OCR Text |
Show COMMON CULTIVATED GARLIC. 341 five or six small bulbs, called cloves, inclosed in one common membranous coat, but easily separable from each other, All the parts of this plant, but more especially the roots, have a strong, offensive, very penctrating and diffusible smell, and an acrimonious, almost caustic, taste. Theroot is full of a limpid juice, of which it furnishes almost a fourth part of its weight by expression. It also loses about half its weight by drying, but scarcely any of its smell or taste. By decoction its virtues are entirely destroyed ; and bydistillationit furnishes a small quan. tity of a yellowish essential oil, heavier than water, whichpos. sesses the sensible qualities of the garlic in an eminent degree. Its peculiar virtues are also in some degree extracted by alcohol and acetous acid. By Neumann’s analysis it lost two-thirds of its weight by exsiccation. By decoction from 960 parts, water extracted 380, and the residuum yielded 27 to alcohol, and was reduced to 40. Alcohol applied first, extracted 123, the residuum yielded. 162 to water, and was reduced to 40. In both cases the alcohulic extract was unctuous and tenacious, and precipitated metallic solutions. But the active ingredient was a thick, ropy, essential oil, according to Hagen heavier than water, not amounting to more than 1*3 of the whole, in which alone resided the smell, the taste, and all that distinguishes the garlic. COMMON CULTIVATED GARLIC. ALLIUM SATIVUM. get Class V1, Hexandria. Order 1. Monogynia. MEDICAL USE. Corolla six-parted, patent: Spatha multiflorous Essent. GEN. Cuar. Umbel congested: Capsule superior. ‘ sahie Spec. Cuar. Stem bulb-bearing: Balb compound: Stamina tricuspiaate. ee DESCRIPTION. numeIr rises a foot or more. The leaves from the root are flowers The grass-like. flat, long, few, stem rous; on the in 4 arije betweon the small bulbs, which terminate the stem cluster. The flower is white, and commonly abortive. The calyx is a spatha common to all theflorets and bulbs.’ The c rolla consists of six oblong petals. The capsule is short, broad, three-celled and three-valved, and contains roundish seeds. HISTORY. a “hic row s wild Garlic is a perennial bulbous-rooted plant, w hich gre a . * « z, Thar . SIStS 0 con root The in Sicily, and is cultivated in our gardens. as : Applied externally it acts successively as a stimulant, rubefacient, and blister. Internally, from its very powerful and diffusible stimulus, it is often useful in diseases of languidcir culation and interrupted secretion. Hence.in cold leuco-phlegmatic habits it proves a powerful expectorant, diuretic, and, if the patient be kept warm, sudorific; it has also been by some ‘tpposed to be emmenagogue. For the same reason, in cases M which a phlogistic diathesis, or irritability prevails, large doses ofit may be very hurtful. It is sometimes used by the lower classes as a condiment, and also enters as an ingredient into many of the epicure’s most fa- Yourite sauces. ‘'aken in moderation it promotes digestion ; but in excess, it is apt to produce headach, flatulence, thirst, febrile heat, and inflammatory diseases, and sometimes occasions ‘discharge of blood from the hemorrhoidal vessels. |