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highly recommended in the Edinburgh Dispensatory.

"The root is a powerful stimulant. 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. Great benefit has been obtained from it in rheumatic pains, particularly those of the fixed kind, and which were deep seated. In those cases, from ten grains to a scruple of the fresh root may be given 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 excites a slight tingling sensation through the whole habit, and when the patient is kept warm in bed, produces a copious sweat." The root may be gathered any time in the year, as it is said to be equally good at all times. It loses its virtue if kept too long, and becomes perfectly insipid to the taste.

Alder.

THE leaves and bark of the alder tree, have a bitter, styptic, disagreeable taste. The bark is recommended in intermittent fevers, and a decoction of it in gargarisms for inflammations of the tonsils. Dispensatory.

Edinburgh

Ash Tree

THERE are several kinds of ash in this country, adorning our forests in great abundance. The sap of the black and white ash is said to be an excellent remedy for the ear-ach; and if the use of it is continued for a length of time after the breaking of an abscess within the ear, it will prevent a return of the complaint. It is obtained by placing a stick of the wood green from the forest across the andirons, at a convenient distance from the fire, so that the middle part may burn gently; the sap will ooze out at each end, and must be received into cups

placed for the purpose, then strained and put into a phial for use: when used it should be made warm and injected into the ear with a syringe, or, when that cannot be had, carefully dropped in with a tea-spoon, and a piece of lint or cotton inserted to keep out the cold air. This sap is used by the aborigines of our country, in the cure of cancers, and frequently with great success; they prescribe it internally and externally.

The bark and watery extract is good in intermittent fevers. The bark of another species called prickly ash, steeped in brandy, is highly recommended in rheumatic complaints.

Anise Seed.

THE plant producing these seeds may be cultivated in our gardens. They are carminative, and moderately anodyne: the essential oil is an ingredient in the paregorie elixir, and is used by itself dropped on sugar in doses of from two to twenty drops in disorders of the breast, and spasmodic windy complaints, so afflicting to infants.

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The seed in infusion or powder are said to be preferable in flatulent colics.

Angelica.

THIS finely aromatic plant grows wild in the woods and fields in Vermont, and many if not all the other States. It is frequently preserved, and forms an elegant confection, and is of use as a carminative; children who have flatulent complaints will readily take it in this form. The root is an ingredient in the aromatic tincture of the shops.

Avens Root.

THIS plant, or rather the root of it, was highly esteemed by the natives of this country, and they have transmitted its honours unimpaired to their successors in the soil. The common people esteem it almost a specific in many cases, and many of them use it in their houses instead of coffee, or chocolate, the last of which, a decoction of

it greatly resembles. The taste is not unpleasant, and children who are out of health would reap great benefit from taking it for their breakfast and supper, which they would readily do, if deceived with the addition of cream and sugar. It is highly recommended in the Edinburgh Dispensatory as a powerful stomachic, and for strengthening the tone of the viscera in general. The root has a warm astringent taste, and a pleasant aroma. tic smell, especially in the spring. It yields on distillation an elegant odoriferous essential oil, which concretes into a flaky form.

Agrimony.

THIS plant grows wild in the fields and highways, and has an acrid rough taste, somewhat aromatic. A tea of it is often serviceable in fevers, especially those of the dysenteric kind. Digested in whey it affords a diet-drink grateful to the palate and stomach.

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