confounded with the Mentha pulegioides, or European Pennyroyal.  It grows in barren woods and dry fields, and particularly in limestone countries, flowering from June to September and October, rendering the air fragrant to some distance around it.  It is common to nearly all parts of the United States.  It is said to be very obnoxious to fleas.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is stimulant, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, and carminative.  The warm infusion, used freely, will promote perspiration, restore suppressed lochia or after-flow, and excite the menstrual discharge when recently checked.  It is very much used by females for this last purpose -- a large draught being taken at bedtime, the feet being previously bathed in hot water.

PEONY (PAEONIA OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Peony has many thick, long-spreading, perennial roots, running deep into the ground, with an erect, herbaceous, large, green, and branching stem, about two or three feet high.  The leaves are large; leaflets ovate-lanceolate and smooth.  The flowers are large, red, and solitary; and fruit a many-seeded, fleshy follicle.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to Southern Europe, and is cultivated in gardens in the United States and elsewhere, on account of the elegance of its large flowers, which appear from May to August.  The root is the officinal part.  This, with the seeds and flowers, yields its virtues to diluted spirits
    Properties and Uses. -- It is antispasmodic and tonic, and can be advantageously employed in chorea, epilepsy, spasms, and various nervous affections.  An infusion of value is made by adding an ounce of the root, in coarse powder, to a pint of a boiling liquid, composed of one part of good gin and two parts of water.
    Dose. -- Two or three fluid ounces (sweetened), three or four times a day.

PERUVIAN BALSAM (MYROSPERMUM PERUIFERUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The balsamic exudation.
    Description. -- The tree from which this is procured is large, with a thick, straight, smooth trunk, and a coarse, gray, compact, heavy, granulated bark.  The bark is of a pale straw color, filled with resin, which, according to its quantity, changes the color to citron, yellow, red, or dark chestnut; smell and taste grateful, balsamic, and aromatic.  The leaves are pinnate; leaflets alternate, oblong or ovate, acuminate, and emarginate.  The flowers are in axillary racemes, and the fruit is a pendulous, straw-colored samara.
    History. -- The tree is common to the forests of Peru, and flowers from July to October.  The natives call it Quinquino.  It contains a large amount of balsamic juice, which yields copiously when the bark is incised.  Balsam of Peru, in thin layers, has a dark, reddish-brown color; in bulk it is black, or of the color of molasses.  The natives steep the fruit in rum, call the liquid balsamito, and use it largely for medical purposes.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is expectorant and stimulant, acting especially on mucous tissues.  Its reparative action on the lungs in consumption is decided, removing the secretions, healing the ulcers, and expelling the tuberculous matter.  In all chronic diseases of the lungs and bronchial tubes it is without a superior.  Externally it can be applied to old ulcers, wounds, ringworm, etc.
    This valuable remedy is one of the ingredients of my "Acacian Balsam," wherein it is properly combined with many other valuable associates.

PINKROOT (SPIGELIA MARILANDICA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Carolina Pink or Worm Grass.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This herbaceous, indigenous plant has a perennial, very fibrous, yellow root, which sends up several erect, smooth stems of purplish color, from six to twenty inches high.  The leaves are opposite, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, acute, or acuminate, entire, and smooth.  Flowers few in number and club-shaped.  Fruit a double capsule.
    History. -- It inhabits the Southern States, and is seldom found north of the Potomac.  It was used by the Indians as an anthelmintic before the discovery of America, and was formerly collected for the market by the Creeks and Cherokees in the northern part of Georgia, but since their removal the supply comes from the far Southwest.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an active and certain vermifuge, especially among children.  Given alone it is very apt to produce various unpleasant symptoms, increased action of the heart, dizziness, etc.  I extract from the root a resinous principle, to which I have given the name of Spigeliin, which has all of the virtues of the root, but does not produce any derangement.  I employ the Spigeliin in my "Male Fern Vermifuge."  See page 469.
 
PIPSISSEWA (CHIMPHILA UMBELLATA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wintergreen, Prince's Pine, Ground Holly, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole plant.
    Description. -- This is a small evergeen, nearly herbaceous, perennial herb, with a creeping rhizome, from which spring several erect stems, woody at their base, and from four to eight inches high.  The leaves are from two to three inches long, on short petioles, and of dark- green color, paler below.  The flowers are of light-purple color and exhale a fragrant odor.  The pollen is white, and the fruit is an erect five-celled capsule.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to the north temperate regions of both hemispheres, and is met with in dry, shady woods, flowering from May to August.  The leaves have no odor when dried, but when fresh and rubbed they are rather fragrant.  Boiling water or alcohol extracts their virtues.  They contain resin, gum, lignin, and saline substances.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diuretic, tonic, alterative, and astringent. It is especially useful in scrofula and chronic rheumatism.  In diseases of the kidneys and dropsy it exerts a decided curative power.  In urinary diseases it is preferable to uva ursi, on account of being less obnoxious to the stomach.  In dropsy it cannot be so well depended upon without the use of some more active measures in combination with it.

PLEURISY ROOT (ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Butterfly-weed, Wind-root, Tuber-root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial, large, fleshy, white, fusiform root, from which numerous stems arise, growing from one to three feet high, which are more or less erect, round, hairy, green or red, and growing in bunches from the root.  The leaves are alternate, lanceolate, hairy, dark green above, and paler beneath.  The flowers are numerous, erect, and of a beautifully bright orange color.  The fruit is a long, narrow, green follicle.  Seeds are ovate, and terminate in long silken hairs.
    History. -- It is a native of the United States, more particularly of the Southern States, inhabiting gravelly and sandy soils, and flowering in July and August.  The root is the medicinal part.  When fresh it has a disagreeable, slightly acrimonious taste, but when dried the taste is slightly bitter.  Boiling water extracts its virtues.  Asclepin is the active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- Pleurisy Root is much used in decoction or infusion, for the purpose of promoting perspiration and expectoration in diseases of the respiratory organs, especially pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, catarrhal affections, consumption, etc.  It is likewise carminative, tonic, diuretic, and antispasmodic, but does not stimulate.  Acute rheumatism, fever, dysentery, etc., are benefited by a free use of the warm infusion.  It is also highly efficacious in some cases of dyspepsia.  In uterine difficulties it has also been found of great value.  Its chief use, however, is in bronchial and pulmonary complaints, and it serves its indications in these complaints most admirably.  It is one of the ingredients of my Acacian Balsam.  See page 469.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, twenty to sixty grains, three or four times a day.  Of a strong tincture, one or two wineglasses full four or five times a day, until perspiration is produced.

POKE (PHYTOLACCA DECANDRA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Pigeon-berry, Garget, Scoke, Coakum, etc.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root, leaves, and berries.
    Description. -- This indigenous plant has a perennial root of large size, frequently exceeding a man's leg in diameter, fleshy, fibrous, easily cut or broken, and covered with a thin brownish bark.  The stems are annual, about an inch in diameter, round, smooth, when young green, and grow from five to nine feet in height.  The leaves are scattered, petiolate, smooth on both sides, and about five inches long and three broad.  The flowers are numerous, small, and greenish-white in color; and the berries are round, dark purple, and in long clusters.
    History. -- This plant is common in many parts of the country, growing in dry fields, hillsides, and roadsides, and flowering in July and August.  It is also found in Europe and northern parts of Africa.  The leaves should be gathered just previous to the ripening of the berries.  The berries are collected when fully matured.  Phytolaccin is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- Poke is emetic, cathartic, alterative, and slightly narcotic.  The root excites the whole glandular system, and is very useful in syphilitic, scrofulous, rheumatic, and cutaneous diseases.  It is an excellent remedy for the removal of mercurio syphilitic affections.  Very few, if any, of the alteratives have superior power to Poke, if it is properly gathered and prepared for medicinal use.  It is an ingredient in my "Blood Purifier," which will be found fully described on page 469.

POMEGRANATE (PUNICA GRANATUM)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The rind of the fruit, and bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is a small tree or shrub.  The leaves are opposite, entire, smooth, and two or three inches long.  The flowers are large, red, two or three, and nearly sessile.  Calyx five-cleft, corolla consists of five much crumpled petals.  The fruit is a large pericarp, quite pleasant in flavor, and quite watery.
    History. -- The Pomegranate is Asiatic, but has been naturalized in the West Indies and the Soutern States.
    Properties and Uses. -- The flowers and rind of the fruit are astringent, and are used for the arrest of mucous discharges, hemorrhages, night sweats, and diarrhoea accompanying consumption.  They are also very good for intermittent fever and tape-worm.  The bark of the root is used as a specific for tape-worm, but its chief virtues are healing and balsamic, if taken for ulcerations of the lungs.
    Dose. -- The dose of the rind or flowers in powder is from one to two scruples, and in decoction from one to three fluid ounces.

