Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

134

Materia Medica

Tonics

pregnancy for unatural food, I have never used it, the dose from XV grs. [15 grains] to a ℈i [1 scruple] of the powder or one ounce of the infusion made of a ℥ fs. [½ ounce] quassia to 1 lb water. Quassia Amara, and Quassia Polligama are sold in the city of Philadelphia by the name of quassea. Quassia Semirouba. This grows in Jamaica and in almost all the West Indies and Southern climates, it is called Mountain Jessamine, to a chimical test it discovers no astringency, the fresh bark discovers no astringency, its virtues are extracted by water. Jesseau informed us he used it fifteen years in dysentary, but with ill success. I can readily believe it can be usefull in the cronic stage of dysentary if combined with opium when there is no tenesmus or fever, but like all the tonics it is not adapted to the first stage of disease, it is recommended in dysentary by Saunders he says if it did not prove usefull in three or four days it never did. Dr Lind says if given to nauseate it was of use. Dr Ham thought it a good anthelmintic habitual Chlorosis have been cured by it. Sir John Pringle prescribed this bark in diarrhea's from Hot Climates. Menianthus Trifoliata, Or Marsh Trefoil, is found