Bot. p. 221.
This is now become a very popular medicine, but if used incautiously is
attended with danger. Medical practitioners should make themselves
perfectly acquainted with this plant, as the leaves are the only part
used; and their not being readilly discriminated when separated from the
flowers, several accidents have occurred. In the Gent. Mag. for
September 1815 is recorded a very extraordinary mistake, where the life
of a child was sacrificed to the ignorance of a person who administered
this instead of Coltsfoot; a plant so very dissimilar, that, had it not
been well authenticated, I should not have believed the fact.
Similar Plants.--Verbascum nigrum; V. Thapsus; Cynoglossum officinale,
or, after the above mistake, any other plant with a lanceolate leaf, we
fear, may be confounded with it.
205. ERYNGIUM maritimum. SEA-HOLLY. Roots. D.--The roots are slender,
and very long; of a pleasant sweetish taste, which on chewing for some
time is followed by a light degree of aromatic warmth and acrimony. They
are accounted aperient and diuretic, and have also been celebrated as
aphrodisiac: their virtues, however, are too weak to admit them under
the head of medicines. The candied root is ordered to be kept in the
shops.--Lewis's Mat. Med.
206. FERULA assafoetida. ASSAFOETIDA. Gum. L. E. D.--This drug has a
strong fetid smell, somewhat like that of garlick; and a bitter, acrid,
biting taste.
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