PRICKLY ASH (XANTHOXYLUM FRAXINEUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Yellow-wood, Toothache-bush, etc.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The bark and berries.
    Description. -- This indigenous shrub has a stem ten or twelve feet high, with alternate branches, which are armed with strong conical prickles.  The leaves are alternate and pinnate, leaflets ovate and acute.  The flowers are small, greenish, and appear before the leaves.  The fruit is an oval capsule, varying from green to red in color.
    History. -- It is a native of North America, growing from Canada to Virginia, and west to the Mississippi, in woods, thickets, and on river banks, and flowering in April and May.  The medicinal parts render their virtues to water and alcohol.  Xanthoxyline is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- Prickly Ash is stimulant, tonic, alterative, and sialagogue.  It is used as a stimulant in languid states of the system, and as a sialagogue in paralysis of the tongue and mouth.  It is highly beneficial in chronic rheumatism, colic, syphilis, hepatic derangements, and wherever a stimulating alterative is required.  Dose of the powder, from ten to thirty grains, three times a day.  The berries are stimulant, carminative, and antispasmodic, acting especially on the mucous tissues.
    The Aralia Spinosa, or Southern Prickly Ash, differs from Xanthoxylum, both in botanical character and medicinal virtues.

PRIVET (LIGUSTRUM VULGARE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Privy, Prim, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This is a smooth shrub, growing five or six feet high.  The leaves are dark-green, one or two inches in length, about half as wide, entire, smooth, lanceolate, and on short petioles.  The flowers wide, entire, smooth, lanceolate, and on short petioles.  The flowers are small, white, and numerous, and fruit a spherical black berry.  In England the Privet is carried up with many slender branches to a reasonable height and breadth, to cover arbors, bowers, and banqueting houses, and brought or wrought into many fantastic forms, as birds, men, horses.
    History. -- It is supposed to have been introduced into America from England, but it is indigenous to Missouri, and found growing in wild woods and thickets from New England to Virginia and Ohio.  It is also cultivated in American gardens.  The leaves are used for medicinal purposes.  They have but little odor, and an agreeable bitterish and astringent taste.  They yield their virtues to water or alcohol.  The berries are reputed cathartic, and the bark is said to be as effectual as the leaves, as it contains sugar, mannite, starch, bitter resin, bitter extractive, albumen, salts, and a peculiar substance called Ligustrin.
    Properties and Uses. -- The leaves are astringent:  A decoction of them is valuable in chronic bowel complaints; ulcerations of stomach and bowels, or as a gargle for ulcers of mouth and throat.  It is also good as an injection for ulcerated ears with offensive discharges, leucorrhoea, etc.  This ingredient I use in a wash for leucorrhoea, which never fails to cure.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered leaves thirty to sixty grains, three times a day; of the decoction two to four teacupfuls.

QUASSIA (PICRAENIA EXCELSA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Bitter-wood, Bitter-ash.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The wood.
    Description. -- This is a tree growing from fifty to one hundred feet high, with an erect stem, three or more feet in diameter at the stem.  The bark is grayish and smooth.  The leaves are alternate, unequally pinnate; leaflets opposite, oblong, acuminate, and unequal at the base.  Flowers are small, pale or yellowish-green.  Fruit three drupes, about the size of a pea.  The Quassia Amara, or bitter quassia, is a shrub, or moderately-sized branching tree, having a grayish bark.
    History. -- Quassia Amara inhabits Surinam, Guiana, Colombia, Panama, and the West India Islands.  It flowers in November and December.  The bark, wood, and root, which are intensely bitter, are used to the greatest advantage in malignant fevers.  For the medicinal parts of this tree, as they seldom reach England or America, we get as a substitute the Picroena Excelsa of Jamaica and other neighboring islands, which flowers in October and November, and in the two succeeding months matures its fruit.
    Properties and Uses. -- Quassia is tonic, febrifuge, and anthelmintic. Cups made of the wood have been used for many years by persons requiring a powerful tonic.  Any liquid standing in one of these vessels a few moments will become thoroughly impregnated by its peculiar medicinal qualities.  Wherever a bitter tonic is required, Quassia is an excellent remedy.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, thirty grains; of the infusion, from one to three fluid ounces; of the tincture, one or two fluid drachms, and of the extract, from two to ten grains.

QUEEN OF THE MEADOW (EUPATORIUM PURPUREUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Gravel-root, Joe-pie, Trumpet-weed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a herbaceous plant, with a perennial, woody root, with many long dark-brown fibres, sending up one or more solid green, sometimes purplish, stems, five or six feet in height.  The leaves are oblong-ovate or lanceolate, coarsely serrate, and from three to six in a whorl.  The flowers are tubular, purple, often varying to whitish.
    History. -- Queen of the Meadow grows in low places, dry woods or meadows, in the Northern, Western, and Middle States of the American Union, and flowers in August and September.  The root is the officinal part.  It has a smell resembling old hay, and a slightly bitter, aromatic taste, which is faintly astringent but not unpleasant.  It yields its properties to water by decoction or spirits.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diuretic, stimulant, astringent, and tonic.  It is used in all chronic urinary disorders, as well as in hematuria, gout, and rheumatism, with moderate good effect.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, from two to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.

RAGGED CUP (SILPHIUM PERFOLIATUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Indian Cup-plant.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial, horizontal, pitted rhizome, and a large smooth herbaceous stem, from four to seven feet high.  The leaves are opposite, ovate, from eight to fourteen inches long by four to seven wide.  The flowers are yellowish, and the fruit a broadly ovate winged achenium.
    History. -- This plant is common to the Western States, and is found growing in rich bottoms, bearing numerous yellow flowers, which are perfected in August.  It has a large, long, and crooked root, which is the part used medicinally, and which readily imparts its properties to alcohol or water.  It will yield a bitterish gum, somewhat similar to frankincense, which is frequently used to sweeten the breath.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, diaphoretic, and alterative.  A strong infusion of the root, made by long steeping, or an extract, is said to be one of the best remedies for the removal of ague-cake, or enlarged spleen.  It is also useful in intermittent and remittent fevers, internal bruises, debility, ulcers, liver affections, and as a general alterative restorative.  The gum is said to be stimulant and antispasmodic.  The spleen is an organ whose functions the very best of the old-school physicians cannot define; but that it is the seat of very many most distressing diseases is a fact which not one of them will pretend to deny.  It is, as nearly as can be ascertained by the most laborious research, a dependent of the liver and stomach, and what deranges it deranges both the stomach and the liver.
    SILPHIUM GUMMIFERUM, or Rosin-weed, and SILPHIUM LACINIATUM, or Compass-weed, are used in intermittent fever, and are beneficial in dry, obstinate coughs.  They often cure the heaves in horses.

RATTLE BUSH (BAPTISIA TINCTORIA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wild Indigo, Horsefly Weed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root and leaves.
    Description. -- The blackish and wood root of this perennial plant sends up a stem which is very much branched, round, smooth, and from two to three feet high.  The leaves are small and alternate, leaflets rounded at their extremity; calyx four-cleft, and fruit a short, bluish-black legume.
    History. -- This small shrub grows in dry places in many parts of the United States, and bears bright yellow flowers in July and August.  The fruit is of a bluish-black color in the form of an oblong pod, and contains indigo, tannin, an acid, and baptisin.  Any portion of the plant, when dried, yields a blue dye, which is, however, not equal in value to indigo.  If the shoots are used after they acquire a green color they will cause drastic purgation.  Alcohol or water will take up the active properties of this plant.  Medicinally, both the root and the leaves are valuable, and deserve to be better known than they are at present as remedial agents.  The virtues of the root reside chiefly in the bark.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is purgative, emetic, astringent, and antiseptic.  For its antiseptic qualities or properties it is more highly esteemed than for any other.  A decoction of the bark of the root is efficacious in the cure of all kinds of external sores and ulcerations.  It is used in decoction or syrup, for scarlatina, typhus, and all cases where there is a tendency to putrescency.  As a fomentation it is very useful in ulcers, tumors, sore nipples, etc., and may be so used if you cannot get a superior remedy, as the Herbal Ointment.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, one tablespoonful every two or four hours, as required.  The decoction is made by boiling one ounce of the powdered bark in two pints of water until they are reduced to one pint.

RED RASPBERRY (RUBUS STRIGOSUS)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The bark of the root, and leaves.
    Description. -- This is a shrubby, strongly hispid plant, about four feet high. Leaves, pinnate; leaflets, oblong-ovate.  Flowers, white; corolla, cup-shaped; and fruit, a red berry, of a rich delicious flavor.
    History. -- The Red Raspberry grows wild, and is common to Canada and the Northern and Middle United States.  It grows in hedges and thickets, and rupon neglected fields.  It flowers in May, and its fruit ripens, from June to August.  The leaves and bark of the root are the parts used medicinally.  They impart their properties to water, giving to the infusion an odor and flavor somewhat similar to black tea.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is very useful as an astringent.  An infusion or decoction of the leaves has been found an excellent remedy in diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera infantum, and all diseases of a kindred nature.  It is somewhat freely used as a wash and injection for leucorrhoea, gleet, gonorrhoea, and prolapsus uteri and ani.  The decoction of the leaves combined with cream will suppress nausea and vomiting.  It is sometimes used as an aid in labor, and has been efficacious in promoting uterine contractions when ergot has failed.  This plant is one of the ingredients of my prepared remedy for the above diseases.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, from one to four fluid ounces, several times a day.  Of the pulverized root bark, which is sometimes used, from twenty to thirty grains.
    The Rubus Trivialis, or Dewberry, and Rubus Villosus, or Blackberry, contain similar medical qualities, and may be used instead.

