126 FLORA HISTORICA. 



cut or scratched by some accident. If the juice of 

 this plant, in gathering a branch, should by chance 

 reach the part scratched, it wiil produce the most 

 alarming symptoms, such as excessive pain, not 

 only in that particular part, but extending over the 

 whole limb, heartburn, dread of suffocation, faint- 

 ing, and, at last, mortification. 



The Aconite, however, Mith all its formidable 

 terrors, was found by Dr. Storch, a German phy- 

 sician, to possess properties that relieve some of the 

 mcst distressing disorders incident to the human 

 frame ; but as it is a medicine of too dangerous a 

 nature for any but the skilful practitioner to meddle 

 with, we forbear naming the complaints for which 

 it has been found serviceable. As the dried plant 

 loses, in a great measure, its efficacy in medicine, 

 we recommend the young student to make himself 

 perfectly acquainted with every species of the Aco- 

 nitum, so as to know its flower, leaf, and root; and 

 we further intreat them, when they see this plant 

 growing in the gardens of cottagers, that they would 

 make its dangerous properties known. 



We have already observed, by a translation, 

 these lines from Ovid, 



Quae quia nascuiitur dura vivacia caute, 

 Agrestes Aconita vocant, — 



that the Aconitum was supposed to derive its name 

 from growing on rocks almost destitute of soil. 



