(seq. 545)

538

Materia Medica

Cathartics

be combined with calomel,

Rx
Podaph. Pelt. X or Xij grs [10 or 12 grains]
Calomel iv or vi grs. [4 or 6 grains]

M. this is a dose for an adult. I have sometimes combined it with Crem
Tart, but this combination induces griping, it is an article much
adapted to the intermittant and remittants of our country to prepare the
system for the exhibition of the bark. I have been informed by
Physicians that they have cured intermittant fevers by it alone. I have
recommended it to some who did not succeed with it because it was
taken up in the spring when it should have been taken up in the autumn
when the fruit is esculent and ripe and the leaves yellow and perfectly
withered, the flowers of this plant is of a cream white, the fruit when
ripe is yellow and the root grows horizontally, the whole of the root
is used.

Hellebore. The helleborus Niger spontaneously
grows on the mountains in Germany, but not in the United States
the root of it is cathartic in the dose of from grs X to Ʒfs [10 grains to ½ dram] for an adult
the purgative quality seems to reside in the resinous parts, this is a
more powerfull cathartic than many I have yet mentioned, but
still it is not verry violent the antients [ancients] thought it well adapted to
cases of Melancholy from Atrabites and other diseases of the mind,
and this practice is still pursued by some Physicians of our time,
it is the article so much spoken of by Hypocrates and Galen.