RED ROOT (CEANOTHUS AMERICANUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  New Jersey Tea, Wild Snow-ball.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- The root of this plant has a large root with a red or brownish bark, tolerably thick, and body of dark-red color.  The stems are from two to four feet high, slender, with many reddish, round, smooth branches.  The leaves are ovate or oblong-ovate, serrate, acuminate, rather smooth above, and cordate at the base.  The flowers are minute and white, and fruit a dry capsule.
    History. -- This plant is very abundant in the United States, especially in the western portions thereof.  It grows in dry woodlands, bowers, etc., and flowers from June to August.  The leaves are sometimes used as a substitute for Chinese tea, which, when dried, they much resemble.  The root, which is officinal, contains a large amount of Pruseic acid.  Ceanothine is the name that has been given to its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- Red Root is astringent, expectorant, sedative, anti-spasmodic, and anti-syphilitic.  It is used with great good effect in dysentery, asthma, chronic bronchitis, whooping-cough, and consumption.  It is also successfully used as a gargle in aphthae of children, sore mouth subsequent to fevers, and sore throats.
    Dose. -- Of decoction, one tablespoonful three times a day.

RHATANY (KRAMERIA TRIANDRIA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- The root of this plant is horizontal, very long, with a thick bark.  The stem is round and procumbent, branches two or three feet long; when young, white and silky; when old, dark and naked.  The leaves are alternate, sessile, oblong and obovate, hoary and entire.  The flowers are red on short stalks.  Calyx has four sepals, and corolla four petals.  The fruit is a dry, hairy drupe.
    History. -- Rhatany flowers all the year round, and grows upon the sandy, dry, and gravelly hills of Peru.  The root is the officinal part, and is dug up in large quantities after the rains.  It was made officinal in 1780 by Ruiz, but long before that the natives had used it as a strong astringent for various diseases, afflictions, maladies, and complaints.  In Portugal, to which the Peruvians send the bulk of the roots gathered, it is used to adulterate red wines.  The best method of extracting the medicinal qualities of the root, is to put it powdered in a displacer and pass water through.  This will bring a brick-red aqueous solution, which will embrace all the medicinal virtues.  There is a false Rhatany, the source of which is unknown.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a powerful astringent, and slightly tonic.  It is beneficial wherever powerful astringents are required, and may be used to advantage, if properly prepared, for all diseases which call for the application of a decided astringent.

RHEUMATISM ROOT (JEFFERSONIA DIPHYLLA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Twin-leaf, Ground-Squirrel Pea.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant is perennial, and has a horizontal rhizoma or fleshy root, with matted fibrous radicles.  The stem is simple, naked, one-flowered, and from eight to fourteen inches in height.  The leaves are in pairs, broader than long, ending in an obtuse point, smooth and petioled; flowers, large and white; and fruit an obovate capsule.
    History. -- This plant is found from New York to Maryland and Virginia, and in many parts of the Western States.  It grows chiefly in limestone soil, but also is found in woods and near rivers, irrespective of limestone, and flowers in April and May.  The root is the part used, and its virtues are extracted by water or alcohol.  A chemical analysis of this plant showed it to contain tannic acid, gum, starch, pectin, fatty resin, bitter matter, similar to polygalic acid, carbonate and sulphate of potassa, lime, iron, magnesia, silica, etc.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diuretic, alterative, antispasmodic, and a stimulating diaphoretic.  It is successfully used in chronic rheumatism, secondary or mercurio-syphilia, dropsy, in many nervous affections, spasms, cramps, nervous excitability, etc.  As a gargle it is useful in diseases of the throat.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, from two to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.  Of the saturated tincture, from one to three fluid drachms, three times a day.

RHUBARY (RHEUM PALMATUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- The scientific world happens to be in much argument as to the exact plant or plants from which Rhubarb is produced.  It is, however, well known to all instructed herbablists the Rhubarb is the root of a Rheum, and that the plant from which the drug of the shops is obtained chiefly inhabits Chinese Tartary, and grows wild on the mountains and highlands of that section of the globe.  That the truth of its botanical identity is not elicited is owing to a severe prohibition of the Chinese government.  Every sacrifice to obtain the true plant or the seed has been in vain.
    History. -- There are several varieties met with in commerce termed the Russian, Chinese, English, and French Rhubarb, among which the Russian is considered the best.  The names are given, not that they are produced in indicated countries, but of the channels by which they are thrown upon the market.  Rhubarb has a peculiar aromatic odor, bitter, faintly astringent taste, and when chewed tinges the saliva yellow.  It contains oxalate of lime in abundance.
    Properties and Uses. -- Of the powder, as a purgative, from ten to thirty grains.  As a laxative, from five to ten grains.  As a tonic, from one to five grains.  Of the tincture or syrup, one to two fluid drachms.

ROSEMARY (ROSMARINUS OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.   The tops.
    Description. -- Rosemary is an erect, perennial, evergreen shrub, two to four feet high, with numerous branches of an ash color, and densely leafy.  The leaves are sessile, opposite, and linear, over an inch in length, dark green and shining above, and downy.  The flowers are few, bright blue or white.  Calyx purplish.
    History. -- Rosemary is a native of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, and is cultivated in nearly every garden for its fragrance and beauty.  It flowers in April and May.  The parts used in medicine are the flowering tops.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is stimulant, antispasmodic, and emmenagogue.  The oil is principally employed as a perfume for ointments, liniments, and embrocations.
    Dose. -- Of the oil, internally, from three to six drops.

PYROLA (ROUND-LEAVED) (PYROLA ROTUNDIFOLIA)
    COMMON NAMES.  False Wintergreen, Shin-leaf, Canker-Lettuce, Pear-leaf Wintergreen, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- This is a low, perennial, evergreen herb.  The leaves are radical, ovate, nearly two inches in diameter, smooth, shining, and thick.  The petioles are much longer than the leaf.  The flowers are many, large, fragrant, white, and drooping.  The fruit is a five-celled, many-seeded capsule.
    History. -- This plant is common in damp and shady woods in various parts of the United States, flowering in June and July.  The whole plant is used, and imparts its medicinal properties to water.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is astringent, diuretic, tonic, and antispasmodic.  The decoction is much used in all skin diseases, and is good to eradicate a scrofulous taint from the system.  It is used in injection for whites and various diseases of the womb.  The herb is applied with profit as a poultice to ulcers, swellings, boils, felons, and inflammations.  The decoction will be found beneficial as a gargle for sore throat and mouth, and as a wash for sore or ophthalmic eyes.  Administer it internally for gravel, ulceration of the bladder, bloody urine, and other urinary diseases; also, for epilepsy and other nervous affections.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, one fluid ounce, three times a day; of the extract, two to four grains.

SAFFRON (DYERS) (CARTHAMUS TINCTORIUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Safflower, Bastard Saffron.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The flowers.
    Description. -- This annual plant has a smooth, striate stem, from one to two feet high, and branching at the top.  The leaves are alternate, ovate-lanceolate, sessile, smooth, and shining.  The flowers are numerous, long, slender, and orange-colored.  Corolla five-cleft.
    History. -- This plant is cultivated in England and America, although it is a native of Egypt and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean.  The orange-red florets are the officinal parts.  The cultivated Safflower is usually sold in the shops, and contains two coloring matters: the first of which is yellow and soluble in water; the second a beautiful red, and readily soluble in alkaline solutions only.
    Properties and Uses. -- It will restore the menstrual discharge when the latter has been recently suppressed by cold, if used in warm infusion.  It will also, when taken in the same form, produce an action of the bowels.  In measles, scarlet fever, and other eruptive maladies, it is also considered an excellent diaphoretic.  The seeds are sometimes used as purgative and emmenagogue, but, in my opinion, are of no great value.  The infusion is made by boiling a drachm or two of the flowers in water, and may be taken tolerably freely.
 
SAGE (SALVIA OFFICINALIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Garden Sage.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- Sage is a plant with a pubescent stem, erect branches, hoary with down, leafy at the base, about a foot or foot and a half long.  The leaves are opposite, entire petioled, ovate-lanceolate, the lowermost white, with wool beneath.  The flowers are blue and in whorls.
    History. -- Sage is a native of Southern Europe, and has been naturalized for very many years in this country as a garden plant.  The leaves and tops should be carefully gathered and dried during its flowering season, which is in June and July.  They have a peculiar, strong, aromatic, camphorous odor, and a sharp, warm, slightly bitter taste, which properties are owing to its volatile oil, which may be obtained by distilling the plant with water.  It imparts its virtues to boiling water in infusion, but more especially to alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is feebly tonic, and astringent, expectorant, diaphoretic, and having properties common to aromatics.  The infusion is much valued in cases of gastric debility, checking flatulency with speed and certainty.
    The warm infusion will cause active diuresis by checking its diaphoretic tendency.  It is called by some a most capital remedy for spermatorrhoea, and for excessive venereal desire, and I am one of those who know from experience in my practice that it is grand for what is termed sexual debility when its use is indicated.  The infusion is much used as a gargle for inflammation and ulceration of the throat and relaxed uvula, either alone or combined with vinegar, honey, or sumach.

