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Show 824 HOP. HOP. the course of the medicine long after the occasion forit mayseem to have ceased. And I must here add, that the practitioner is not always to be discouraged if the humulus should not produce its full effect at first; for I have often found that, though 3i of the tincture, or 4 grains of the extract, may have proved apparently ineflicient, a sudden increase of the dose at the end of a few days has put a total stop to the disease. I have thus reported to you, more in detail perhaps than you required, my observations on the medicinal effects of the hue mulus. My experience of them, you will have perceived, has hitherto been confined to one kind of disease, and to only two forms of the medicine; but I have sufliciently convinced myself of its powers to be induced to employit in othercases, espe-~ cially in such as you have recommended it to be usedin your treatise.—I am, dear Sir, Yourvery obedient servant, W.G. Maron. Concluding Observation. T have now, adds Mr. Freake, for nearly six years past, administered the lupulus in a variety of diseases, and I can with confidence assert that it is a very valuable medicine. I have not preserved an account of all the trials I have made of it, but I think I shouldbe correct in asserting, that it has affordeda cure in more than one-half of the cases in which I have givenit. ‘¢ The humulus lupulus,” says Chambers, ‘‘ appears .to have been brought into this country from the Netherlands inthe year 1524. It is first mentioned iy the English statute book 1552, viz. in the fifth and sixth of Edwardthe Sixth, chap. 5. And by an act of parliament inthe first year of king Jamesthe First, anno 1603, chap. 18, it appears that hops were then produced in abundance in England.” THe also says, ‘ In thespring time, while the bud is yet tender, the tops of the plant being cut off, and boiled, are eaten like asparagus, and found very wholesome and effectual to loosen the body; the heads and tendrils are goodto purify the blood in the scurvy, and most cutaneous diseases. Decoctions of the flowers and syrup thereof are of use against pestilential fevers. Juleps and apozems arealso prepared with hops, for hypochondriacal and hysterical affections, and to promote the menses. <Apillow stuffed with hops, and laid under the head, is said to procuresleepin fevers attended with a delirium,” 825 William Coles, herbarist, in his History of Plants, pub. lished in 1657, relating the virtues of hops, says: ‘* They are good to cleanse the kidneys from gravel, and to provoke urine; they likewise open obstructions of the liver and spleen, cleanse the blood, and loosen the belly; and as theycleanse the blood, so consequently they help to cure eruptions of the skin. Tle also says, half adrachm ofthe seeds powdered, and taken in drink, will kill worms,” and adds, that ‘* the expressed juice will cure the jaundice.” Dr. Brookes in his Dispensatory, published in 1753, speaks thus of the lupulus: ‘* Lupulas, hops, the leaves, They help digestion, open obstructions of the viscera, especially the spleen, promote urine, andloosen thebelly; they are good in the hypochondriac passion, the scurvy, and diseases of the skin, if given as an alterative in wheyor broths. The depurated juice maybe given from twoto four ounces, the decoction of the tops from one to two handfuls, and half a drachm of the seeds may be given against worms.” Dr. Lewis, in the second edition of his Dispensatory, speaks ing of hops, says: ‘‘ These are one of the most agreeable of the strong bitters, though rarely employed for any medicinal purposes. heir principal consumption is in malt liquors, which they preserve from undergoing the acetous and putrefactive fermeniations, render less glutinous, and dispose to pass off more freely by urine. The odourof hops hung ina bed has beensaid to induce sleep after opium hadfailed.” In his Materia Medica the same learned author says: ‘ Hops have a verybitter taste, less ungrateful than most of the other strong bitters, accompanied with some degree of warmth and aromatic flavour, They give out their virtue by maceration, without heat, both to rectified and proof spirit, and by warm infusion to water; to cold water they impart little, though macerated in it for many hours. The extracts obtained both by wa.« tery and spirituous menstrua, particularly bythe latter, are very elegant balsamic bitters, and promise to be applicable to valuable purposes in medicine, though the hopis at present scarcely re. garded as a medicinal article, and scarcely otherwise used than for the preserving of malt liquors, which, bythe super-addition of this balsamic aperient diuretic bitter, become less mucilagi- nous, more detergent, more disposed to pass off by urine, and in general more salubrious.”” |