158 IRIS VERSICOLOR, 
eyen in small quantities, it leaves behind a pow- 
erful sense of heat and acrimony in the fauces. 
Its most active chemical constituent appears to be 
a resin, which separates in the form of a white 
precipitate, when water is added to the alcoholic 
solution. The decoction suffers little or no 
change with alcohol, gelatin or salts of iron. Mu- 
riate of tin affects it slightly, the nitrate of mer- 
eury more abundantly. Its taste is much weaker 
than that of the tincture. Water distilled from 
the root has a highly nauseous taste and odour. 
The root:of the Iris versicolor given medicin- 
ally is ‘an active cathartic. Mr. William Bartram, 
in his travels in Georgia and Florida, informs us, 
that on his arrival at Ottasse, an Indian town on 
the Tallapoose, he found the natives “ fasting, tak- 
ing medicine, and praying, to avert a grevious ca- 
lamity of sickness which had lately afflicted them, 
and laid in the grave abundance of their citizens. 
The first seven or eight days, during which time 
they eat or drink nothing, but a meagre gruel 
made of alittle corn-flour and water ; taking at 
the same time, by way of medicine or physic, a 
strong decoction of the roots of the Iris versicolor, 
which is a powerful cathartic. They hold this 
root in high estimation, and every town cultivates 
a little plantation of it, having a large artificial 
