The fresh root, wounded
early in the spring, yields and odorous yellow juice, which slowly
exsiccated proves an elegant gummy resin, very rich in the virtues of
the Angelica. On drying the root, this juice concretes into distinct
moleculae, which, on cutting it longitudinally, appear distributed in
little veins: in this state they are extracted by pure spirit, but not
by watery liquors.
This resin is considered one of the most elegant aromatics of European
growth, though little regarded in the present practice, and is rarely
met with in prescription; neither does it enter any officinal
composition.
172. ANTHEMIS nobilis. CHAMOMILE. The Flowers. L.E.D.--These have a
strong not ungrateful, aromatic smell, but a very bitter nauseous taste.
They are accounted carminative, aperient, emollient, and in some measure
anodyne: and stand recommended in flatulent colics, for promoting the
uterine purgations, in spasmodic affections, and the pains of women in
child-bed: sometimes they have been employed in intermittent fevers, and
the nephritis. These flowers are also frequently used externally in
discutient and antiseptic fomentations, and in emollient glysters. The
double-flowered variety is usually cultivated for medicine, but the wild
kind with single flowers is preferable.
Similar Plants.--Anthemis arvensis; A. Cotula; Pyrethrum maritimum.
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