113 
ARTICLE Il, 
Of ‘the virtues and uses of the genuine Calaguala; of the 
other two Species admitted as such in commerce: and o 
the only criterion for remedying the Mixture of other roots 
with the genuine. 
There are few persons who haye not some knowledge of the 
deobstruent virtue of the Calaguala, since in Spain it is gene- 
rally observable, that when any person receives a blow or a fall, 
he has recourse to it immediately. The Faculty, though many 
of them doubt its virtue, and some of them pron it to be — 
vain and imaginary, generally prescribe, either before. or after 
bleeding, in case of a blow or a fall, no other medicine than the 
tincture or decoction of the Calaguala. Tle Indians and other 
natives of Peru are convinced that it possesses really great de- 
obstruent, sudorific, anti-venereal, and febrifuge virtues, and to 
call them in question would be unjust, since they have been 
proved by the experience of so many years. 
Many are persuaded that the family of the Filices have few 
or no virtues, and some have even a more. unfavourable opinion, 
founded on the circumstance of their. growing in shady and ill- 
ventilated spots; but these persons may be reminded of the an- 
thelmintic and emmenagogical virtue of the root of the Fern, Po- 
lypodium Filia mas Liun., the emollient and pectoral virtue of the 
Polypodium vulgare tage the astringent virtue of the Spleen- 
wort, Asplenium Ceterach Linn., and the aperient virtue of the 
Maiden-hair, Adianthum Copitles veneris: these, besides grow- 
ing, like the Calaguala, in airy, pure, and salubrious situa- 
2G : 
