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Salisbury, William, -1823

"The Botanist's Companion, Volume II"

SPIRTING CUCUMBER. Fruit L. E. D.--Elaterium
is a strong cathartic, and very often operates also upwards. Two or
three grains are accounted in most cases a sufficient dose. Simon Paulli
relates some instances of the good effects of this purgative in
dropsies: but cautions practitioners not to have recourse to it till
after milder medicines have proved ineffectual; to which caution we
heartily subscribe. Medicines indeed in general, which act with violence
in a small dose, require the utmost skill to manage them with any
tolerable degree of safety: to which may be added, that the various
manners of making these kinds of preparations, as practised by different
hands, must needs vary their power.

239. MORUS nigra. MULBERRY. Fruit. L.--It has the common qualities of
the other sweet fruits, abating heat, quenching thirst, and promoting
the grosser secretions; an agreeable syrup made from the juice is kept
in the shops. The bark of the roots has been in considerable esteem as a
vermifuge; its taste is bitter, and somewhat astringent.--Lewis's Mat.
Med.

240. NICOTIANA Tabacum. TOBACCO. Leaves. L. E. D.--Tobacco is sometimes
used externally in unguents for destroying cutaneous insects, cleansing
old ulcers, &c. Beaten into a mash with vinegar or brandy, it has
sometimes proved serviceable for removing hard tumours of the
hypochondres.


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