AMERICAN CENTAURY, 449 
other species of the same genus. An extractive 
principle appears to be the seat of this property, 
as it is communicated alike to alechol and water, 
and as the solutions in these fluids do not occa- 
sion precipitates from each other. There appears 
to be no astringency in the vegetable. 
In the collections for an American Materia 
Medica by the late Professor Barton, we are told 
that this plant is a valuable tonic bitter resembling 
the Centaury of Europe, for which it was used by 
some practitioners on the supposition of its being 
the same plant. It had long been a popular 
remedy, and was much employed in the yellow 
fever of Philadelphia, in 1793. 
In Mr. Elliott’s Botany of the Southern states, 
we are told that the plant, in South Carolina, is a 
common remedy in intermittent fever. Some of 
the other species of the same family, particularly 
S: gracilis, are equally efficacious. It is deserving 
of remark, that a great number of vegetables, 
belonging to the same natural order, are highly 
bitter, and approved as tonic remedies. 
From the use I ‘have made of the Sabbatia, 
‘Ihave no hesitation in attesting its utility. It 
seems to me to rank among the more pure or 
simple bitters, and acts usefully as a ‘stomachic 
and promoter of appetite and digestion. Beyond 