ST. IGNATIUS' BEAN (IGNATIUS AMARA)
    Description. -- The Ignatius Amara is a branching tree with long, taper, smooth, scrambling branches.  The leaves are veiny, smooth, and a span long.  The flowers are long, nodding, and white, and smell like jasmine.  The fruit is small and pear-shaped, and the seeds number about twenty, are angular, and are imbedded in a soft pulp.
    History. -- The tree is indigenous to the Philippine Islands, and the seeds thereof are the St. Ignatius' Bean of the drug-shops.  The bean yields its properties best to alcohol, but will also yield them to water.  It contains about one-third more strychnia than nux-vomica, but is seldom used for the production of strychnia on account of its extreme scarcity.
    Properties and Uses. -- Very similar to nux-vomica seeds, but more energetic.  It is used in nervous debility, amenorrhoea, chlorosis, epilepsy, worms, etc., with partial good effect, but is a dangerous article however well prepared, and should be used only by the advice of a professional gentleman, upon whose truth and ability you may place the utmost confidence.  It should not be employed in domestic practice.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered seed, one grain; of the alcoholic extract, one-eighth of a grain.

ST. JOHN'S WORT (HYPERICUM PERFORMATUM)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The tops and flowers.
    Description. -- This is a beautiful shrub, and is a great ornament to our meadows.  It has a hard and woody root, which abides in the ground many years, shooting anew every year.  The stalks run up about two feet high, spreading many branches, having deep-green, ovate, obtuse, and opposite leaves, which are full of small holes, which are plainly seen when the leaf is held up to the light.  At the tops of the stalks and branches stand yellow flowers of five leaves apiece, with many yellow threads in the middle, which, being bruised, yield a reddish juice, like blood, after which come small, round heads, wherein is contained small blackish seed, smelling like resin.  The fruit is a three-celled capsule.
    History. -- This plant grows abundantly in this country and Europe, and proves exceedingly annoying to farmers.  It flowers from June to August.  It has a peculiar terebinthine odor, and a balsamic, bitterish taste.  It yields its properties to water, alcohol, and ether.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is astringent, sedative, and diuretic.  It suppresses the urine, and is very applicable in chronic urinary affections, diarrhoea, dysentery, jaundice, menorrhagia, hysteria, nervous affections, hemoptysis, and other hemorrhages.  Externally, in fomentation, or used as an ointment, it is serviceable in dispelling hard tumors, caked breasts, bruises, etc.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, from half a drachm to two drachms; infusion, one to two ounces.

SANICLE (SANICULA MARILANDICA)
    COMMON NAME.  Black-snake Root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- Sanicle is an indigenous, perennial herb, with a smooth, furrowed stem, from one to three feet high.  The leaves are digitate, mostly radical, and on petioles from six to twelve inches long.  Cauline leaves few, and nearly sessile.  The flowers are mostly barren, white, sometimes yellowish, fertile onees sessile.
    History. -- It is common to the United States and Canada, and is found in low woods and thickets, flowering in June.  The fibrous root is aromatic in taste and odor.  It imparts its virtues to water and alcohol.
 Properties and Uses.--In its action upon the system it resembles valerian very much, possessing nervine and anodyne properties.  Domestically, it is used with advantage in intermittent fevers, sore-throat, erysipelas, and cutaneous affections.  It is very efficacious in chorea, and is very beneficially employed in various nervous affections.
    Dose. -- Powder, one drachm; decoction, from one to four ounces.

SARSAPARILLA (SMILAX OFFICINALIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- The stem of this plant is twining, angular, and prickly, the young shoots being unarmed.  The leaves are ovate-oblong, acute, cordate, smooth, and about a foot long.  The petioles are an inch long, bearing tendrils above the base.  Botanically, nothing is known of the flowers.  This plant grows in New Granada, on the banks of the Magdaline, near Bajorque.  Great quantities are sent to Mompox and Carthagena, and from thence to Jamaica and Cadiz.
    The Smilax Syphilitica, S. Papyracea, S. Medica, S. China, and S. Sarsaparilla are all members of the same family of plants; their medicinal qualities are similar, and they form the Sarsaparilla of commerce, with the exception of the S. Sarsaparilla, which is native to the United States, flowering from May to August.  The American plant is regarded by some as inert, but why so I do not know.  The plant extensively known in the South as Bamboo Brier, which is but a species of Sarsaparilla, certainly possesses medicinal qualities equal, if not superior, to commercial Sarsaparilla.  Professionally, I employ the Honduras Sarsaparilla, which I regard as the best.
    History. -- The Sarsaparilla of commerace consists of very long roots, having a thick bark of a grayish or brownish color.  They have scarcely any odor, but possess a mucilaginous taste.  Those roots that have a deep orange tint are the best, and the stronger the acrid and nauseous qualities, the better are the properties of the root.  Water and alcohol extract its medicinal qualities.  By chemical analysis it contains salseparin, a coloring matter, starch, chloride of potassium, an essential oil, bassorin, albumen, pectic and acetic acid, and the several salts of lime, potassa, magnesia, and oxide of iron.
    Properties and Uses. -- An alterative.  When properly prepared it exerts a favorable change over the system.  It has great repute in syphilitic diseases.  In several chronic diseases, as of the skin, rheumatic affections, passive dropsy, etc., it is of service.  Its chief use, however, is an adjuvant to other alteratives; its individual properties being too feeble to answer all the conditions required of an alterative.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, thirty grains; of the infusion or syrup, four fluid ounces.

SASSAFRAS (LAURUS SASSAFRAS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is a small tree, varying in height from ten to forty feet.  The bark is rough and grayish, that of the twigs smooth and green.  The leaves are alternate, petiolate, bright green, very variable in form, smooth above and downy beneath.  The flowers appear before the leaves, are small, greenish-yellow; fruit an oval succulent drupe.
    History. -- Indigenous to North America, and common to the woods from Canada to Florida, and flowering in the latter part of April or early in May.  The bark has an aromatic, agreeable taste, and similar odor.  It yields its properties to hot water by infusion, and to alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a warm, aromatic stimulant, alterative, diaphoretic, and diuretic.  It is much used in alterative compounds as a flavoring adjuvant.  In domestic practice it enjoys a wide field of application and use, especially as a so-called spring-renovator of the blood.

SAVORY (SUMMER) (SATUREJA HORTENSIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The leaves.
    Description. -- This annual plant has a branching, bushy stem, about eighteen inches in height, woody at the base, frequently changing to purple.  The leaves are numerous, small, entire, and acute at the end.  The flowers are pink-colored.  Calyx tubular, corolla bilabiate, stamens diverging.
    History. -- It is a native of the south of France.  It is extensively cultivated for culinary purposes in Europe and America, and flowers in July and August.  The leaves are the part employed.  They have an aromatic odor and taste analogous to those of thyme.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a stimulant, carminative, and emmenagogue.  A warm infusion is beneficial in colds, menstrual suppression; and wind colic, for which it is a specific.  The oil inserted into the carious teeth will often relieve the tooth-ache.
    SATUREJA MONTANA, or Winter Savory, possesses similar qualities.
    Dose. -- From two to four ounces of the infusion, several times a day.

SCULL-CAP (SCUTELLARIA LATERIFLORA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Blue scull-Cap, Side-Flowering Scull-Cap, Mad-Dogweed, and Hood-wort.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole plant.
    Description. -- Scull-cap has a small, fibrous, yellow, perennial root, with an erect and very branching stem, from one to three feet in height.  The leaves are on petioles about an inch long, opposite, thin, subcordate on the stem, ovate on branches, acuminate, acute, and coarsely serrate.  The flowers are small, and of a pale-blue color.
    History. -- It is an indigenous herb, growing in damp places, meadows, ditches, and by the side of ponds, flowering in July and August.  The whole plant is medicinal, and should be gathered while in flower, dried in the shade, and kept in well-closed tin vessels.  Chemically it contains an essential oil, a yellowish-green fixed oil, chlorophyll, a volatile matter, albumen, an astringent principle, lignin, chloride of soda, salts of iron, silica, etc.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a valuable nervine, tonic, and antispasmodic, used in chorea, convulsions, fits, delirium tremens, and all nervous affections, supporting the nerves, quieting and strengthening the system.  In delirium tremens an infusion drunk freely will soon produce a calm sleep.  In all cases of nervous excitability, restlessness, or wakefulness, etc., it exerts beneficial results.
    Dose. -- Of the fluid extract, from half to a teaspoonful; of the tincture (four ounces scull-cap to a pint of diluted alcohol), one to two teaspoonfuls; of the infusion, a wineglassful, three times a day.

