348 



effect; and I believe it lias, like digitalis, the power of diminishing 

 the frequency of the pulse, and it is on this account that I continue 

 its use a great length of time." And he adds, that when young he 

 was himself "-very subject to bleeding at the nose, and was some- 

 times reduced by it almost to a skeleton, and the surface of my (his) 

 body appeared to be almost bloodless. By a persevering use of a 

 decoction of this plant, he has reason to believe he was much relieved, 

 if not cured, of this troublesome and sometimes dangerous com- 

 plaint." llafinesque, who seems to have made many experiments 

 with this plant, says: "I consider it a very good substitute for all 

 narcotics, prussic acid, and even bleeding, since it produces the same 

 state of the pulse and arterial system, without inducing any debility, 

 or acting on the heart and brain in any injurious manner." 



Dr. Williams, in the article already alluded to, also quotes the 

 opinion of another judicious practitioner of Massachusetts, who states 

 that he has used the Lycopus with the most gratifying success in 

 more than forty cases of hemorrhage, chiefly from the stomach and 

 uterus. 



With all this authority in its favour, we were surprised to find it 

 so little used by practitioners generally, and still more so to find it 

 not even mentioned in the works on Materia Medica, by Eberle, 

 Chapman, Pereira, or Thompson. It is true, that it finds a place 

 in the United States Dispensatory as a secondary article, and eight 

 lines are devoted to a consideration of its medicinal properties and 

 uses; and scarcely more is said of it in the more recent work of Dr. 

 Griffith, on Medical Botany. During the past year I have exhibit- 

 ed it in the form of infusion in a considerable number and variety 

 of cases, and have observed its effects with much care. When taken 

 in health, at the rate of a wineglassful, or more, every two or three 

 hours, it pretty uniformly diminished the force and frequency of the 

 pulse, and induced slight costivetiess, without any degree of vertigo, 

 3ea, or other unpleasant symptoms. A poor woman called on me 

 with all the rational and physical Bigns of phthisis pulmonalis, in an 

 advanced slate of developement. Thinking that she would not pro- 

 bably livebeyond three months, and her cough being very troublesome 

 and her CO Ltion irritable, I directed her very little medicine, 



except a mild laxative and the free use of an infusion of Lycopus, 

 taken cold. She has continued this, taking from a gill to half a 

 pint daily, of the infusion, during the whole winter, and she is now, 

 after a lapse of six months, in a much better state of health than 

 when I first saw her. Without, however, extending this report by a 



