magi 
the Royal Medical Academy of Madrid spread rapidly through 
Spain, and through many other parts of Europe, the use of the 
barks of the Yallhoy will be likewise propagated among all 
nations. 290 
Every day new productions are announced to us by Natu 
ralists, but we seldom attain the main ebject, of having their 
qualities, virtues, and applications made known ; and therefore a 
useful discovery, like that of the root of Yallhoy, in economy and 
medicine, ought to be more prized than an infinite number of 
discoveries of no known use. 
- For this reason it is proper that the use of this new production 
should be established and propagated as a precious remedy 
against dysenteries, which are sometimes so afflicting to human 
nature. | 
mours, resolvingand restoring tone to those debilitated and relaxed parts, And lastly it has 
been known to correct and-cure all kinds of ulcers, when applied to them in light plaster 
It is somewhat difficult to divest some professional men, of the vulgar and false 
tions that the extracts are a useless medley, Natural reason dictates, and sound chemistry 
proves to us, that in well elaborated extracts, as much as in good doctrines, the virtue of 
the vegetable resides ; and when plants are inodorous, or have _ little smell, it is indis- 
putable that the extracts of them contain all or nearly all their virtues, as is proved by the ex- 
tracts of opium, nettles, aloes, rhubarb, &c. with the additional advantage of being available 
in a small compass, and in pills, when the stomach of the patient will admit neither decoctions — 
nor infusions hot or cold. The extract of Ratanhia operates with greater efficacy, exhibited in 
all the prescribed modes, than decoctions of the root from which it is extracted. Want of expe- 
rience in administering the extract of Ratanhia has obliged some practitioners to suspend the ap- 
plication of this very: powerful medicine, because its styptic virtue and bitterness are generally 
it appears to me worthy of notice in this place, that, nets at Gest tere ‘may “be some re~ 
pugnance on the part of the patient, or he may involuntarily eject the first doses, it is necessary 
to persevere in repeating them, because the result seldom fails to be, as others of the faculty 
have experienced, that ‘the stomach will retain the fourth and succeeding doses, especi- 
ally if the patient immediately chew a little lemon, and drink and gargle with vinegar, diluted 
in two parts of common water ; and if the object be not thus attained, let the extract be given 
in pills with the same corrective, and the desired result will be obtained. 
Qn 
no- 
