1 60 DiaCA. No. 33. 



them : if eaten by mistake, an emetic must be re- 

 sorted to, 



LocALiTT — From Maine and Canada to Georgia 

 near streams, and in shady swamps, rare west of the 

 Alleghany mountains, yet occuring in Ohio and 

 Kentucky. 



Qualities — The bark and root have a peculiar 



nauseous smell, and unpleasant acrimonious taste; 

 they contain an acrid resin, bitterish extractive, mu- 

 cilage, &c. : the resin or active principle, is only so- 

 luble in boiling alcohol- The decoction and extract 

 are bitter, but not acrimonious. 



PROPERTIES— Emetic, cathartic, rubefacient, 

 epispastic, &c. and the berries narcotic. The fresh 

 root and bark in substance at the dose of five to ten 

 grains produce vomiting, with a sense of heat in the 

 stomachy and sometimes act as a cathartic also. They 



are an active and dangerous medicine, to which less 

 acrimonious substances ought to be preferred. Ap- 

 plied to the skin they produce rubefaction and vesi- 

 cation in thirty hours; this appears a more safe mode 

 to use them, as they might become auxiliaries to the 

 Spanish flies. The berries produce nausea, giddiness, 

 stupor, dilatation of the pupil and insensibility like 

 other narcotics. Bigelow considers this plant as a 

 substitute for the Poly gala Senega j but this last is 

 by far better and safer, and therefore preferable. Wc 

 are not told whether it acts like the Polygala and is 

 expectorant, sudorific, &c. Upon the whole this 

 ii»rub possesses such active properties as to deserve 

 •ttention ; but we do not possess as yet sufficient evi* 



