173 ERYTBTRONlirnff. No 35. 



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Locality — It grows from New England to Ohio 

 and south to Carolina; in the Western States it is 

 often superseded by the E. albidiimj which extends 

 from New York to Missouri and Tennessee. They 

 both grow in \voods, and under the shade of trees, 



shrubs or plants. 



Qualities — The whole plant, but particularly the 

 root, contains fecula, mucilage, a resin, and some 

 volatile principle rather acrid. When dry, the root 

 is farinaceous and loses its unpleasant flavor^ 



PROPERTIES— The root or bulb and the leaves 

 are emetic, emollient, suppurative and, antiscrofu- 

 lous when fresh, nutritive when dry. The plant. 

 Appears to possess nearly the same properties as the 

 bulbs of many Lilies; but with the addition of an 

 acrid emetic effect, which is lost by drying, boiling, 

 roasting, &c. The dose to produce the emesis is 

 -twenty-five grains of the fresh root, or forty of the 

 recent dried root. As it loses its activity by keeping, 

 it is an inconvenient and unsafe emetic. Bigelow 

 proposes to try it as a substitute of Colchiciim: al- 

 though they belong to different Natural Orders. This 

 plant promises better as an antiscrofulous, for which 

 purpose it is employed as well as the E* albidiim 

 from New York to Kentucky, &c, tlie fresh roots 

 and leaves are stewed with milk and applied to the 

 scrofulous sores as a poultice, healing them speedily: 

 this new medical property was first communicated to 

 me by Dr. Crockatt. Many bulbs of Lilies have 

 been used in the same way for sores, but the active 

 acrid principle of this,, may act beneficially on the 



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