SENEKA (POLYGALA SENEGA)
    COMMON NAME.  Seneca Snake-Root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This indigenous plant has a perennial, firm, hard, branching root, with a thick bark, and sends up several annual stems, which are erect, smooth, from eight to fourteen inches high, occasionally tinged with red.  The leaves are alternate, nearly sessile, lanceolate, with a sharpish point, smooth; flowers white; calyx consists of five sepals, corolla of three petals; and capsules are small, two-celled and two-valved.
    History. -- It is found in various parts of the United States, in rocky woods and on hill-sides, flowering in July.  It is more abundant in the West and South than in the East.  The officinal root varies in size from two to four or five lines in diameter, crooked, and a carinate line extends the whole length of it.  Its chemical constitutents are polygalic, virgineic, pectic, and tannic acids, coloring matter, an oil, cerin, gum, albumen, salts of alumina, silica, magnesia, and iron.
    Properties and Uses. -- In large doses emetic and cathartic; in ordinary doses it stimulates the secretions, acting particularly as a sialagogue, expectorant, diuretic, diaphoretic, and emmenagogue.  In active inflammatory diseases it should not be employed.  In protracted pneumonia, commencing stages of croup, humoral asthma, etc., it is a good expectorant.
    Dose. -- Powder, five to twenty grains; infusion or syrup, half an ounce to two ounces; polygalic acid, one-fourth to one-half grain.

SKUNK CABBAGE (SYMPLOCARPUS FOETIDUS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Skunk-weed, Pole-cat weed, Meadow Cabbage.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The roots and seeds.
    Description. -- This plant has been a troublesome one for botanists to classify; but the term Symplocarpus is now generally preferred.  It is perennial, having a large, abrupt root, or tuber, with numerous crowded, fleshy fibres, which extend some distance into the ground.  The spathe appears before the leaves, is ovate, spotted, and striped, purple and yellowish-green, the edges folded inward, and at length coalescing.  The flowers are numerous, of a dull purple within the spathe, on a short, oval spadix.  Calyx consists of four fleshy, wedge-shaped sepals; corolla, none; stamens, four; seeds round and fleshy, and about as large as a pea.
    History. -- Skunk Cabbage is a native of the United States, growing in moist grounds, flowering in March and April, and maturing its fruit in August and September, forming a roughened, globular mass, two or three inches in diameter, and shedding its bullet-like fruit, one-third to half an inch in diameter, which are filled with a singular solid, fleshy embryo.  The parts used are the seeds and roots, which have an extremely disagreeable odor.  Water or alcohol extracts their virtues.  Chemically it contains a fixed oil, wax, starch, volatile oil and fat, salts of lime, silica, iron, and manganese.
    Properties and Uses. -- Internally it is a stimulant, exerting expectorant, antispasmodic, with slightly narcotic influences.  It is successfully used in asthma, whooping-cough, nervous irritability, hysteria, fits, epilepsy, convulsions, chronic catarrh, pulmonary and bronchial affections.
    Dose. -- Fluid extract, twenty to eighty drops; tincture (three ounces of root or seed to a pint of alcohol), half a teaspoonful; syrup (two ounces of fluid extract to eight ounces of simple syrup), two or three teaspoonfuls.

SOAP-WORT (SAPONARIA OFFICINALIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Bouncing Bet.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and leaves.
    Description. -- This is a stout perennial, herbaceous plant, with a stem from one to two feet in height.  The leaves are lanceolate, smooth: flowers are many, large, flesh-colored, or pale-pink, and often double; fruit an oblong one-celled capsule.
    History. -- This plant grows in roadsides and waste places in Europe and the United States.  It flowers in the early part of July in Europe, but in America in the early part of August.  The leaves and root are the parts used medicinally.  They have a sweet and bitter taste combined, "with a subsequent persistent pungency and a benumbing sensation."  When the root and leaves are subjected to the extractive powers of water they yield a residue something like soap-suds.  Their active properties are brought out by either water or alcohol--by the latter particularly.  The root gives a principle called Saponin, which is very valuable.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is largely and valuably employed in the treatment of diseases of the liver, scrofulous, syphilitic, and cutaneous afflictions of a severe character; also catarrh, rheumatism, gonorrhoea, whites, and green sickness.  Saponin can be prepared only by a competent herbal chemist.  In its absence use decoctions of the leaves and roots.  Dose of the decoction, from one to two fluid ounces, three times a day.  I employ the saponaceous qualities of this plant, which I extract from the root by chemical processes in my laboratory, as a constituent of my "Renovating Pill."  (See page 469.)
 
SOLOMON'S SEAL (CONVALLARIA MULTIFLORA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- The stem of this plant is smooth from one to four feet high, and growing from a perennial root.  The leaves are alternate, lanceolate, smooth, and glossy above, paler and pubescent beneath; flowers greenish-white, and fruit a dark-blue or blackish berry.  There is another variety, the Convallaria Racemosa, the root of which possesses similar qualities to that of Solomon's Seal.
    History. -- Both plants are to be found throughout the United States and Canada.  They flower from May to August.  The root, which is the part used, is inodorous, but has a sweetish mucilaginous taste, which is followed by a slight sense of bitterness.
    Properties and Uses. -- The root is tonic, mucilaginous, and astingent.  The decoction is successfully used in whites, pectoral affections, menorrhagia, female debility, inflammation of the stomach and intestines, erysipelas, neuralgia, itch, local inflammations, etc.  Dose of the decoction, one to three ounces, three times a day.

SORREL (WOOD) (OXALIS ACETOSELLA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole herb.
    Description. -- This is a small perennial herb, with a creeping and scaly-toothed root-stock.  The leaves are numerous, radical and on long, weak, hairy stalks; leaflets broadly obcordate, and of yellowish-green color.  Flowers white, yellowish at the base, and scentless.  Fruit a five-lobed, oblong capsule.
    History. -- It is indigenous to Europe and this country, growing in woody and shady places, and flowering from April to June.  It is inodorous, and has a pleasantly acid taste.  The acidity is due to oxalic acid, which, in combination with potassa, forms the binoxolate of that alkali.  The "Salts of Sorrel," formerly so much used to remove ink-spots and iron-marks from linen, is merely this salt separated from the plant.
    Properties and Uses. -- Cooling and diuretic; useful in febrile diseases, hemorrhages, gonorrhoea, chronic catarrh, urinary affections, scurvy, etc.  Care is to be observed in its use.
    RUMEX ACETOSA, or Garden Sorrel, RUMEX ACETOSELLA, or Sheep Sorrel, and RUMEX VESICARIUS possess similar qualities.
 
SQUIRTING CUCUMBER (MOMORDICA ELATERIUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The feculence of the juice of the fruit.
    Description. -- This hispid and glaucous plant has several stems growing from the same root.  The leaves are cordate, somewhat lobed, and on long stalks.  Flowers monoecious and yellow.  Fruit oblong, obtuse at each end, separating from its stalk with violence, and expelling its seeds and mucus with considerable force, in consequence of the sudden contraction of the sides.
    History. -- This plant is indigenous to the south of Europe, growing in poor soils, in waste places, and flowering in July.  The juice around the seeds is the officinal part, and which, when properly prepared, forms the Elaterium of commerce.  It must be collected a little before the period of ripening.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an energetic hydragogue cathartic, operating with great violence in doses of a few grains, and very apt to cause diffuse inflammation of the stomach and bowels, characterized by vomiting, griping pain, and profuse diarrhoea.  It is used chiefly in obstinate dropsy, and as a revulsive in cerebral affections, or wherever a revellent effect is desired.  Owing to its active cathartic properties, it is always best to commence with very small doses, from the uncertainty of the preparation.
    Dose. -- From one-eighth to one-half a grain.

STAR-GRASS (ALETRIS FARINOSA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Colic-root, Ague-root, Crow-corn, Unicorn root, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial root, with radical leaves, sessile, lying flat on the ground, ribbed, broad, lanceolate, smooth, the large ones being about four inches long.  The flower-stem is from one to three feet high, erect and simple, bearing a bell-shaped flower, which, as it grows old, has a wrinkled, mealy appearance.  The fruit is a triangular capsule.
    History. -- It is indigenous to North America, growing in low grounds, sandy soils, and at the edges of woods.  Its flowers are white, and appear from May to August.  The root is the part used.  Alcohol is the best solvent.
    Properties and Uses. -- Its root, when thoroughly dried, is an intensely bitter tonic, and in decoction or tincture is of great utility in dyspepsia, general or local debility, flatulent colic, hysteria, etc.  It greatly strengthens the female generative organs, affording protection against miscarriage; and in chlorosis, amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, engorged condition of the uterus, prolapsus of that organ, is a very superior vegetable agent.
    Dose. -- Of the powdered root, from five to ten grains, three times a day; of the saturated tincture, five to fifteen drops.

STILLINGIA (STILLINGIA SYLVATICA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Queen's Root, Queen's Delight, Yawroot, and Silver-leaf.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This perennial herb has a glabrous, somewhat angled stem, from two to four feet high, which, when broken, gives out a milky sap.  The leaves are sessile, somewhat leathery, and tapering at the base.  The flowers are yellow, and arranged on a terminal spike.  Fruit a three-grained capsule.
    History. -- Queen's Root grows in sandy soils, and is a native of the southern part of the United States.  The root is the part used.  It should be used as soon after being gathered as possible, as age impairs its properties.  The latter yield to water, but are better extracted by diluted alcohol.  Its properties appear to be owing to a very acrid oil, known as the Oil of Stillingia.
    Properties and Uses. -- In large doses stillingia vomits and purges, accompanied with more or less prostration of the system.  In less doses it is an alterative, exerting an influence over the secretory functions unsurpassed by any other known alterative.  It is very extensively used in all the various forms of primary and secondary syphilitic affections; also in scrofulous, hepatic, and cutaneous affections; also, with combinations of anise or caraway, for laryngitis and bronchitis.  The oil, unless well incorporated with some mucilaginous or saccharine substance, should never be used internally.  This great alterative is one of the principal constituents in my "Blood Purifier."  See page 469.
    Dose. -- Tincture, half a drachm to a drachm; decoction, one or two ounces.

