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Show 84 DYER’S MADDER. MEDICAL USE. along with its food; and if this root be alternately intermixed and employedfor a sufficient length of time, and at proper in- times a-day, or in decoction. Like every other remedy possessing a powerful colour, it is supposed to bea cure of the yellow jaundice, but with no better foundation, although it colours the urine of a bright red, which has made some who have taken it conceive they have made bloody te o Pao Co 85 of madder affects the bones in a very short time, and that the most solid or hardest part of the bones first receives the red colour, which gradually extends, ab externo, through the whole os- Tt is said to be useful in the atrophy of children, and some believe in its reputed powers as an emmenagogue. It is given in substance in doses of half a drachm, several mE a Fe DYER’S MADDER. terish astringent taste. For the use of the dyers, they arefirst peeled and dried, then bruised and packedin barrels. Madder possesses the remarkable propertyof tingeing of a red colour the urine, milk, and bones, of animals which are fed with it. water. It is said by Haller, that merely holding the root in the hand producesthis effect. Cows, who are remarkably fond of the plant, give also a red milk, but it makes a yellowbutter. Hence some have advised the use of this plant in dropsy, but the success is doubtful. The great Boerhaave, speaking of it, says: “ Radix vino, cerevisiz, vel aque incocta dat potum, qui aperiendo et roborando agit in utero, melancholia, sabulo renum, ictero, morboque hypochondriaco, sanguine coagulato, hydrope, et contusione, urina obstructa,—presertim si hec decocta melle edulcorentur, et per aliquot dies successivos usurpentur. Alii plantam summopere adstringentem esse dicunt, sed tamen inter resolventes accipitur; panni inde rubro coloretincti seous substance, while the animal continues to take the madder tervals, the bones are found: to be coloured in a correspondent number of concentric circles. ‘This in time becomes completely taken up, showing that every part of us is removing and regenerating every instant of our being; and this not only with the soft parts, but even the very bones! Probably this led to the application of this plant in diseases of the bones ; and Haller asserts that it has been found good in mollities ossium, softness of the bones, and even dissipated nodes very perceptible to the finger. Mr. Levret, Haller says, speaks of a cure of the rickets by means of this plant; and that he himself cured a young lady, fourteen years of age, using with it only a ptisan of polypody and a few grains of rhubarb each day. As to its being’a cure for the atrophy of children, mentioned in the New Edinburgh Dispensatory, which is usually so extremely correct, it seems hardly adapted for that purpose; for the animals who were fed upon this substance became emaciated, and died of atrophy, unless the diet was changed ; and given in pellets to pigeons, they vomited them up. blood, dropsy, contusion, obstruction in passing water,—especially if sweetened with honey, and continued for several days. As an emmenagogue, Dr. Home published in 1780 his Clinical Experiments, in which he asserts it to be one of the strongest and safest emmenagogues with which we are acquainted ; andrelates nineteen cases of obstructed menstrua in which it was tried, and tells us that fourteen of them were cured. He gave the madder in powder, half a drachm four times a day ; andhe observes, Manyassert thatit is astringent, but it is rather to be conceived as a resolvent, and hence cloth dyed with the same, and placed that it produced nosensible effects in the stomach or bowels, or in promoting any of the secretions. upon a gouty or arthritic limb, has done service.” That it even coloured the bones was first noticed by Mizaldus, but not knownin England until Mr. Belchier published an account in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxxix. p. 287, of contusion, a pig and a cock, whose bones became red byeating madder Old Gerard mentions also that it is good in staying the bloody flux. Dr. Cullen thinks it a plant deserving slight estimation, and et gesti supra corpus nudum podagricis et arthriticis prosunt.”’ “The root given in wine, ale, or water, both acts as a corro- borant and aperient in uterine disease, melancholy, gravel or stone in the kidneys, jaundice, hypochondriasis, coagulated mixed with their food. Since that period various experiments have been made, from whichit appears that the colouring matter Portal recommends the infusion as a great resolverin cases of more worthy the attention of the dyer than the physician; but Wweshould be sorryto see our short catalogue of drugs abridged, unless from a wider experience than has been hitherto made of it. |