164 FLORA HOMCEOPATHICA. 



posed to have written largely upon the medicinal virtues of 

 Squill, and to have invented the Acetum Scillae. Dioscorides 

 recommended it in dropsies, coughs, jaundice, chronic coughs, 

 asthma, etc. Hippocrates employed it both internally and 



externally. 



Celsus frequently prescribed it, and it was a very favourite 



remedy with all the Arabian physicians. Serapion gave it as a 



laxative in fevers, and as a diuretic in dropsies ; as a remedy 



in jaundice, in old coughs, in asthma, spitting of blood, and 



for cleansing the breast of gross humours. It is to be avoided, 



he says, when there is an ulcer of any internal part. 



Avicenna employed it in complaints of the gums, in inveterate 

 coughs, epilepsy, in diseases of the spleen, in dropsy and jaun- 

 dice, and forbids its use in ulceration of the viscera. 



Its uses at the present time are as an emetic, diuretic, and 

 expectorant. As a diuretic, in dropsies requiring the use of 

 stimulating or acrid diuretics, but improper in inflammatory 

 cases, or in those complicated with granulated kidney ; as an 

 expectorant, in chronic catarrh, humid asthma, and winter 

 cough; as an emetic, in hooping cough, and in some cases of 



croup, etc. 



Description. 



and 



soil flowers from July to September, and the leaves appear in 

 October and November. The bulb is roundish, ovate, pyriform, 

 half above ground, sometimes as large as a child's head, and is 

 composed of thick, fleshy, smooth, shining scales, attenuated at 

 their edges, closely applied over each other, and attached to a 

 conical disk (rudimentary stem), which projects inferiorly, 

 and from which the proper roots issue. The colour of the bulb 

 is either white or red, or cinnamon colour. The leaves appear 

 lon<* after the flowers; are broad, lanceolate, and twelve to 

 eighteen inches in length. The scape is about two feet in 

 height, terminated by a dense, long raceme. The flowers are 

 extremely numerous, and produced in long, close, simple 

 clusters, on purplish peduncles, with small linear, twisted, de- 



