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Show 574 COMMON HOREHOUND. MEDICAL VIRTUES. It has a bitter principle, and has been recommendedfor pituitous asthma, coughs, and female weaknesses; and Haller mentions his having cured a consumption by means of an aqueous infusion. The dose is two or three ounces of the expressed juice, or the infusion of half a handful of the fresh leaves, in a sufficient quantity of boiling water, drunk as tea. At present the following is chiefly employed :— Canpiep Horenounp. Boil some horehoundtill the juice is extracted. Boil up some sugar to a feather (see p. 330, of New London Family Cook); add your juice to the sugar, and letit boil till it is again the same height. Stir it with a spoon against the sides of your sugar pan till it begins to grow thick, then pour it into a papercase that is dusted with fine sugar, and cut it into squares. You may dry the horehound, and put it into the sugar finely powdered and sifted. Small pieces are put into the mouth, and this certainly greatly tends to allay irritation; and probably thebitter may have some good effect in bracing the stomach, and hence the whole system. WILD MARJORAM. ORIGANUM VULGARE. Class XIV. Didynamia. Essent, Gen. CHar. Order I. Gymnospermia. Strobile tetragonal, spicate, collecting all the ca- lyxes. Srec. Cuar. Spikes subrotund, paniculate, congl omerate: Bracteas ovate, length of the calyx. gg DESCRIPTION. Tuts plant rises about a foot and a half. The leaves are ovate, pointed, smooth above, beneath downy, in pairs. Flowers ter- minal, of a pale purple. Segments obtuse. Upperlip erect, bifid, lower trifid, Filaments long, with double anthers, distant above, below forming a cross. HISTORY. Native of Britain, on dry chalky hills and gravelly sails ; flowers in July and August. i MEDICAL VIRTUE. Distilled with water it yields a moderate quantity of a very acrid, penetrating, essential oil, which has been much extolled 4s easing toothach from a carious tooth. The dried leaves are Used asi tea, and to some palatesit is very grateful, especially to Rervous habits, |