232 Mr. Frost on the expressed Oil 



It has been recommended to administer the oil in the form of 

 draught, by combining it with mucilage of gum arabic and mint- 

 water by some, and an alcoholic tincture by others ; both which 

 modes of exhibition are in the highest degree objectionable, as 

 they produce a great sensation of heat about the fauces, which 

 can be traced by the patient throughout the alimentary canal ; 

 therefore, the assertion of Linnaeus * in his Materia Medica ap- 

 pears perfectly correct. The best manner of giving it is in the 

 form of a pill, as by that means the unpleasant feeling about the 

 throat is avoided. The tiglium seed oil which is on sale is 

 frequently admixed with olive, castor, or rapeseed oil, which in a 

 medical point of view is rather an advantage than otherwise, as 

 it tends to moderate the violence of its action. 



The genuine oil is so powerful as to produce death in the dose 

 of a very few drops, but different samples vary in point of 

 strength, which of course depends on the rate of active matter 

 which they may contain. It is to be remarked that all those 

 authors, who have treated on it, have cautioned their readers 

 concerning its use. Lewis in his Materia Medica has committed 

 a strange error with regard to the dose. He says that one drachm 

 must be the dose, and not a drop. We must, therefore, conclude 

 that he was totally unacquainted with the article about which he 

 was writing, as such a quantity would speedily terminate the life 

 of the person to whom it might be administered. The plant is a 

 native of the East Indies ; it is a shrub seldom exceeding ten feet 

 in height. It belongs to the twenty-first class Moncecia and the 

 eighth order Monadelphia of Linnaeus, and to the natural order 

 Euphorbiae of Jussieu. 



The male flowers consist each of a cylindrical calyx, which is 



five-toothed. The corolla consists of five petals of a straw colour, 



and there are from ten to fifteen stamina. In the female flowers 



the calyx is many-cleft and reflected under the germen. There is 



no corolla, but there are three bifid styles. The capsule is trilocular 



and smooth : each loculus contains one seed. The seeds are 



* Tiglii grana. 

 Qualitas, acerrima 

 Vis, emetica, drastica, exurens.— .Vide Linn, Mat. Med., p. 236. 