STONEROOT (COLLINSONIA CANADENSIS)
    COMMON NAMES.  Hardhack, Horseweed, Heal-all, Richweed, Oxbalm, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The plant.
    Description. -- This plant has a knobby root, and a four-sided stem, from one to four feet in height.  The leaves are thin, broadly ovate, acuminate, coarsely serrate, from six to eight inches long, and from two to four broad.  Flowers large, corolla greenish-yellow; stamens two, and very long; seeds four, of which two or three are sterile.
    History. -- This plant grows in moist woods from Canada to Carolina, and flowers from July to September.  The whole plant has a strong odor and a pungent and spicy taste.  The odor of the fresh root is slightly disagreeable.  The whole plant is generally used, and has its value.  The chief virtues of the plant are, however, concentrated in the root, which should always be used when fresh.  Its active principle is Collinsonin, which name is derived from its discoverer, Peter Collinson.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is used with good effect in chronic catarrh of the bladder (as are other plants mentioned elsewhere), whites, and weak stomach.  It exerts a strong influence over all the mucous tissues.  It is a very fair stimulant, and a gentle tonic and diuretic.  The preparation called Collinsonin is very valuable as a remedy for hemorrhoids, and all other diseases of the rectum, and for such afflictions I recommend it highly.  It is chiefly used in inveterate and chronic cases.  The largest dose is five grains; the average dose two grains.  The infusion or decoction of the plant may be moderately used without additional remedies, and in some instances so may the Collinsonin; but in about every case a skilful combination of the latter with other standard preparations is necessary to insure easy and speedy restoration to good health.  Stoneroot is used externally -- the leaves particularly -- in fomentation and poultice, and bruises, wounds, blows, sprains, contusions, cuts, ulcers, sores, etc.  I cannot call the attention of the reader too strongly to the effect the preparation called Collinsonin has upon all affections of the urinary organs.  It should be combined with other indicated remedies.

SUMACH (RHUS GLABRUM)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The bark and fruit.
    Description. -- Sumach is a shrub, from six to fifteen feet high, consisting of many straggling branches, covered with a pale-gray bark, having occasionally a reddish tint.  The leaves are alternate, consist of from six to fifteen leaflets, which are lanceolate, acuminate, acutely serrate, shining and green above, whitish beneath, becoming red in the fall.  The flowers are greenish red, and fruit a small red drupe, hanging in clusters, with a crimson down, extremely sour to the taste, which is due to malate of lime.
    History. -- Sumach grows in the thickets and waste grounds of Canada and the United States.  It flowers in June and July, but matures its fruit in September and October.  The bark and berries are officinal.  The berries should be gathered before rains have washed away the acid properties which reside in their external, downy efflorescenace.  Both the bark and berries yield their active influence to water.  Great care is to be taken in the selection of several species of Rhus, as many of them are highly poisonous.
    Properties and Uses. -- The berries are refrigerant and diuretic; the bark is tonic, astringent, and antiseptic.  The bark of the root has sometimes been used with success in decoction or syrup as a palliative of gonorrhoea, leucorrhoea, diarrhoea, hectic fever, dysentery, and scrofula.  Combined with the barks of white pine and slippery elm, in certain particular doses of decoction, it will, with other very simple treatment, cure syphilis.
    Dose. -- From one to three fluid ounces of the decoction of bark.  Of the infusion of berries, from one to four fluid ounces.

SWAMP BEGGARS' TICK (BIDENS CONNATA)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The root and seeds.
    Description. -- This herb has a smooth stem, from one to three feet high.  The leaves are lanceolate, opposite, serrate, acuminate, and decurrent on the petiole.  Flowers, terminal; florets, yellow; and fruit, a wedge-formed achenium.
    History. -- This is a common weed, found in wet grounds, rich fields, swamps, and ditches, from New England to Missouri.  It flowers in August.  The root and seeds are employed medicinally, and may be used in decoction, infusion or tincture.
    Properties and Uses. -- The root and seeds are emmenagogue and expectorant; the seeds, in powder or tincture, have been used in amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, and some other uterine derangements, and an infusion of the root has proved beneficial in severe cough.  It has been used with great success for palpitation of the heart, and for croup.  For this latter affliction a strong infusion of the leaves, sweetened with honey, and administered in tablespoonful doses every fifteen minutes until vomiting is produced, is regarded a cure.  The leaves heated to the form of a poultice and laid upon the throat and chest in cases of bronchial and laryngeal attacks from exposure to cold, etc., are very beneficial.
    BIDENS BIPINNATA, or Spanish Needles, and BIDENS FRONDOSA, or Beggar Tick, can be employed, medically, the same.

SWEET GUM (LIQUIDAMEAR STYRACIFLUA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The concrete juice.
    Description. -- The Sweet Gum tree grows to the height of from fifty to sixty feet.  Its bark is gray and deeply furrowed, and there are corky ridges on the branches; the leaves are palmate, rounded, smooth, and shining, fragrant when bruised, and turn a deep red in the fall.  Fruit a kind of strobile.
    History. -- This tree is very abundant in the Southern and Middle States, and can be found in the moist woods of nearly all parts of the Union.  From incisions made in the tree a gum exudes which is resinous and adhesive, and somewhat like white turpentine in appearance.
    Properties and Uses. -- As a remedy for catarrhs, coughs, and pulmonary affections generally, it is without an equal, although physicians generally do not use it in their practice.  It is also very valuable for fever-sores, fistula, scrofula, etc., when made into an ointment.
    Dose. -- The dose internally is from ten to twenty grains, according to circumstances.

TACAMAHAC (POPULUS BALSAMIFERA)
    COMMON NAME.  Balsam Poplar.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The buds.
    Description. -- This tree, also called Tacamahac Poplar, attains the height of from fifty to seventy feet, with a trunk about eighteen inches in diameter.  The branches are smooth, round, and deep brown.  The leaves are ovate, gradually tapering, and pointed, deep-green above, and smooth on both sides.
    History. -- This tree is found in Siberia, and in the northern parts of the United States and Canada.  In America it is in blossom in April.  The leaf-buds are the officinal part.  They should be collected in the spring, in order that the fragrant resinous matter with which they are covered may be properly separated in boiling water, for upon this their virtues depend.  They have an agreeable, incense-like odor, and an unpleasant, bitterish taste.  The balsamic juice is collected in Canada in shells, and sent to Europe under the name of Tacamahaca.  Alcohol, or spirits, is the proper solvent.  The Populus Balsamifera is generally confounded with the Populus Candicans, from whose buds we get the virtues known as the Balm of Gilead; but it is much the superior tree for medical purposes.
    Properties and Uses. -- The buds are stimulant, tonic, diuretic, and anti-scorbutic.  In tincture they have been beneficially employed in affections of the stomach and kidneys and in scurvy and rheumatism.  Sometimes they are applied in that form as a remedy for affections of the chest.  The bark is known to be tonic and cathartic, and will prove of service in gout and rheumatism.
    Dose. -- Of a tincture of the buds, from one to four fluid drachms; of an extract of the bark, five to fifteen grains, three times a day.
    POPULUS TREMULOIDES, White Poplar, or Aspen, the well-known tree, furnishes us with Populin and Salacin; and is tonic and febrifuge, useful in intermittents.  It has also good diuretic properties, and is beneficial in urinary affections, gonorrhoea, gleet, etc.

TANSY (TANACETUM VULGARE)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- Tansy has a perennial creeping root, and an erect herbaceous stem, one to three feet high.  The leaves are smoothish, dark-green; flowers, golden-yellow; fruit, an achenium.
    History. -- Indigenous to Europe, but has been introduced into this country and cultivated by many; but grows also spontaneously in old grounds, along roads, flowering in the latter part of summer.  Drying impairs much of the activity of the plant.  It contains volatile oil, wax, stearine, chlorophyll, bitter resin, yellow coloring matter, tannin with gallic acid, bitter extractive gum, and tanacetic acid, which is crystallizable and precipitates lime, baryta, and oxide of lead.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, emmenagogue, and diaphoretic.  In small doses, the cold infusion will be found useful in convalescence from exhausting diseases, dyspepsia, hysteria, and jaundice.  The warm infusion is diaphoretic and emmenagogue.  It bears a good reputation in suppressed menstruation, but should be used only when the suppression is due to morbid causes.

