| 
; 
| 
| 
| 
CLEMATIS RECTA, ORD. XXVI. Multisilique. ASI 
This plant is a native of Hungary, Austria, and France, and 
‘flowers from June til] August: it was first cultivated in England by. 
Gerard, previous to the year 1597, and is now sufficiently known 
to the British gardeners. This, like some other species of the 
clematis, is extremely acrid, and hence the name Flammula. 
The recent leaves, upon being chewed, excite a burning heat of 
-the tongue and fauces, and if retained long in the mouth, produce 
blisters and ulceration; but, by drying, this acrimony is consider- 
ably diminished: the flowers likewise possess a share of acrimony, 
though in a less degree. The Flammula Jovis, although men- 
tioned by Dale and some others as an external remedy, was first 
recommended to the attention of practitioners by Baron Stoerck 
in 1769, as an useful medicine in many obstinate complaints. f 
He published several cases of its successful exhibition, particularly 
in inveterate syphilitic diseases producing head-aches, pains in 
the bones, nodes, ulcers, cutaneous affections, &c.* 
Whether this plant really deserves the character which the Baron 
has thus attempted to establish, by stating its uniform success in 
twenty-two cases out of twenty-four, in which it was tried, rests 
solely upon his own authority; and it is with concern we observe, 
that the medical facts at Vienna are not very confidently received 
by the physicians in this country. It was usual for Dr. Stoerck to 
employ the leaves and flowers, as well as an extract prepared from 
the former, yet the preparation which he chiefly recommends is an 
infusion of two or three drams of the leaves in a pint of boiling 
water; of which he gave four ounces three times a day, while the 
powdered leaves were applied as an escharotic to the ulcers, 
{ Although these were principally venereal, yet in ulcers, cancers, and severe 
‘head-aches, not proceeding from this cause, the F lammula Jovis is said to have 
been likewise suécessful; and in his Lib. de Pulsat. p. 57. we are told of its re- 
markable eflicacy in a case of melancholia tristissima. It generally acted as a 
diuretic or diaphoretic. 
* Vide Lidell. de Flammiula Jovis. 
No. 41.—voL. 3. 6 F 
