ARTEMISIA SANTONICA. - ORD. III. Composite. 63 
The seed of Santonicum or Wormseed is small, light, oval, com- 
posed as it were of a number of thin membranous coats, of a 
yellowish green colour, with a cast of brown; easily friable on 
being rubbed between the fingers, into a fine chaffy kind of 
substance. 
These seeds are brought from the Levant ;* they have a mode-. 
rately strong and not agreeable smell, somewhat of the wormwood 
kind; and a very bitter subacrid taste, Their virtues are extracted 
both by watery and spirituous menstrua. 
These seeds, in common with the other Artemisias, are esteemed 
to be stomachic, emmenagogue,* and anthelmintic; but it is espe- 
cially for the last mentioned powers that they have been generally 
administered; and from their efficacy in this way they obtained the 
name of Wormseed. Their quality of destroying worms has been 
ascribed solely to their bitterness; but it appears from Baglivi, 
that worms (lumbrici) immersed in a strong infusion of these seeds, 
were killed in five, and according to Redi, in seven or eight hours,‘ 
while in the infusion of Wormwood, and in that of Agaric the 
worms continued to live more than thirty hours; and hence it has 
been inferred that their vermifuge effects could not wholly depend 
upon the bitterness of this seed. To adults the dose in substance 
is from one to two drams twice a day. Lewis thinks that the 
spirituous extract is the most eligible ie ae of the Santonicum 
fer the purposes of an anthelmintic. 
* « Lewis, M. M. p. 580. 
* Remarkable effects of the Santonicum in this way are related by Bergius:— 
*« Puella cuidem decenni, vermibus conflictanti, semina Santonici exhibui, sed 
per illud tempus quo iis utebatur, menses fluxerunt, qua re cognita, usum eorun- 
éem dissuasi, unde etiam fluxus sponte cessavit.” M, 47. p. 668. 
! Bagliv. Oper. p. 60.. Redi de animal. viv. p. 159. 
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