1 76 THE MEDICINAL PROPERTIES OF OUR GERANIUMS. 



pratense. The Doctor told me that a person resident in or 

 about Ford had acquired great local fame, for the cure of 

 fluxes in general, and the only remedy used was an infusion 

 of this Geranium. One dozen stalks are " masked" in a pint 

 of boiling water, and of this two ounces are taken three 

 times a-day. Dr. Edgar's interest had been raised by the 

 cure of a patient of his own, who had been greatly reduced 

 by a chronic diarrhoea that had resisted the ordinary medici- 

 nal treatment, but yielded speedily to the geranium infusion. 

 He felt relief from the second dose, and continuing to take 

 it for three or four days, he was permanently cured. It was 

 said to be a good medicine in the diarrhoea of teething child- 

 ren, and is easily taken by them, for the taste is "like tea 

 without sugar, rather sweeter." 



It is very likely that this remedy is inferior, for general 

 use, to more powerful vegetable and mineral astringents of 

 modern introduction into practice, but I think it worth 

 while to bring the subject before the Club, since it relates to 

 a matter of local interest ; and there are cases in which it is 

 well for a medical man to have a wide range of medicines to 

 ring the changes upon. No Geranium has now a place in any 

 British Pharmacopaeia,* but several species hold a conspicuous 

 place in the old Herbals. Of Geranium pratense and its im- 

 mediate 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. moUe 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 ruptures or burst- 

 ings, 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, 



• Several Gerania are iutroduced into Dr. Stokes' " Botanical Materia Me- 

 dica/' but without any indication of their properties. 



