{22 Polygala seneka. 
expected menstrual period; and he has found it most efficacious when 
the system was prepared for its operation, during the two preceding 
weeks, by the administration of calomel, so as to produce a gentle 
ptyalism. The doctor has also used the seneka in these cases in sub- 
stance, but prefers the saturated decoction. When the cases are of 
very long standing, one, two, or three years, he is in the habit of reite- 
rating the practice as above detailed, with this exception, that he does 
not continue the use of the seneka during the whole period, because 
of the disgust it is under such circumstances apt to produce, by its 
nauseating tendency. At the instance of Dr. Hartshorne, this article 
was tried in amenorrhwa, some years ago, by Professor Chapman, 
and he speaks in the highest terms* of his success.+ 
*Sce his Elements of Therapeutics and Materia Medica, vol: ii. article Polygala 
seneka, under the head of Emenagogues. Hive. of ; i 
tlt is much to be regretted, that the credit of this important serie of the eme- 
nagogue powers of the sencka, has not been given, by either Dr. Thacher,} or Dr, 
Coxe, who copies and quotes the doctor, to him, to whom alone it is due; and it is but just 
io remark, that though in the publications of Drs. Thacher and Coxe,|| the name of Dr. 
Chapman is alone mentioned in relation to this subject, yet the latter gentleman has, 
in two publications§ on the seneka, not only acknowledged Dr. Hartshorne as first 
pointing out this peculiar effect of the seneka, but gives him all due credit for the 
discovery. These observations are made with a firm belief, that Dr. Hartshorne’s 
name is inadvertently omitted in the publications of Thacher and Coxe; and with a 
design, by rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, to affix the merit due on 
this occasion, to an unassuming man of great merit, whose modesty would never suffer 
him to speak or write himself on the subject of any claim, wrested from him by inad- 
vertence or design. 
| "YDispensatory, 3a.ed! ~~’ yDispéhsatory, 3a. ea.’ 
§ Eclectic Repertory. Elements of Thera) and Materia Medica, 1818, 2d, vol. , 
