38 PODOPHYLLUM PELTATUM, 
also had the character in the Southern States of 
curing intermittent fever. 
A physician in Albany informs me that the 
Shakers at Lebanon, N. Y. prepare an extract of 
the Podophyllum, which is much esteemed by 
medical practitioners as a mild cathartic. These 
people are well known to our druggists by the 
care and neatness with which they prepare a va- 
riety of medicines from native and naturalized 
pharmaceutical plants. 
For medicinal use the root of the May apple 
is advised to be dug in the cold season, when veg- 
etation is not active, viz. in the autumn and win- 
ter. At this part of the year the secretions of 
perennial plants are concentrated in their roots, 
and the same weight of their substance is less di- 
luted with the watery or ascending sap, than it 
is at any other period. This constitutes a rea- 
son why the roots of all perennial plants should, 
as fur as practicable, be taken up during the cold 
season. But from what I have been able to ob- 
serve, the difference of their virtue in different 
months is much less than is commonly supposed. 
iInever knew a medicinal plant whose efficacy 
was destroyed in consequence of being taken up 
eyen at midsummer, although it may be in some 
degree lessened. It is probable that those roots 
