244 The Useful Family Herbal. 
Inches‘long, and the Flowers in this Cafe are 
commonly blue, and this is the moft ordinary 
State of the Plant. When it grows in very favou- 
rable Places, as upon the Damp-fide of a Hill, 
where there are Springs, and among the tall 
Grafs, then its Leaves are longer, its Stalks more 
robuft and more upright, and its Flowers are 
red. Thefe are the feveral Appearances of this 
little Plant, and-it is all one in which of them it 
is taken. The. Root is often of a confiderable 
_ Thicknefs, and fingle, but it is more ufually di- 
vided and fimaller; it is whitith, and of a difa- 
greeable acrid Tafte. : 5m 
_ This Plant had paffed unregarded as to any — 
medicinal Ufe, till Dr. Tennent brought into Eng- — 
land the Senekka Root famous in America : aint 
the Effects of the Bite of the Rattle Snake, and 4 
found here to be of Service in Pleurifies : But 4 
When it was found, that this was the Root of 2 . 
Kind of Milkwort, not very different from our 
own, we tried the Roots of our own Kind, and — 
found them effectual in the fame Cafes, as to the 
poifonous Bites of a Serpent, they are fo uncom- 
mon here, that we Bist aes aa that Part of 
the me ie but we find it good in the other : 
Diforder, and in all Difeafes in which the Blood BS 
thick and fizy. The freth Root is beft, but 1 
has not its full Virtue except in Spring, when 
Stalks are juft fhooting out of the Ground, for 
Reafon it is moft proper to take it up at 
_ Time, and dry it for the Service of the | 
_ When freth, it is beft given in Infufion: But 
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