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Show WATER-TREFOIL, OR BUCKBEAN. WATER-TREFOIL, OR BUCKBEAN. Vide Quad. Bot. edit. 1667, p. 156: ‘¢ Its good effects in scor. experience has gone, all bitters are favourable to gravel, and calculous complaints in the kidneys or bladder. It is recommended by Boerhaave also as an outward applica~ tion for dissolving glandular swellings: ‘* Folia cumsale et vino 100 butic and scrophulous diseases have been warranted by experience. Inveterate cutaneous diseases have been removedby an infusion of the leaves, drank to a quart a day, for some weeks.” NewDisp. p. 221. Boerhaave says: ‘* Rusticis scorbuticis est planta commendatissima, si in cerevisia infusa cum hac fer. mentetur.” Lewis, speaking of this plant in his Materia Medica, says, ¢ The leaves of the buckbeanhave a bitter penetrating taste, which they impart both to watery and spirituous menstrua: they have of late years come into commonuse as analterative and aperient, in impurities of the humours, and some hydropic and rheumatic cases. They are usually taken in the form of infusion, with the addition of some acrid antiscorbutic herbs, which in en RT SUR Te Nae] most cases improve their virtue, and orange-peel, or some other grateful aromatic, to alleviate their ill taste: they are sometimes, among the commonpeople, fermented with malt liquors, for an antiscorbutic dietdrink. This plant has also obtained a name for the cure of rheumatism and gout. Boerhaave says: ‘ Boreales hanc plantam summopere amant, et in scorbuto, quia lento muco obsidente ner- vorum et musculorum membranas et juncturas oritur, hoc modo utuntur: |}. folioram menyanthes manip. duas, conterein pulpam cum serolactis, decoque, hoc decoctum mane jejuno sto- macho assumatur. In doloribus rheumaticis est optima planta, presertim in hoc rheumatismo, qui heret circa juncturas et nervorum membranas, he¢ herba instar potus thée adhibita optime convenit.”’ Boerhaave was himself cured of gout by taking it mixed with whey. Alston says that he has seen very remarkable good effects from this plant in gout, in keeping off the pa- roxysms, though not ultimately to the patient’s advantage; and, indeed, all these bitters have been from time to time vaunted as curing the gout, but, as the great Cullen says, ‘* after a time these cured people have fallen into worse diseases, generally hydrops pectoris” (water in the chest). But in chronic rheumatism much advantageis derived from a stimulating bitter like the present ; more especially as it also opens the bowels, and re- moves acrid bile. Viridet cured by this remedy a paralytic hypochondriac, and has placed this herb among the number of lithonthripics. Boerhaave also says, ‘* Dolores nephriticos curat.” As far as my 10] contusa, et forma cataplasmatis adhibita, conducunt ad tumores frigidos scorbuticos lentosque dissipandos.” It is also recommended in dropsyinall stages, by both Boer. haave andHaller: ‘¢ Folia ejus decocta conveniunt in hydrope.” [ts seeds are good in coughs of long standing, and diseases of the chest: ** Semina prosunt in tussi inveterata et pulmonum morbis.’’— Boerhaave. Linnzus mentions that the common people, in times of scarcity, make breadof the dried roots, with a little meal. The Laplanders also feed their cattle with the dried roots. Respecting the dose, Haller says that a drachmof the powder of the leaves or stem, taken as a dose, opens the body, and often produces vomiting; but Boerhaave speaks of two handfuls ata time. As this plant loses its qualities by drying, like many other herbs potent when fresh, it will not readily obtain much rank as a medicine, where in winter, as in summer, remedies are wanted: but still I think it merits moreattention than it has as yet received from English physicians, |