(seq. 427)

420

Materia Medica

Stimulants

sensibility and secretion of the organ. I have been informed that the
same application cured earache, garlic is said to make the hair grow longer
and blacker &c. As a medicine garlic is used in different forms sometimes
a clove is dipt in the oil and swallow’d, in this form it does not heat the
stomach as much as in others, it is sometimes made into an oxymel.

Assafoetida. This comes in with propriety after the
alliacea, it is a foetid concrete juice obtained from a large umbellifferous
plant like the fennel, the juice is obtained from the root of the plant and
hardened in the sun, the plant is a native of Persia. Assafoetida has
a bitter acrid and pungent taste with a strong smell the latter of which
is the best criterion of its power and purity, its active principle resides
in the volatile part therefore it suffers from keeping, it is not a gum but
a gum resin and is well entitled to attention, it is the most powerfull
of the foetid gums, that are used in practice. Bergius has exhibittid
it in intermittants but has found it of little service in recent cases.
In obstinate ones however it performed some cures when combined with
the bark. It has been employ’d in nervous* [footnote back 1 page] diseases and is usefull in
spasmodic affections of the stomach also of dyspepsia, it has been
employ’d advantageously in flatulent colic &c. Dr Cullen thinks
it acts more readily on the nerves than any other medicine and was