Geran=""% maculatum. | 153 
to offer to favourable notice. ‘To no one of our native plants is | 
this remark more applicable, and of none more true, than the sub- 
ject of this article. Not content with substantiating the claim which 
our native species ‘of Geranium has to a rank in the Materia Medica, 
as a powerful astringent, those physicians and others who have 
been particularly led to the employment of it in the cure of 
diseases, have assigned to it specific powers, which it certainly does 
not possess. Having thus premised my opinion of the real and re- 
puted virtues of this plant, I shall proceed to state the different dis- 
eases in which it has been recommended. 
In the fourth volume of the Ameenitates Academic, Coelln 
first mentioned the medical virtues of this plant; and he there tells 
us, on the authority of Cadwallader Colden, that it was used in 
dysenteries, “ Geranium Nov-eboracense (maculatum) ; decoctum 
« yadicis hujus plant ad dysenteriam nostratibus in usu est.*” And 
Shoepf says: “ Radix leniter adstringens, vulneraria habetur etad Dy- 
“ senteriam laudatur.” ‘a 
ma 
: 1 be practice of using a n deeation of the Geranium in dysentery, 
; is still very common among the inhabitants of our western moun- 
3 tains ; and this is done upon a knowledge of its astringency, for it is 
in that part of our country that the plant is known familiarly by the 
name of Alum-noets ; and a decoction in milk was recommended by 
~. 
My 
te, 
~ 
* Specifica Canadensium, ‘No. 30. 