THYME (THYMUS VULGARIS)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- Thyme is a small undershrub, with numerous erect stems, procumbent at base, and from six to ten inches in height.  The leaves are oblong-ovate, lanceolate, and numerous.  The flowers are bluish-purple, small, and arranged on leafy whorled spikes.
    History. -- A native of Europe, but introduced into this country, and extensively cultivated in gardens for culinary purposes.  It blossoms in the summer, when it should be collected and carefully dried.  It has a strong, pungent, spicy taste and odor, both of which are retained by careful drying.  The herb yields its properties to boiling water and alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- Tonic, carminative, emmenagogue, and antispasmodic.  The cold infusion is beneficial in dyspepsia with weak and irritable stomach.  The warm infusion is useful as a parturient, also in hysteria, dysmenorrhoea, flatulence, colic, and to promote perspiration.  The leaves are used externally in fomentation.
    The THYMUS SERPYLLUS, Wild Thyme or Mother of Thyme, has similar virtues to the above.

TOLU (MYROSPERMUM TOLUIFERUM)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The balsamic exudation.
    Description. -- A full botanical description of this tree has not yet been given, but it is supposed that it is similar to the Balsam of Peru tree, differing only in the leaflets, which in this tree are thin, membranouss, obovate, taper-pointed; the terminal ones larger than the others.
    History. -- It is a tree which grows throughout the forests of South America, especially on the elevated parts near Carthagena, Tolu, and in the Magdalena provinces of Columbia.  The balsam is obtained by making incisions into the tree, and which flows into wax vessels.  It is exported from Carthagena in tin, earthen, and other vessels.  It has a pale, yellowish-red or brown color, solid and brittle, an agreeable vanilla-like odor, and a sweetish aromatic taste.  It is soluble in alcohol, ether, and essential oils.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is, like Balsam of Peru, a stimulant, tonic, and expectorant, and cannot be equalled for its curative effects in cases sof consumption, catarrh, bronchitis, asthma, and all inflammatory, ulcerated, spasmodic, or other morbid conditions of the respiratory organs and their adjuncts.  The balsam dissolved in ether, and the vapor therefrom inhaled, is reported beneficial in coughs and bronchial affections of long standing, and I have no doubt it is so, as its virtues in such complaints are very wonderful.

TURKEY CORN (CORYDALIS FORMOSA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wild Turkey-pea, Stagger-weed, Choice Dielytra.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This indigenous perennial plant has a tuberous root, and a stem from six to ten inches in height.  The leaves are radical, rising from ten to fifteen inches high, and somewhat triternate.  The scape is naked, eight to twelve inches high, and bearing from six to ten reddish-purple nodding flowers.  The fruit is a pod-shaped, many-seeded capsule.
    History. -- This beautiful little plant flowers very early in the spring, and the root should only be gathered while the plant is in flower.  It grows in rich soil, on hills, among rocks, and old decayed timber, and is found westward and south of New York to North Carolina.  The alkaloid, Corydalia, is the active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- Tonic, diuretic, and alterative.  In all syphilitic, scrofulous, and cachectic conditions it is one of the best remedies.  Its tonic properties render it valuable as an alterative in all enfeebled conditions.  Its tonic properties are similar to Gentian, Columbo, and other pure bitters.  Its magical properties as an alterative renders it one of the most valuable remedies in the whole range of medicine.  Corydalia may be substituted for the herb. It is one of the ingredients in my "Blood Purifier."  (See page 469.)
    Dose. -- Of the infusion, one to four ounces; saturated tincture, half to two drachms; corydalia, one-half to a grain.

VALERIAN (VALERIANA OFFICINALIS)
    COMMON NAME.  Great Wild Valerian.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a large herb, with a perennial, tuberous, fetid root, most aromatic when growing in dry pastures, and a smooth, hollow, furrowed stem, about four feet in height.  The leaves are pinnate, opposite; leaflets, from seven to ten pairs, lanceolate, coarsely serrated, and on long foot-stalks.  The flowers are flesh-colored, small, and fragrant.
    History. -- Valerian is a European plant, growing in wet places, or even in dry pastures, flowering in June and July.  Several varieties grow in America, and are used, but the English Valerian is by all odds the best.  The officinal part is the root.  The taste of the root is warm, camphoraceous, slightly bitter, somewhat acrid, and nauseous.  The odor is not considerable; it is fetid, characteristic, and highly attractive to cats, and, it is said, to rats also.  Besides valerianic acid, the root contains starch, albumen, valerianin, yellow extractive matter, balsamic resin, mucilage, valerianate of potassa, malates of potassa and lime, and phosphate of lime and silica.
    Properties and Uses. -- Valerian excites the cerebro-spinal system.  In large doses it causes headaches, mental excitement, visual illusions, giddiness, restlessness, agitation, and even spasmodic movements.  In medicinal doses it acts as a stimulating tonic, anti-spasmodic, and calmative.  It is temporarily beneficial in all cases where a nervous stimulant is required.  The extract is worthless.  The infusion and fluid extract contain all the virtues of the plant.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion, one or two fluid ounces, as often as may be prescribed by a physician.

VANILLA (VANILLA AROMATICA)
    MEDICINAL PART.  The fruit or pods.
    Description. -- Vanilla Aromatica is a shrubby, climbing, aerial parasite, growing in the clefts of rocks, or attaching itself to the trunks of trees.  It suspends itself to continguous objects, and is truly an aerial plant.  The stem is round, about as thick as the finger, from twenty to thirty feet in length, and oftener thicker at the summit than at the base.  The leaves are alternate, oblong, entire, on short petioles, green, fleshy, and pointed by a species of abortive tendril.  The flowers are yellowish white.  The fruit is a species of bean, yellow or buff color, of an agreeable aromatic odor; the beans must be dried with care or they will lose their properties.
    History. -- Vanilla grows in Mexico and other parts of tropical South America.  There are several species which are supposed to furnish the Vanilla of commerce.  It yields its virtues to water or alcohol.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is an aromatic stimulant, and is used, in infusion, in hysteria, rheumatism, and low forms of fever.  It is also called an aphrodisiac, powerfully exciting the generative system.  Vanilla is said to exhilarate the brain, prevent sleep, increase muscular energy, and stimulate the sexual propensities.

WAFER-ASH (PTELEA TRIFOLIATA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Wing-seed, Shrubby Trefoil, Swamp Dogwood, etc.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The bark of the root.
    Description. -- This is a shrub from six to eight feet in height, with the leaves trifoliate, and marked with pellucid dots; the leaflets are sessile, ovate, shortly acuminate, downy beneath when young.  The flowers are polygamous, greenish-white, nearly half an inch in diameter, and of disagreeable odor.  Stamens, mostly four; style short, and fruit a two-celled samara.
    History. -- Wafer-Ash, or Ptelea, is a shrub common to America, growing most abundantly west of the Alleghanies, in shady, moist places and edges of woods, and also in rocky places.  It flowers in June.  The bark of the root is officinal, and yields its virtues to boiling water.  Alcohol, however, is its best solvent.  Ptelein is its active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is especially tonic and unirritating.  It is said to be very useful as a promoter of the appetite, and as a remedy for general debility.  It will be tolerated by the stomach when other tonics are rejected.  Some think it equal, in cases of fever (intermittent), to quinia. In convalescence from fever it serves an admirable purpose.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, ten to thirty grains; of the tincture, one or two drachms; of the extract, five to ten grains; ptelein, one or two grains.

WALNUT (WHITE), (JUGLANS CINEREA)
    COMMON NAMES.  Butternut, Oil Nut, etc.
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  Inner bark of the root, and leaves.
    Description. -- This indigenous tree attains a height of from thirty to fifty feet, with a trunk about four feet in diameter; the branches are wide-spreading, and covered with a smooth gray bark.  The leaves are alternate, twelve to twenty inches long, and consist of seven or eight pairs of leaflets, which are oblong-lanceolate, and finely serrate.  Male and female flowers distinct upon the same tree.  Fruit a dark-colored hard nut, kernel oily, pleasant-flavored, and edible.
    JUSLANS NIGRA, or Black Walnut, a well-known tree, is also medicinal.
    History. -- Butternut is found throughout the New England, Middle, and Western States, on cold, uneven, rocky soils, flowering in April and May, and maturing its fruit at or about the middle of autumn.  Its officinal parts are its leaves and the inner bark of the root.  The latter should be gathered from April to July.  It contains resin, fixed oil, saccharine matter, lime, potassa, a peculiar principle, and tannic acid.  The Black Walnut flowers and ripens its fruit at the same time with the Butternut.  Juglandin is the active principle.
    Properties and Uses. -- Butternut is a gentle and agreeable cathartic, and does not induce constipation after its action.  In cases of habitual constipation or other intestinal diseases, it has considerable value.  It is used in decoction in cases of fever, and in the murrain of cattle.  The juice of the rind of the Black Walnut will cure herpes, eczema, porrigo, etc., and a decoction of it has been used to remove worms.  The European walnut has been found to be efficacious in cases of scrofula.

