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Show ROUND K@ZMPFERIA,. HIS TORY, This plant has a most fragrant odour, and flowers in July and August, but never produces seeds in our stoves. It was cultivated by Miller in 1768. It is a native of the East Indies. On the authority of the Royal London College we have referred the officinal Zedoary to this plant: but Bergius gays that it is a species of Amomum; andthis opinion receives additional weight by the description of the true Zedoary as given us by Camellus, The root of this plant is brought over to us in oblong pieces twoor three inches in length, bent, rough and angular, firm and ponderous, about the thickness of one’s finger; or in roundish cnes about an inch in diameter, both of them of an “ash colour on the outside, and white within, and indiscriminately used. Theypossess a fragrant agreeable smell, much resembling camphor; and by distilling the fresh root we find a small portion of a true camphor swimming at the top of thedistilled water, in the form of very small and thin laminz. It possesses also a slight bitterness, and considerable warmth and pungency. MEDICAL VIRTUES. Dr. Donald Monro exto!s this root as a warm cordial sto- ROUND K2ZAMPFERIA. ZEDOARY, P.L. KEMPFERIA ROTUNDA, P. L. Class 1. Monandria. machic, and an expeller of wind, excellent in phlegmatic habits, andthe pituitous asthma. Hesays, that it isnot much used in the present practice of physic: but that it is certainly a good medicine, and maybe prescribed, with advantage, where a warm Order I. Monogynia. Essent. Gen. Cuar. Corolla six-parted, three of the parts larger, spreading, one two-parted: Stigma two-plated. Spec. Cuar. Leaves lanceolate, petioled: Segments of the Corolla linear. ee Tins plant rises to five or six feet. ° . present knowledge is too limited to expunge any one article from the few that have been selected out of thirty thousand plants. When ordered, it should be directed from fifteen grains to a DESCRIPTION. ~ cordial bitter is indicated. Cullen says, it does not merit a place in the Materia Medica, and Woodville reports it should be wholly discarded: but our The stalks are chiefly + round one anotherat their formed of convoluted leaves wrapped tf feet long,5) and three broad ? bases. The leaves are six or eight 5 pointed, standing upon broad foot-stalks. The flower-stalks rise but little above the Sround, and on these are placed the flowers in spikes. No calyx. The corolla is composed of six i d petals; the three lowerdecline downwards, are long andnarrow; the two upper are divided so deeply as to appear like a flower with fourpetals, and theside petalis bifid, or deeplycleft. drachm. An useful tincture might be made of it, as I have found, and in this way it has proved an excellent remedy in Pyrosis, flow of water from the mouth; and heart-burn, Car- dialgia. : PREPARATIONS. The Royal London College have only receivedit in their aro. matic confection, forrferly called Corpiau Conrecrion (Confectio Aromatica, olim Confectio Cardiaca, P. E.), of which it makes the principal ingredient, whichis thus ordered: |