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short pedicels with small subulate bracts; calyx white, sepals four, 

 rounded; petals small, shorter than the sepals, and cleft at their 

 apex; stamens numerous with yellow anthers; pistil oval, with a 

 lateral sessile stigma; the capsule is ovoid, dry, with one cell, con- 

 taining many small flat seeds. The leaves are alternate, one nearly 

 radical, large, decompound, and tripinnate; upper one bi-pinnate. 

 Leaflets sessile, opposite, three to seven, dentate. The root is large, 

 black, and fleshy, with numerous long, slender fibres. The root only 

 is considered medicinal. 



It has been used to a limited extent by the profession for many 

 years; but its real properties are little understood. Indeed we are 

 satisfied that the prevailing opinions in regard to its action on the 

 system are entirely erroneous. Thus, we are told by Drs. Wood, 

 Griffith, Lee, Williams, and others, that it is a stimulating tonic. By 

 Dr. Chapman it is ranked among the expectorants; and by Dr. 

 Martyn Payne in his recent Manual of Materia Medica, it is repre- 

 sented as a stimulant diaphoretic. In the United States Dispensatory, 

 the almost universally received standard of authority in this country, 

 we are told that the " Cimicifuga unites with a tonic power, the pro- 

 perty of stimulating the secretions, particularly those of the skin, kid- 

 neys, and pulmonary mucous membrane." None of these opinions 

 accord with our own experience in the use of this root; and we have 

 used several pounds of it during the last few years, and in a consider- 

 able variety of diseases. We have never known it to produce a per- 

 ceptible increase in any of the secretions of the system, nor has it the 

 slightest stimulating qualities. But we have uniformly found it to 

 lessen the frequency and force of the pulse, to soothe pain, and allay 

 irritability. In a word, it is one of the most purely sedative agents 

 we possess, making its impression chiefly on the nervous system of or- 

 ganic life. In large doses it produces vertigo, dimness of vision, and 

 a depression of the pulse, which remains for a considerable time. 

 These observations are directly confirmed by the experience of Dr. F. 

 N. Johnson of this city, who has used it freely, both in his extensive 

 private practice, and in the wards of the New York Hospital. He 

 informs us that lie has at different times selected more than twenty 

 cases of acute inflammatory rheumatism, including the severest forms 

 of that painful affection, and treated them with the Cimicifuga, for 

 the purpose of fully testing its powers in that disease. The results 

 were satisfactory in the highest degree, every vestige of the disease 

 disappearing in from two to eight or ten days, without inducing any 

 sensible evacuation, or leaving behind a single bad symptom. These 



