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Show WHITE FRAXINELLA, OR BASTARD DITTANY. 433 HISTORY. This plant is commonly called Fraxinella, and is native of France, Germany, and Italy. It emits a fragrant bituminous odour, which seems to be the essential oil of the herb, secreted by numerous small glands, with which the peduncles and filaments are abundantly furnished. These odorous effluvia are so very inflammable, that on the application of flame they take fire, especially on the evening of a hot dry day. MEDICAL VIRTUES. The root, which is the part directed for medicinal use, when fresh, has a moderately strong, not disagreeable smell, but as met with in the shops it has scarcely any. To thetaste it discovers a pretty strong and very durable bitterness, which is taken up WHITE FRAXINELLA, OR BASTARD DITTANY. DICTAMNUS ALBUS. gested in fourteen ounces of spirit of wine; of this twenty to : Class X. Decandria, Order I. Monogynia. Essent. Gen. Cuar, Calyx five-leaved : Petals five, spreading: Filaments covered with glandula r spots. Spec. Cuar. Leaves pinnate: Stem simple, aD T DESCRIPTION. i ve Plant rises a foot and a half. The leaves are pinnated, n arge: pinne oval, veined, poin ted, slightly serrated, dis- — in pairs, terminated by an odd one, whichis the bigg est. Owers are white, large, terminat e the stem, and stand upon long peduncles. Fruit five united capsules, each of which con- tains two oval seeds. both by watery and spirituous menstrua, and, on inspissating the filtered tinctures, remains entire in the extracts: the aqueous extract is in much larger quantity than the spirituous, and proportionably weakerin taste. Formerly this root was used as a stomachic, tonic, and alexipharmic, and was supposed to be a medicine of much efficacy in removing uterine obstructions and destroying worms; but its medicinal powers became so little regarded by modern physicians, that it had fallen almost entirely into disuse, till baron Stoerck brought it into notice by publishing several cases of its success, viz. in tertian intermittents, worms (lumbrici), and menstrual suppressions. Inall these cases he employed the powdered root to the extent of ascruple twice aday. He also made use of a tincture, prepared of two ounces of the fresh root dififty drops, two or three times a day, were successfully prescribed in epilepsies, &c.: and when joined with steel, this’ root, we are told, was of great service to chlorotic patients. The dictamnus undoubtedly is a medicine of considerable power; but, notwithstanding the accountofit given by Stoerck, who seems to have paidlittle attention to its modus operandi, we may still say with Haller, ‘* Nondum autem vires pro dignitate exploratus est.” |