WALNUT, 719 
“ce 
Teutonic for “‘ stranger.” The tree was a native of Asia Minor, 
but is grown freely in England. “As for the timber,” said 
Fuller, “it may be termed the English Shittim wood.” The 
London Society of Apothecaries has directed that the unripe 
fruit of the Walnut shall be used pharmaceutically on account 
of its worm-expelling virtues: on the adoption of which ordin- 
ance, for certain, in the immortal words of Mrs. Gamp, “ Lambs 
would not forgive, nor worms forget.” It is remarkable that no 
insects will prey on the leaves of this tree, which yield a brown 
dye, supposed to contain iodine, such being used by gipsies for 
staining their skin. Nucin, or juglon, is the active chemical prin- 
ciple of the several parts of the tree, and its fruit. M. Negrier, 
and others, have treated scrofulous children very successfully with 
infusion of fresh leaves from Walnut trees in England. Each 
patient took two or three cupfuls of this infusion, sweetened with 
honey, daily, also some of the expressed leaf juice thickened by 
evaporation to the consistence of an extract, and made into 
small pills. Sores (of glands,) ulcers, swelling and caries of 
bones, and strumously inflamed eyes, were all washed with a 
strong decoction of the leaves, and then kept covered with lint 
wetted in the infusion. This treatment was chiefly pursued in 
the spring. After two months, half the number of children were 
cured, and after six months all were perfectly well. About four 
grains of the extract were contained in each pill, two to four 
pills being given every day. The decoction for outward use is 
to be made by boiling a handful of the fresh bruised leaves for 
fifteen minutes in a quart of water, and straining this when cool. 
The whole fruit, when young and unripe, makes a wholesome, 
tender, anti-scorbutic pickle, which is slightly laxative. ‘* The 
bagman’s uncle” (see Pickwick) ‘‘ was once pitched out of his 
gig, and knocked head first against a milestone. There he lay, 
stunned, and so cut about the face with some gravel that his 
own mother wouldn’t have known him. After he was picked 
up, and had been bled, he jumped up in bed, and demanded a 
mutton chop, and a pickled walnut, instantly. He was very 
fond of pickled walnuts, and said he always found that, taken 
without vinegar, they relished the beer.” 
Some physicians are in favour at present of giving walnuts— 
a dozen a day at least—to gouty patients, and for chronic 
cheumatism ; the nuts have to be well masticated. It is found ~ 
_ that admirable results are produced, swellings go down, and pain 
