154 
The same gentlemen of the faculty have administered this new, 
medicine in powder, without the addition of Peruvian bark or 
other medicines, the dose being from half a drachm to a drachm, 
and its effects have always answered expectation. ! 
- The Star-reed, like the Virginian Snake-root, ‘belongs, as we 
have observed, to the genus Aristolochia of Linnzus; hence 
the resemblance of their properties and virtues cannot be doubted : 
but the Star-reed has the advantage of a more fragrant, grateful, 
and permanent odour, and of a more exquisite camphorous, 
balsamic, and bitter flavour than the Snake-root: it must there- 
- fore be more active in its effects, in all-eases'req 1iring the exhi- 
bitic 
on of Snake-root: consequently Star-reed is more estimable, 
and claims preference over the Snake-root in Materia Medica. 
In addition to tliese solid reasons, there are others still more 
_ powerful, for substituting the use of the Star-reed fer that of 
Snake-root. | : 
1. Because the cuttings of the stalks and roots: of the Star- 
reed, as gathered by the Indians, long, thick, and with strongly 
marked characters, admit of no mixture, nor can they be con- 
founded with parts of other vegetables, as is the case with the 
Snake-root, which being very slender can readily be mingled. 
with those of many other plants having roots equally slender, 
and similar in form and colour, though very different in their 
¢ Bee 
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2. Because the thick bark peculiar to the stalks and roots of 
the Star-reed, is easily separated by twisting or breaking them 
from the woody part, which like that of the Snake-root is al- 
most insipid and inert ; and the whole bark may be reduced to 
powder alone, without any particle of the ligneous heart: this ope- 
wie . 
< = ae. 
a is jmpracticable with the small reots of the Snake-root,’ 
