PYROLA UMBELLATA. ORD. XVII. Bicornes. 89 
stigma, which is large, peltate, covered with a viscid matter, and obscurely 
five-rayed. The capsules are orbicular, depressed, with five valves, and five 
cells, and five partitions, from the central column: the seeds are very minute, 
of an oval figure, each contained in a membranous tunic, elongated at both 
ends. Fig. (a) the seed ; (b) the anthers. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties. The whole plant has a moderately 
warm pungent taste, somewhat between bitter and sweet: when bruised, it 
exhales a strong, and rather unpleasant odour. Both water and alcohol 
extract its virtues, but the latter most completely. The watery infusion of 
the dried plant is of a brownish colour; the decoction is of a deeper colour, 
and both strike a black with the sulphate of iron. According to the experi- 
ments of Dr. Wolf,* 100 parts of Pyrola umbellata contain about 18 of a 
bitter extractive principle, 2,04 of resin, 1,38 of tannin, a slight portion of 
gum; the rest, fibrous matter and earthy salts. The resin is adhesive, 
brownish, readily soluble in ether and alkalies, burning with flame and a 
resinous odour, and leaving a white cinder. 
Medical Properties and Uses. The Pyrola umbellata is diuretic and tonic; 
externally stimulant. It has lately been introduced into practice as an effi- 
cacious diuretic in dropsy, and from the favourable testimonies of physicians 
who rank high in their profession, we are warranted in recommending it to 
general practice, as a remedial agent, possessing very considerable diuretic 
and tonic powers. The diuretic properties of the Pyrola wmbellata seem to 
have been fully illustrated by Dr. W. Somerville, in a paper on this vegetable 
published in the fifth volume of the London Medieco-Chirurgical Transac- 
tions. The facts presented by this physician afford satisfactory evidence of 
the power of this medicine to promote the urinal excretion, and to afford 
relief to patients afflicted with dropsy in its various forms. The most dis- 
tinguished case presented by him is that of Sir James Craig, the British 
Governor of Canada, who was labouring under general dropsy, which, in 
its progress, had assumed the forms of hydrothorax, anasarca, and ascites, 
and which was combined with different organic diseases, especially of the 
liver. After having tried, with little or temporary success, almost every 
variety of diuretic and cathartic medicines, and submitted twice to the 
' operation of tapping, the patient had recourse to a strong infusion of Pyrola, 
* See a Dissertation, “ De Pyrola umbellata,” published at Gottingen, in 1817. 
