(seq. 155)

146

Materia Medica

Tonics

but it is not. It is the produce of a tree in the East Indies, where it is
used as a specific for the bite of a snake. The seed of the plant is
the nux vomica of the shops, it is of an Orange colour and
intensely bitter and disagreeable to the taste. It contains a gum
and a resin. It is fatal to dogs Conrad Gisnac gave a dog ℈fs [½ scruple]
he fell a sleep and died convulsed in a few hours, but it was not
a true sleep accompanied with stupor and insensibility. It has
been used in intermittant fevers in doses of grs v [5 grains], it is internally
and externally as an anthelmintic, the spiritous tincture has
been found usefull in Lumbrica cotton dipped in it and appli'd
to the umbilicus has expelled them.

Fumaria Officinalis. Fumitory is not a native of this country,
but will grow in our gardens, it is a bitter without odour, the
inspissated Juice when efforesced leaves a substance which
diflagrates like nitre on the coals. Hoffman esteemed it the sweetener
of the blood, by this he ment a purifier, he held the humeral
Pathology, we may observe that some of those medicines
called sweeteners are verry active. Dr Hutchinson says he cured
a case of leprae, accompanied with glandular swellings by the
use of this medicine. Stanbury found it usefull in herpes,