>6 FLORA HOMCEOPATHICA. 



gout. Tragus employed it for the cure of unclean ulcers. 

 Paracelsus for dropsy. 



Dr. Withering (A Botanical Arrangement of British Plants, 

 vol. i.) gives the following case of cure by this plant. He says : 

 11 The considerable and long-continued heat and irritation that 

 it produces in the throat when chewed, made me first think 

 of giving it in a case of difficulty of swallowing, seemingly 

 occasioned by a paralytic affection. The patient was directed 

 to chew a thin slice of the root as often as she could bear 

 to do it, and in about two months she recovered her power 

 of swallowing. This woman bore the disagreeable irritation 

 and the ulcerations its acrimony occasioned in her mouth with 

 great resolution ; but she was reduced to skin and bone, and 

 for three years before had suffered extremely from hunger, 

 without being able to satisfy her appetite, for she swallowed 

 liquids very imperfectly, and solids not at all. The complaint 

 came on after lying-in. 



In France the bark is used to produce vesication, and to 

 keep up the formation of pus from issues. It has also been 

 used by others in scrofulous affections, toothache, and some 

 affections of the eyes, chronic ophthalmia, etc. 



Description. — Daphne Mezereum is a shrub. Flowers in 

 February and March. The stem is bushy, four or five feet 

 high, with upright, alternate, smooth, tough, and pliant 

 branches, which are leafy while young. Leaves scattered, 

 stalked, spear-shaped, smooth, about two inches long, appearing 

 after the flowers, and soon accompanied by flower -buds for the 

 next season. The jlowers come out very early in the spring, 

 before the leaves appear, and are situated on the shoots of the 

 former year, in little tufts, which are often so thickly placed as 

 to entirely conceal the branches. Bracteas several, egg- 

 shaped, smooth, brown. Corolla, none. Calyx or perianthium 

 like a corolla in texture, of a beautiful crimson colour; the 

 tube hairy on the outside. Berries, when ripe, scarlet. The 

 Mezereon is one of our most early flowering shrubs, and one 



