SKUNK CABBAGE. 49 
more speedily than common cathartic medicines. 
I have known it in a dose of thirty grains to bring 
on not only vomiting, but headach, vertigo and 
temporary blindness. Other practitioners have 
given it in larger quantities without any evil of 
this kind, but I think such an exemption must 
be attributed to the age and deteriorated quality 
of the root. Its active ingredients being more or 
less volatile, it must necessarily be impaired in 
strength by long sities peelx in a pulveriz- 
ed state. 
To insure a tolerably uniform activity of this 
medicine, the root should be kept in dried slices 
and not reduced to powder until it is wanted for 
use. It may then be taken in pills or mixed with 
syrup in doses of from ten to twenty grains. 
These may in most instances be “ita anal three 
times a day. 
BOTANICAL REFERENCES. 
Arum Americanum, Caressy, Car. ii. t. 71.—Dracontium 
feetidum, Lin. Syst. pl.—W1xn. ii. 288.—Pothos foetida, M1- 
cHAUX, Amer. ii, 186.—PRsH, ii. 398.—Bot. Mag. 836.—Sym- 
plocarpus fetida, NurTALL, genera, i. 105. 
MEDICAL REFERENCES. 
Currer, Trans. Amer. Acad. i. 407. THACHER, Dispensa- 
tory, 150. : es. : 
2S > MISSOURI 
BOTANICAL 
GARDEN. 
