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Show 854 PAREIRA BRAVA. a number of concentric circles appear, crossed with fibres, which run from the ceutre to the circumference. It has no smell); the taste is a little bitterish, blended with a sweetness like that of liquorice. MEDICAL USE, The root is highly extolled by the Americans and Portuguese in a great variety of diseases, particularly against suppressions of urine, nephritic pains, and calculus. Geoffroy also foundit useful in nephritic disorders, in ulcers of the kidneys and bladder, in humoral! asthmas, and in some species of jaundice. The commonpeople of Jamaica use a decoction of the roots for pains and weakness of the stomach proceeding fromrelaxation. ‘The dose of the root in substance is from twelve grains to half a drachm; in decoction, to two or three drachms. M. Geoffroy, in a paper inserted in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for the year 1710, says, that he has oftentriedit in nephritic colics with success, and that he thinks it a useful re« medyin ulcers of the kidney and bladder; his method of preparing it was, to boil two drachms of it from three pints of water to one, to sweeten the strained liquor with sugar, and to give it by tea-cupfuls at a time. BUTCHER’S BROOM. RUSCUS ACULEATUS. Class XXII. Dicecia. Order X. Syngenesia, Essent. Gen. Cuan. Male flower—Calyxsix-leaved: Corolla none: Nectary central, ovate, perforated at the apex. Female flower—Calyxr, Corolla, and Nectary, similar to the male: Styles one: Berry three-celled: Seeds two. Srec.Cuar. Leaves with pungent points, bearing the flowers aboye, naked. +EE DESCRIPTION. a SHRUB, seldom exceeding a foot. Leaves bearing the flowers sessile, ovate, rigid, sharply pointed, entire, marked with pas rallel veins. Flowers conspicuous, fixed on the leaves. Female producing a three-celled red berry, containing two globularseeds, HISTORY. Native of Britain in woods and thickets, flowering in March and April. MEDICAL VIRTUE. Riverius relates a case of dropsy successfully treated by a de. coction of the roots of this plant; but at present it is rarely, if ever, employed in medicine. |