VERBASCUM THAFSUS. 219 



Sibthorp states that the male Amm fyXo^os is the V. Thapsus ; 

 but Sprengel thinks that the female is the Mullein, and the 

 male the V. undulatum. " They used the leaves as, being sour, 

 suiting all kinds of fluxes." It held a place in the Dispensatory 

 as late as the time of Lewis, but is now discarded from the 

 Pharmacopoeia. It has been given in catarrhal coughs and 

 diarrhoea {Home, Clin. Ex. and Hist., sect, xxii.); and it is 

 occasionally employed as cataplasms to indurated glands. 



Pliny states that figs, if wrapped up in the leaves of the 



Mullein, do not putrefy. 



Description. — Verbascum Thapsus is a biennial. Flowers 

 in July and August. Stem from three to five feet high, erect 

 like a staff, woolly, winged, with decurrent acute leaves, which 

 are clothed with white, entangled, starry, wool-like cloth or 

 flannel. Flowers very numerous, large, of a bright golden 

 yellow, with orange-coloured hairy stamens, and roundish, red 

 anthers. There are thirty-four species of this genus. 



Geographical Distribution.— A native of the British 

 Isles, and found in most parts of Europe, and is now common 

 in America. It is found in this country on banks and waste 



grounds. 



Medicine, and Mo 



He 



mixed with equal quantities of spirits of wine, etc. 



Physiological Effects.— Fish are stupified by the seeds of 

 the Verbascum. It has a slight narcotic effect on the human 

 economy. It produces sensation of extreme heaviness of the 

 head, heat in the eyes, violent pains in the ears, with symptoms 

 similar to neuralgia * 



Medical Uses.— This drug 



Hahnemann 



that the emollient and 



resolvent properties ascribed to this plant by the allopaths is 

 only conjectural, and that the only true plan is to watch the 

 symptoms it produces on persons in health. 



* Vide Hahnemann', Mat. Med. Pura, art. Verbascum. 



I 



