EUPHORBIALES.] 



EUPHORBIACEiE. 



277 



Fig. CXCIII. 



Starchy root of the Manihot or Cassava, which when raw is a violent poison, becomes 

 wholesome nuti'itious food when roasted. In the seeds of some the albumen is harmless 

 and eatable, but the embryo itself is acrid and dangerous. Many of the species furnish 

 Caoutchouc, that most innocuous of all substances, produced by the most poisonous of all 

 families, which may be almost said to have given a new arm to surgery, and which has 

 become an mdispensable necessary of life ; it exists in Artocarpads and elsewhere, 

 but is xlso the produce of species of Spurgeworts. 



The properties of this Order are so important, that the object of this work would be 

 unfulfilled if I did not, in addition to the foregoing general view, add a detailed list of 

 the quahties of the most remarkable species named by ^Titers. 



Among milking species, the fii*st to be noticed are the Cactus-shaped kinds, inhabiting 



Africa chiefly, but also found in India. 

 It is said that Kmg Juba discovered 

 Euphorbia in Barbary, and named it 

 after his physician, who was brother 

 to Musa. The plant of King Juba is 

 referx-ed to Euphorbia ofticinaiiim, 

 Linn.; a many-angled succulent species 

 growing in tufts armed with double 

 spmes, and now found in the North 

 of Africa ; others, however, believe it 

 to have been E. antiquorum, a trian- 

 gular branching species whose angles 

 are sinuous and spiny, and which ap- 

 pears to be widely dispersed through 

 Africa. The gum resin Euphorbium, 

 now fomid in om* shops, an acrid 

 poison, is partly gathered in Afi'ica 

 from those two species, and partly in 

 the Canaries, from E. canariensis ; it 

 flows from the woimded stems, and is collected in leather bags. It is an extremely acrid 

 inflammable substance, producmg severe inflammation of the nostrils, if those who pow- 

 der it do not guard themselves from its dust ; according to chemists, it consists of wax, 

 myricine, phyteumacolla, and various salts. In India it is mixed with the oil expressed 

 from the seeds of Sesamum orientale, and used externally in i-heumatic affections, inter- 

 nally in cases of obstinate constipation. Orfila regards it as a poison. It is little used in 

 Em-ope. The Ai'abs make up violent diuretic pills, by rubbing over the juice of E. anti- 

 quonam with flour ; yet their camels will eat the branches of the plant when cooked. 

 The juice of E. heptagona, virosa, and cereiformis, African species, furnishes the Ethio- 

 pians, and E. cotinifoha, the wild Brazihans, with a mortal poison for their arrows. That 

 of the leaves of Euphorbia nereifoha is prescribed by the native practitioners of India, 

 internally as a pm-ge and deobstruent, and externally, mixed with ^Margosa oil, in such 

 cases of contracted Umb as are mduced by ill-treated rheumatic affections. The leaves 

 have, no doubt, a dim-etic quality. E. tribuloides, one of the least of the Cactus-shaped 

 species, is regarded as a diaphoretic in the Canaries, where it grows wild. Of the leafy 

 Euphorbias great numbers have been fovmd to possess a milk with purgative or emetic 

 quahties. Endlicher mentions E. Esula (Wolfsmilch of the Germans), Cypai'issias, 

 amygdaloides, whose roots have been the basis of some celebrated quack fever mixtures, 

 Hehoscopia, our commonest weed, (jiOvixaKos and tjXioskoitios), Peplus, Peploides (the 

 ireirXos of Hippocrates), palustris, pilosa, Chamsesyce, Peplis, (the ireiTXiov of Hippocrates, 

 and TreTrAt's of Dioscorides), spinosa {linrocpais,) dendi'oides (nOv/xaAos fJ-^yas, Hippoc), 

 Aleppica, and Apios ; all plants having more or less reputation as purgatives. In 

 America there are also employed for the same pm'pose, E. buxifolia in the West Indies ; 

 papillosa in Brazil, a species apt to produce dangerous supei-purgations, and called Lei- 

 teu-aor Lechetres ; laurifohain Peru ; portulacoides in Cliili ; and Tirucalli in India ; the 

 fresh acrid juice of the latter is used as a vesicatory ; it is common in the JMadi'as Presi- 

 dency, and makes an excellent hedge, which may be formed with very little trouble. A 

 ti'ench must be dug where it is intended to be, at the beginning of the rainy season ; in 

 this, cuttings being placed, and the earth pressed about them, they establish themselves 

 without fm-ther trouble. No cattle mil touch the leaves, and in one year it becomes a 

 tolerable fence. 



Among syphilitic remedies are Euphorbia parviflora and hu'ta in India, and E. linearis 

 in America. E. hiberna also, before the mtroduction of mercury, was frequently ad- 

 mmistered m England against venereal aff'ections ; the Spaniards use E. canescens for 

 such pm'poses to this day. 



Fig. CXCIII.— Euphorbia Caput Medusje. 



