22 Hydrastis Canadensis. 
to attach to its other medicinal qualities, the questionable power of 
curing or alleviating cancer; and it is much to be regretted that 
Dr. Dyckman, in bis valuable edition of the Edinburg Dispensatory, 
has mentioned cancer as one of the diseases for which Hydrastis is 
aremedy. It is, I believe, not to be doubted, that there is scarcely 
a plant distinguished for any medical powers that is not, in some 
part or other of our country, commended by the vulgar, as a cancer- 
remedy. The almost irremediate nature of that disease by any 
other means than the surgeon’s knife, is the obvious cause of such 
perpetual recurrence to a multitude of remedies, which have, in all 
probability, no other claim to the name of cancer-remedies, than that 
which exists in the imaginations of the credulous persons who em- 
ploy them, and whose temerity in the indiscriminate use of active 
plants in the treatment of this disease, is unrestrained by that fear, 
which knowledge inspires, and uncontrolled by a sense of the dan- 
ver of using acrid or irritating applications. I have made some 
trials with the pulverised root and spirituous tincture of Hydrastis ; 
and these sufficiently justify me in recommending it to the notice of 
physicians as a strong tonic bitter. Yet I confess myself unwilling 
to believe that the plant is possessed of any properties sufficiently 
active, or of such a nature, as to lead to any reasonable expectation 
of heing serviceable in cancers ; though it is probable enough that it 
is one of the numerous vegetable bases of the many quack medicines 
for this disorder. 
