38 MONARDA. No. 64. 



fevers; it appears to be equal to camomile, and makes a 

 more palatable tea. It has been called Oswego tea, be- 

 cause first used by the Indians near Oswego lake. It 

 unites the properties of sage, Melissa^ and JlnthemiSy to 

 which it is equivalent; but it is more effectual than 

 either, particularly in fevers, pleurisies, &c. besides 

 being used successfully in many other diseases, such as 

 ardour of urine, piles, rheumatism, hemiplegia, paralysis,, 

 coldness of limbs, cholic, &c. The properties have been 

 investigated by Schoepf, Atlee, Eberle, and myself. 

 The oil is become an oflBcinal article, kept in shops, as 

 an excellent rubefacient. The Monarda oil is cniefly 

 made from the M. punctata^ as strongest and most pun- 

 gent, but all the other species yield it. 



The M. punctata is easily known by its lanceolate 

 leaves and many whorls of yellow flowers, with red dots- 

 It is plentiful in dry soils from New Jersey to Missouri, 

 and Louisiana. Dr. Atlee, in 1829, published a memoir 

 of it in the Medical Recorder, with a good figure j he 

 recommends the oil chiefly, and states that it is very 

 active, producing heat, redness, pain, and vesication 

 when applied to the skin ; he had used it with much 

 advantage as a rubefacient liniment in chronic rheuma- 

 tism, paralytic affections, cholera infantum, difliculty of 

 hearing, periodical headache, and typhus. It must be 

 dissolved in alcohol, and rubbed. A liniment made 

 with camphor and opium, cured the periodical head- 

 ache. The simple liniment rubbed on the head, cured 

 a hard hearing similar to deafness ; it produces in a few 

 minutes a comfortable glow when the arms, leo^s, and 

 breast are bathed with it in the sinking state of typhus. 

 With cold limbs. It relieves the gastric irritability in 

 cholera infantum, by bathing the abdomen and limbs. 

 Atlee states that it has cured a maniac- Internally, two 

 drops of the oil in sugar and water, act as a powerful 

 carminative, and stop emesis or profuse vomiting. The 

 plant is used in New Jersey in cholic, and in gravel as a 

 diuretic, being often united to onion juice in gravel and 

 dropsy. The root of M. coccinea is said to be a stronger 

 A^r^^K ^-^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ emenagogue ; the Indians use it 

 S: on tli 'So^^T^ ^^^^^' ^* ^^^^ sometimes as a cathar- 



