270 A COMPENDIUM OF 
When the seeds are ground and expressed from 
their oil they are used extensively as a food for 
cattle. 
Linen and cambric are woven from the fibres 
of the flax plant. Tow is also made from flax; 
this consists of the coarser fibres, which are re- 
moved by the process termed hackling. The 
patent lint of the stores isa scraped material of 
the coarsely woven linen cloth. The articles 
manufactured from the flax fibre are much more 
useful in surgery than those obtained from the 
_ cotton, from the fact fhat they are less irritat- 
ingandcooler. The old literature of the Greeks 
and Hebrew frequently alludes to fabrics woven 
of flax, and many clothes of the ancients were 
made of fine linen, mentioned in Genesis of the 
Bible when Joseph was promoted to the dignity 
of a ruler in the land of Egypt. 
Nux Vomica, Nux Vomica, Strychnos Nux 
Vomica.—Natural order Loganiacee. Native 
of India and the East India Islands. This small 
tree is said to resemble the dogwood tree of the 
United States ; the trunk is crooked and branches 
irregular, and adorned with oval, smooth, shin- 
ing leaves, with 3 to 5 nerves, and ornamented 
with greenish-white flowers in terminal cor- 
ymbs ;corolla funnel-form, with 5 stamens; fruit 
round and smooth, and not unlike an orange in 
size and color. The testa is fragile, and the 
pulp soft, gelatinous, and white when fully ripe, 
containing several seeds, which are disc-like or 
peltate in shape, about an inch in diameter, of a 
greenish-gray color, covered by a soft pubes- 
cence of a silk-like character. Each seed has 
on its edge a slight prominence, extending from | 
