The Botanist's Companion Part 10

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

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

This root gives name to an officinal syrup [L. E.] and ointment [L.] and is likewise an ingredient in the compound powder of gum tragacanth [L.

E.] and the oil and plaster of mucilages [L.] though it does not appear to communicate any particular virtue to the two last, its mucilaginous matter not being dissoluble in oils.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

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

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

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

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

171. ANGELICA Archangelica. GARDEN ANGELICA. The Root, Leaves, and Seeds. E.--All the parts of Angelica, especially the roots, have a fragrant aromatic smell, and a pleasant bitterish warm taste, glowing upon the lips and palate for a long time after they have been chewed.

The flavour of the seeds and leaves is very perishable, particularly that of the latter, which, on being barely dried, lose greatest part of their taste and smell: the roots are more tenacious of their flavour, though even these lose part of it upon keeping. The fresh root, wounded early in the spring, yields and odorous yellow juice, which slowly exsiccated proves an elegant gummy resin, very rich in the virtues of the Angelica. On drying the root, this juice concretes into distinct moleculae, which, on cutting it longitudinally, appear distributed in little veins: in this state they are extracted by pure spirit, but not by watery liquors.

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

172. ANTHEMIS n.o.bilis. CHAMOMILE. The Flowers. L.E.D.--These have a strong not ungrateful, aromatic smell, but a very bitter nauseous taste.

They are accounted carminative, aperient, emollient, and in some measure anodyne: and stand recommended in flatulent colics, for promoting the uterine purgations, in spasmodic affections, and the pains of women in child-bed: sometimes they have been employed in intermittent fevers, and the nephritis. These flowers are also frequently used externally in discutient and antiseptic fomentations, and in emollient glysters. The double-flowered variety is usually cultivated for medicine, but the wild kind with single flowers is preferable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The only officinal preparation, in which this root was an ingredient, was a compound powder; in which form its virtues are very precarious.

Some recommend a tincture of it drawn with wine; but neither wine, water, nor spirit, extract its virtues.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

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

Its princ.i.p.al use at present is as a sternutatory. The root of asarum is perhaps the strongest of all the vegetable errhines, white h.e.l.lebore itself not excepted. Snuffed up the nose, in the quant.i.ty of a grain or two, it occasions a large evacuation of mucus, and raises a plentiful spitting. The leaves are considerably milder, and may be used to the quant.i.ty of three, four, or five grains. Geoffroy relates, that after snuffing up a dose of this errhine at night, he has frequently observed the discharge from the nose to continue for three days together; and that he has known a paralysis of the mouth and tongue cured by one dose.

He recommends this medicine in stubborn disorders of the head, proceeding from viscid tenacious matter, in palsies, and in soporific distempers. The leaves are an ingredient in the pulvis sternutatoris of the shops.

183. ASPIDIUM Filix-Mas. Polypodium, Linn. MALE FERN. The Roots. L. E.

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