or wine, especially the former, are a popular remedy for rheumatism, in many parts of the United-States. This tincture of Poke (Tinctura Phytolacca) is certainly a valuable medicine in cases of chronic rheumatism, and other similar affections. Like the volatile tincture of gum Guaiacum, it has sometimes done injury; as might indeed be expected from an active medicine, in the hands of the injudicious or ignorant. It may, I believe, be safely exhibited in most of the cases of rheumatism, in which the Guaiacum has been used with safety and advantage. In the rheumatic affections, which frequently succeed to the venereal disease, it seems to be a more valuable medicine than the Guaiacum, and may be advantageously employed, especially along with calomel, or other preparations of mercury. I have employed the ripe juice of the berries, inspissated to the state of an extract, in some cases of scrophula. The juice, in the same state, has, I am informed, been advantageously employed in cases of cancerous ulcers. These ulcers were dressed with the extract, spread upon linen, or upon the leaf of the plant. But the juice of the leaves, applied in the same manner, is said to have been found more efficacious. I am inclined to repose some credit in the testimonies which I have collected concerning the utility of the extract of Poke, in the cases just mentioned.

THE reader may consult, with advantage, An Inaugural Botanico-Medical Dissertation on the Phytolacca Decandra of Linnæus. By Benjamin Shultz*. As a repository of facts concerning the Phytolacca, this dissertation is valuable, and worthy of attention. But the subject is still, in a great measure, a new one.

* Philadelphia: 1795.

ARUM triphyllum*. The recent root of this plant boiled in milk, so as to communicate to the milk a strong impregnation of the peculiar acrimony of the plant, has been advantageously employed in cases of consumption of the lungs. I have heard of one case (that of a negro man in Virginia) who was completely cured of a pulmonary consumption by continuing to take, for a considerable time, milk in which the root of the Arum had been boiled. It would certainly be worth trying this simple prescription in some cases of a disease which so generally baffles the powers of all our medicines, and the skill of the best physicians. I am not ignorant, that within the period of a very few years, the disease of consumption has been supposed to be deprived of some of its terrors; but I must add, with real regret, that notwithstanding the high encomiums which have been bestowed upon the Digitalis as a remedy for this disease, by some distinguished medical philosophers, and practitioners†, I have employed this vegetable in a considerable number of cases of consumption, and, upon the whole, with very inconsiderable permanent advantage. In one case, indeed, it seemed to perform a cure of what I deemed genuine phthisis: in several other cases, it evidently and remarkably affected the pulse, and moderated the urgency of the symptoms; but the patients ultimately fell victims to the disease. Some of the patients to whom I exhibited the Digitalis were so far advanced in the disease, that little benefit could have been expected from medicine of any kind: but others of them again were in the earlier stages of the disease, and consequently in a situation that seemed to admit of permanent relief, from

*Part First, p. 21, 49, 50.

† Mr. Saunders, Dr. Thomas Beddoes, Dr. N. Drake, &c. &c.

this or from other medicines. Yet, with the exception of the case already hinted at, I have not been able to effect a single cure by means of Digitalis. I am even inclined to think, that I have, in several instances*, more considerably arrested the progress of phthisis pulmonalis by means of emetics (particularly the sulphat of zinc, exhibited in the manner recommended by Dr. Moseley †) than by Digitalis. Candour compells me to add, that my own experience with the Digitalis in consumption has been less than that of several other practitioners in Philadelphia, some of whom entertain a more favourable opinion of the medicine, as a remedy for consumption, than I do.

DR. STORCK, of Vienna, has called the attention of physicians to a species of Clematis, or Virgin's-Bower, the Clematis recta ‡. This is a very acrid and active plant, which Storck recommended in cancerous, venereal and other malignant ulcers, and also in obstinate pains of the head, and bones, and in other diseases. An infusion of the flowers or leaves, and an extract of the plant were used internally. The powder was sprinkled upon the ulcers, where it was found to act as an excellent escharotic and detergent.

I Do not know that the Clematis recta is a native of any part of America. I have been led to mention the plant in this place, because the United-States afford us some species of the same genus, which, from a few experiments that I have made with them, promise to be useful in medicine. The species which I have more par

Especially in the Pennsylvania Hospital, in the summer of 1803.

† A Treatise upon Tropical Diseases, &c. &c. p. 541, &c. London: 1792. Upright Virgin's-Bower. Storck calls the plant Flammula Jovis. It is a native of Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and France.

ticularly attended to, are Clematis crispa, and Clematis Viorna. The leaves of these species are extremely acrid, and may be found useful in chronic rheumatism, palsy, old ulcers; and, in fine, in all the diseases in which Storck found the Clematis recta useful*. As they are very active plants, it is necessary to use them in small doses. I have received some obscure information concerning the employment of one of the species (I think C. crispa), in Virginia, as a remedy in some particular affections.

DR. SCHOEPF has made no mention of these plants, but has proposed the employment of Clematis Virginiana, as a substitute for Clematis rectat. The C. Virginiana is a much more feeble plant than either of the three other species which have been mentioned.

§ II. TOPICAL STIMULANTS.

THE Pyrola umbellata, already mentioned, may be noticed under this head. The bruised leaves of this plant, when externally applied, sometimes induce redness, vesication and desquamation of the skin. But this is by no means a constant operation of the vegetable; and, therefore, it does not seem particularly worthy of our attention, in this point of view.

RHUS radicanst. The following observations, relative to the deleterious property of this common plant,

* See Elements of Botany, &c. Part Third. p. 70.

† Materia Medica Americana, &c. Praefatio. p. xiii.

See Part First, p. 23, 50, 51, 52.

will not, I hope, be unacceptable to those who are interested in a knowledge of its natural history. The person who is the subject of the observations, has, for many years, been severely affected by the plant; and although many other persons are similarly affected, it is not often, I believe, that the progress of the poison is marked with minute attention in those who are injured by it.

ON the eighth day of July, 1795, I applied two or three drops of the milky juice whilst it issued from the common foot-stalk of the leaves of the Rhus radicans, to the risband of my shirt. These leaves, immediately before, had been torn from the stalk of the plant, by a friend of mine*. My object, in applying the juice, was to determine, in what length of time it would assume the black hue. In a few minutes, I found that the linen was stained black, and in a short time after this, I observed that the juice had penetrated through the risband, and that it had communicated a dark brown or blackish colour to that portion of the epidermis which was immediately under it. The day was unusually warm, and I went into the water to bathe. In the evening, I felt a considerable itching of my wrist, and the following morning observed, that there were upon it a number of extremely minute vesicles, which contained a fluid more or less limpid, or transparent. The itching increased hourly: the wrist and the middle of the fore-arm began to swell, and the vesicles extended themselves rapidly, chiefly upwards, towards the elbow, and partly downwards, along the lower part of the wrist and upon the fingers.

*I was not myself within the sphere of the action of the plant, which I was careful to avoid, well knowing, from long experience, its injurious effects upon me.