by: reason of their extreme tenuity; and for this reason they are 
always ground with the ligneous part. PAM En, 
_3. Because in Spain we seldom obtain the Stickeaiet 4 in good 
condition ; it is commonly blackish, instead of a pale straw co- — 
Jour, full of earth and bits of the stalks, leaves, and unripe fruit 
of the plant; and, what is much worse, mingled with cuttings 
of forked stalks, which by their figure and articulations are in- 
dicated to be of a small species of Euphorbia, with numerous 
seeds, and other unknown substances, and a multitude of little 
roots of different plants, so intimately entangled with those of 
the Snake-root as to appear one and the same; from which 
cireumstance it is difficult for physicians to distinguish the ge- 
nuine from the spurious, even if they all, as it is to *bertop 
tend to the selecting and cleansing of them; because they are 
commonly, when taken out of the cases or packages, broken, 
mixed with earth and dust, and almost always half decayed, 
or at least mostly deprived of that natural colour, flavour, 
and fragrance, Se oat in hone hel are ~ pecker and 
carefull ly preserved. — 
4. Because seeniaiata isd nity oh never attend as they 
ght. to prevent their being damaged, to the cleansing of the 
simples. which they dispose of, at an arbitrary and exorbitant’ 
profit, not only to apothecaries, but also to those who cannot: 
discriminate, as they op a che’ useta and beneficial: ed ; 
the useless and noxio incu pot, as well as n 
_ other vegetable drugs, ima brok almost pu : 
and. with little reots = 1 @auleiete of. other site growing 
them, together with other spurious substances ; and in 
this condaieas the medicine is administered to the sick by persons 
ignorant of physic, not a few of whom - often. “purchase from 
druggists with the prescriptions of medical men, net: only it, 