WATER PEPPER (POLYGONUM PUNCTATUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Smartweed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The whole herb.
    Description. -- This is an annual plant, with a smooth stem, branched, often decumbent at the base, of reddish or greenish-brown color, and growing from one to two feet high.  The leaves are alternate, lanceolate, petiolate, with pellucid dots, wavy, and scabrous on the margin.  The flowers are small, greenish-white or purple, and are disposed in loose, slender, drooping, but finally erect spikes.
    History. -- It is a well-known plant, growing in England and America, in ditches, low grounds, among rubbish, and about brooks and water-courses.  It flowers in August and September.  The whole plant is officinal.  It has a biting, pungent, acrid taste, and imparts its virtues to alcohol or water.  It should be collected and made into a tincture while fresh.  When it is old it is almost worthless.  The English variety of this plant possesses the same properties.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is stimulant, diuretic, emmenagogue, antiseptic, diaphoretic, etc.  The infusion in cold water has been found serviceable in gravel, colds and coughs, and in milk sickness.  In cholera, the patients wrapped in a sheet moistened with a hot decoction have recovered.
    It is used as a wash in chronic erysipelatous inflammations.  The fresh leaves bruised with the leaves of May-weed, and moistened with the oil of turpentine, and applied to the skin, will speedily vesicate.  The infusion in cold water forms an excellent local application in the sore mouth of nursing women, and in mercurial ptyalism or salivation.  The decoction or infusion in hot water is not so active as when prepared in cold or warm water.  It has very many virtues; and its office in my "Restorative Assimilant" (see page 469) it performs well.
    Dose. -- Of the infusion, from a wineglassful to a teacupful, three or four times a day.

WORMSEED (CHENOPODIUM ANTHELMINTICUM)
    COMMON NAME.  Jerusalem Oak.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The seeds.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial branched root, with an erect, herbaceous stem, from one to three feet high.  The leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate, of yellowish-green color, and marked beneath with small resinous particles.  The numerous flowers are of the same color as the leaves.  Seeds solitary and lenticular.
    History. -- This plant grows in waste places in almost all parts of the United States, flowering from July to September, and ripening its seeds throughout the fall, at which time they should be collected.  The whole plant has a disagreeable odor, and the seeds partake of the same odor.
    Properties and Uses. -- Anthelmintic and antispasmodic.  Excellent to expel the lumbrici from children.  The oil is the best form of administration, which may be given in doses of four to eight drops on sugar.  The infusion with milk is also given often in wineglassful doses.

WORMWOOD (ARTEMISIA ABSINTHIUM)
    MEDICINAL PARTS.  The tops and leaves.
    Description. -- This is a perennial plant, with a woody root, branched at the crown, and having numerous fibres below.  The whole herb is covered with close, silky hoariness; the stems are numerous, bushy, and from one to two feet in height.  Their lower part exists for some years, from which young shoots spring forth every year, decaying in cold weather.  The leaves are alternate, broadish, and blunted, the lower ones on long petioles, upper ones on shorter, broader, and somewhat winged ones.
    History. -- Wormwood grows nearly all over the world, from the United States to Siberia.  It flowers from June to September.  The tops and leaves are the parts used.  The dried herb, with the flowers, has a whitish-gray appearance, a strong, aromatic odor, and is extremely bitter to the taste.  Alcohol or water takes up its active principles.  It yields what is known to druggists as Absinthine.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is anthelmintic, tonic, and narcotic.  It is used for many diseases, among which may be enumerated intermittent fever, jaundice, worms, want of appetite, amenorrhoea, chronic leucorrhoea, obstinate diarrhoea, etc.  It is also used externally in country places as a fomentation for sprains, bruises, and local inflammations.  Taken too often, or in large quantities, it will irritate the stomach, and dangerously increase the action of the heart and arteries.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, ten to twenty grains; infusion, one or two ounces.
    Santonin, a well-known anthelmintic, is the peculiar principle obtained from the Artemisia Santonica.
    Dose. -- Three or four grains, twice a day.

YAM (WILD), (DIOSCOREA VILLOSA)
    COMMON NAME.  Colic root.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This is a delicate twining vine, with a perennial root.  From this root proceeds a smooth, woolly, reddish-brown stem, the sixth of an inch in diameter, and from five to fifteen or eighteen feet long.  The leaves average two to four inches in length, and about three-quarters of their length in width.  They are glabrous on the upper surface, with soft hairs on the lower.  The flowers are of a pale greenish yellow color, and are very small.  The seeds are one or two in each cell, and flat.
    History. -- There are several species of yam-root which grow in the West Indies, and which the natives eat as we do potatoes, but these are not medicinally like the Dioscorea Villosa, which I have described above, and which is a slender vine growing wild in the United States and Canada, and found running over bushes and fences, and twining about the growths in thickets and hedges.  The farther south we go the more prolific it is.  It flowers in June and July.  The root, which is the part used, is long, branched, crooked, and woody.  From this is made a preparation called Dioscorein, or Dioscorin, which contains all its active qualities.
    Properties and Uses. -- Antispasmodic.  Half a pint of the decoction has been used, in almost innumerable cases of bilious colic, with great good effect; the same is also employed for spasm of the bowels, and to allay violent nausea; especially, however, the unaccountable nausea of pregnant women.  Dioscorein possesses the properties of the crude root in a marvellous degree.  I use it mainly for bilious colic; it is the very best relief and promptest cure now known.  I also give it in some forms of uterine disease (always, however, combined with other material of a similarly excellent character), but my use of it is chiefly for bilious colic, and for this I commend it to the public.
    Dose. -- Of the decoction, two to four ounces; tincture, twenty to sixty drops; Dioscorein, one to four grains.

YARROW (ACHILLEA MILLEFOLIUM)
    COMMON NAMES.  Milfoil, Thousand Seal, Nose-bleed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The herb.
    Description. -- Yarrow, also called Thousand Seal, is from ten to twenty inches high, with a simple stem, branching at the top, and many long, crowded, alternate and dentate leaves spread upon the ground, finely cut, and divided into many parts.  The flowers are white or rose-colored, and arrayed in knots upon divers green stalks, which arise from among the leaves.  Fruit an oblong, flattened achenium.
    History. -- Yarrow inhabits Europe and North America; it is found in pastures, meadows, and along road-sides, flowering from May to October.  The plant possesses a faint, pleasant, peculiar fragrance, and a rather sharp, rough astringent taste, which properties are due to tannic and achilleic acid, essential oil, and bitter extractive, alcohol or water being its proper menstruum.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is astringent, alterative, and diuretic, in decoction.  It is efficacious in bleeding from the lungs and other hemorrhages, incontinence of urine, piles and dysentery.  It is valuable in amenorrhoea, or suppressed or restrained menses, flatulency, and spasmodic diseases.  It forms a useful injection in leucorrhoea or whites, also in menorrhagia, or profuse or too long continued menstruation.  An ointment cures wounds, ulcers, fistulas, and the head bathed in a decoction prevents the falling out of the hair; while the leaves chewed in the mouth will frequently ease the toothache.  ACHILLES is supposed to be the first that left the virtues of this herb to posterity, hence the active principle of this plant is called Achilleine, which is much used as a substitute for quinia in intermittent fevers in the South of Europe.
    Dose. -- The infusion of Yarrow is given in doses of from a wineglassful to a teacupful, three or four times a day; the essential oil from five to twenty drops.  In menorrhagia or profuse menstruation, a tablespoonful of the saturated tincture may be given three or four times a day.
    Achillea Ptarmica or Sneese-wort, has leaves entirely different from the Yarrow, and should not be mistaken one for the other.  The whole of this plant is pungent, exciting an increased flow of saliva; and the powder of the dried leaves, when snuffed into the nostrils, produces sneezing, which is supposed to be owing to their small, sharp, and marginal teeth.

YELLOW PARILLA (MENISPERMUM CANADENSE)
    COMMON NAMES.  Vine-maple, Moonseed.
    MEDICINAL PART.  The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a perennial, horizontal, very long woody root, of a beautiful yellow color.  The stem is round and climbing, and about a foot in length The leaves are roundish, cordate, peltate, smooth, glaucous green above, paler below, entire, and four or five inches in diameter.  The flowers are in clusters, and are small and yellow.  The fruit, a drupe, is about the third of an inch in diameter, and one-seeded.
    History. -- Yellow Parilla grows in moist woods and hedges, and near streams, from Canada to Carolina, and west to the Mississippi.  It flowers in July.  The root, which is the part used, has a bitter, lasting, but not unpleasant acrid taste, and yields its virtues to water and alcohol.  It is called, not without justice, American Sarsaparilla, and its active principle, known as menispermin, shows that it might have received a name less expressive of its merits.
    Properties and Uses. -- The authors of herbalist dispensatories have set down Yellow Parilla as "tonic, laxative, alterative, and diuretic," and it seems to possess all these qualities.  Every plant of medicinal value, however, possesses one virtue which is paramount to all others.  Yellow Parilla is essentially and particularly anti-syphilitic, anti-scrofulous, anti-scorbutic, and anti-mercurial.  As a purifier of the blood, it is equal to the imported sarsaparilla as we get the latter, and its active principle, menispermin, may be used with great good effect in all diseases arising from either hereditary or acquired impurities of the system.  It exerts its influence principally on the gastric and salivary glands, and is found expressly beneficial in cases of adhesive inflammation, and where it is found necessary to break up organized deposits, and hasten disintegration of tissue.  I use it principally for those diseases arising from a vitiated condition of the blood, but sometimes apply it to dyspepsia.  A decoction of the plant may be used to advantage as an embrocation in gouty, rheumatic, and cutaneous affections.  The dose of the menispermin is from one to four grains.  When it produces vomiting reduce the dose.