428 Miscellaneous. 



range of medicines to ring the changes upon. No Geranium has 

 now a place in any British Pharmacopoeia*, but several species hold 

 a conspicuous place in the old Herbals. Of Geranium pratense and 

 its immediate allies, Gerarde says, " none of these plants are now 

 in vse in physicke ; yet Fuschius sayeth that cranes-bill with the 

 blew floure (G. pratense) is an excellent thing to heale wounds." — 

 Our author speaks in very different terms of our commoner species, 

 Ger. molle and dissectum. " The herbe and roots dried," says he, 

 " beaten into most fine powder, and given halfe a spoonful fasting, 

 and the like quantitie to bedwards in red wine, or old claret, for the 

 space of one and twentie days together, cureth miraculously rup- 

 tures or burstings, as myselfe have often proved, whereby I haue 

 gotten crownes and credit : if the ruptures be in aged persons, it 

 shall be needfull to adde thereto the powder of red snailes (those 

 without shels) dried in an ouen, in number nine, which fortifie the 

 herbs in such sort, that it neuer faileth, although the rupture be 

 great and of long continuance : it likewise profiteth much those that 

 are wounded into the body, and the decoction of the herbe made in 

 wine, prevaileth mightily in healing inward wounds, as myselfe haue 

 likewise proved." — Historie of Plants, p. 939. 



Ray also furnishes us with a proof of the medicinal virtue of the 

 Gerania. When he tells us that Geranium molle and robertianum 

 are added to vulnerary potions and fomentations to stay fluxes and 

 effusions of blood, and to relieve the pains of colic, and of the 

 stone and gravel, he merely gives us a summary of preceding ob- 

 servation ; but he speaks from his own knowledge when he details 

 the case of his host at Carlisle, who, subject to frequent severe 

 paroxysms of pain from calculus, found in nothing so much relief as 

 from a decoction of Ger. robertianum. (Syn. p. 361.) In a subse- 

 quent work, after repeating its virtues as a vulnerary herb, Ray 

 mentions that a decoction of the same species is used by shepherds 

 to cure their cattle passing bloody urine. (Hist. Plant, ii. p. 1059.) 



Geiger informs us that G. pratense and sanguineum were formerly 

 officinal, the root and herb being used, both having an unpleasant 

 odour and a very astringent taste, which is contrary to Dr. Edgar's 

 information. Other compilers repeat the same talef of the astrin- 

 gency of the Gerania in general, and of their popular use in fluxes 

 and diseases of relaxation ; but it is foreign to my purpose to enter 

 farther on the subject than what is sufficient to show that the virtue 

 ascribed to our district species is not imaginary. — From the Transac- 

 tions of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, vol. ii. p. 175. 



ON THE GENUS PEDICULARIA OR THYRETJS. 



Mr. Swainson, in 'Lardner's Ency.,' pp. 240, 245, 357, fig. 44, 

 applied the former name to a small rosy shell found on coral at Sicily, 

 which he arranges with the Patella, and it has been retained in that 



* Several Gerania are introduced into Dr. Stokes's ' Botanical Materia 

 Medica,' but without any indication of their properties. 



f For extracts from the works of L. Merat, Geiger and Gerbuier, f am 

 indebted to the obliging kindness of Professor Christisoru 



