Acorus calamus. 71 
calamus. According to Lewis, on distilling the spirituous tincture, 
the distilled spirit has scarcely any smell or taste of the root, and 
the extract has very littke smell and much less taste than might be 
expected from so warm and pungent a root.* 
It may be necessary to remark, that the American variety of cala- 
mus does not differ in medical properties from that imported from 
Asia and the Levant; or from that indigenous to Europe. While it 
will be seen, that this article has a conspicuous rank in all European 
works on Materia Medica, it must be confessed it is at present 
but little used in this country. Yet the disuse into which it 
has, undeseryedly I think, fallen, is more the consequence probably 
of that kind of fashion which sways in medicine as in other spheres, 
than to any want of confidence in the virtues of the medicine. As 
there is no good reason why this confidence should be impaired, 
it cannot be improper to urge a recourse to the use of this 
article, as extensive as its peculiar virtues merit. In my opi- 
nion, it is one of the most efficacious stomachics which the Ma- 
teria Medica presents. Dr. Swediaur recommends it either in the 
form of extract, (dose half a drachm) or candied, in dyspeptic cases. 
My experience enables me to say that, in dyspeptic flatulency, and 
other disorders of the stomach, and in colic, it merits the mark. 
ed attention of physicians. It has, in my practice, proved ener- 
* Lewis, Mat. Med. p. 252. vol. 1. 
