153 
done the former, this new and _ efficacious medicine among the 
sick. On my departure from Lima for Spain this second sup- 
ply had ‘been already distributed:—a proof of its virtues as an 
odontalgic. 
mails IT found that by frequently keeping a vinadi piece of 
the bark of the Star-reed in the mouth, its pungency and fra- 
grance prevented the perception of the bad smell and putrid 
miasmata peculiar to the breath and perspiration of some persons, 
and especially that odour which is perceived on entering hospi- 
tals and rooms of sick persons which are ill ventilated: there- 
fore this plant deserves to be recorded as one of the best vegetable 
medicines against foetid miasmata, and preferable to the roots 
of the Iris Florentina, Ginger, Calamus aromaticus, Galan- 
ga, &c. and as an efficacious remedy by which persons may 
correct or remove the smell of bad breath. The effects pro- 
duced in Peru were experienced in Madrid by several who 
used the Star-reed for the tooth-ache, keeping in the mouth a 
small piece of the bark, in which, as is the case with many roots 
and stalks, the virtue resides; because in the ligneous part, where 
there are no manifest juices, the flavour peculiar to the bark is 
scarcely perceived, after the latter has been well separated from 
the former by pounding it in a mortar till it remains eed 
clear from the ligneous part. 
Some physicians of the court of Madrid, to whom the properties, 
virtues, and uses of the Star-reed in Peru were represented, have 
already begun to administer the powder of its bark in those 
cases in which that of the Virginian Snake-root is prescribed, 
substituting for half an ounce of the latter two drachms of the 
former with two ounces of bark for opiates; and they assert that 
the bark of the Star-reed takes effect more premptly and phe’ 
than the Snake-root. 
2R 
