348 PRIMULACER. 
names of Artanitha and Bakhtir Miryam reproduce what Dios- 
corides has written concerning Cyclamen. Persian writers 
describe the Persian plant under the names of Azarbu and 
Chubak-ushnan, and state that it is a kind of Artanitha. The 
Indian Mahometan writers follow the Arabs and .Persians. 
The different species of Cyclamen were formerly used in 
Europe on account of their emetic, purgative, and diuretic 
properties, and an ointment prepared from the root was ap- 
plied to the abdomen of adults to produce vomiting or purging, 
and over the bladder to induce diuresis; it was also applied to 
the navel of children suffering from intestinal worms, and to 
scrofulous tumours. Baulliard states that it is still used in the 
north of France as a purgative and often produces emesis, cold 
sweats, giddiness and convulsive movements. Pigs are said to 
eat the root with impunity, but fish are easily poisoned by it, 
and frogs sicken and die after a few days. Schroff, who 
has experimented with cyclamin, comes to the following 
conclusions :—], Cyclamin does not act upon the sound skin ; 
2,1 the mouth it produces a very unpleasant sensation and 
taste, and excites salivation; 3, in the stomach it causes 
burning, oppression, nausea, and vomiting, and in this organ, 
as in ‘an intestine, it occasions Sisfischsieeeo 4, in the con- 
nective tissue it excites inflammation, which may be followed 
by gangrene : 5, it does not affect the brain, spinal marrow, or 
nerves ; 6, it salivates men when not taken by the mouth, but 
by the veins; 7, its action is analogous to that of saponin. 
(suite and Moiieh. ) 
: ‘Description -—These plants have a roundish, tuberous, 
or fleshy root stock, from the upper side of which spring the 
- Jeaves and flowers, sometimes directly from the top, sometimes 
from a short neck-like stem. The leaves are roundish or 
ovate with a deep basal sinus, sometimes angular at the margins 
and often marbled with greyish white. The flowers have the 
segments of the corolla turned back. The capsule is five- 
valved, and after flowering the scape in most of the species 
coils up spirally with the seed vessel in the contre, Berson 
itself at the same time towards the ground. 
7 
