of Lycopodium catharticum. 429 



of this Lycopodium appear, and diffuse the lycopode contained 

 in their capsules. They are cut off and carried home to be 

 dried in boxes or sieves prepared for the purpose, and being 

 shaken from time to time, the powder drops out, when it is 

 collected, and, after being anew dried, is fit for sale. 



" In pharmacy this dust is used to roll up boluses and pills, 

 the result being to cover them with a foreign substance, 

 which preserves them unaltered. In fact, so completely does 

 the lycopode coat the surface of pills, that they may be put 

 into water and taken out again without being moistened, an 

 experiment which may be still more satisfactorily made by 

 putting one's hand into water into which lycopode has been 

 thrown, when the hand will come out dry. The adherence of 

 these minute seeds to one another is doubtless the cause of 

 this phenomenon. 



(i This plant is administered in decoction as a diuretic, also 

 for the relief of gout and the destruction of vermin. The 

 powder is considered to be antispasmodic, and is drunk in 

 white wine to cure dysentery and scurvy. Formerly it was 

 used in pulmonary complaints, whence it obtained the name 

 of Pulmonaria, as it did that of Plicaria from being employed 

 in the north, principally in Sweden and Poland, for the cure 

 of the plica, a malady in which the hair becomes endowed 

 with sensation, and is mingled and matted together in a living 

 mass. The effect of the lycopode in this latter dire disease 

 was, by preventing the mutual contact of the hairs, to hinder 

 their adherence." 



Of late years, and especially in this country, I believe that 

 as a medicine the Lycopodium clavatum has not maintained its 

 reputation, from a probably mistaken notion that its virtues 

 in the cure of scorbutic diseases have been greatly overrated. 

 But when it is known that the Indians of Columbia in South 

 America, guided by experience alone, — for they never can have 

 heard of the properties of our European Lycopodium, — have 

 discovered a remedy for the most lamentable of cutaneous 

 complaints in a species of the same genus, growing in their 

 own country, we cannot but deem the subject deserving the 

 attention of the physicians of the old world ; and it may be 

 worth the while to subject to fresh tests the real virtues of our 



