165. ALLIUM Cepa. ONION. The Root. D.--These roots are considered rather
as articles of food than of medicine: they are supposed to afford little
or no nourishment, and when eaten liberally they produce flatulencies,
occasion thirst, headachs, and turbulent dreams: in cold phlegmatic
habits, where viscid mucus abounds, they doubtless have their use; as by
their stimulating quality they tend to excite appetite, attenuate thick
juices, and promote their expulsion: by some they are strongly
recommended in suppressions of urine and in dropsies. The chief
medicinal use of onions in the present practice is in external
applications, as a cataplasm for suppurating tumours, &c.
166. ALTHAEA officinalis. MARSH-MALLOW. The Leaves and Root. L.--This
plant has the general virtues of an emollient medicine; and proves
serviceable in a thin acrimonious state of the juices, and where the
natural mucus of the intestines is abraded. It is chiefly recommended in
sharp defluxions upon the lungs, hoarseness, dysenteries, and likewise
in nephritic and calculous complaints; not, as some have supposed, that
this medicine has any peculiar power of dissolving or expelling the
calculus; but as, by lubricating and relaxing the vessels, it procures a
more free and easy passage. Althaea root is sometimes employed externally
for softening and maturing hard tumours: chewed, it is said to give ease
in difficult dentition of children.
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