14 | Podophyllum peltatum. 
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. 
The root of the May-apple, exclusively, is used in medicine. 
There is no indigenous plant whose medicinal virtues are better 
ascertained at present. Its proper place in the Materia Medica, 
is among cathartics ; and it may be ranked among the most safe and 
active of this class of medicines. Schoepf briefly remarks that the 
root is emetic, without specifying the dose which produces that ef- 
fect ; and Puihn speaks of it as a powerful emetic: “ Podophylli 
peltati radix valde emetica est.”** Like most active purgatives, this 
medicine will occasionally act upon the stomach ; and I have on two 
occasions found large doses, to produce full vomiting. But this is 
certainly not the usual, or conspicuous effect of the powder ; on the 
contrary, it almost always acts as an active purgative. In an exten- 
sive use of this article for two years past, I have, with the exception 
of the two instances just mentioned, uniformly found it to affect the 
bowels ; and I have repeatedly employed it alone ; though the bet- 
ter mode of administering it is in conjunction with the supertartrate 
of potash, calomel or rhubarb. The root has “ often been found 
to operate as an anthelmintic, and it is used as such by the Cherokee 
* Materia Venenaria Regni vegetabilis. 
