6 ORD. XLVI. Liliacce. SCILLA MARITIMA, 
to be more efficacious than the white, and is therefore still pre- 
ferred for medicinal use:” it is to the taste very nauseous, intensely 
bitter, and acrimonious, but without any perceptible smell. 
“ Water, wine, proof spirit and rectified spirit, extract the virtues: 
both of the fresh and the dry root. Nothing rises in distillation 
with any of these menstrua, the entire bitterness and pungency of 
the Squill remain ning coneentratéd in-the inspissated extracts: the 
irituous extract is in smaller quantity than the watery, and of a 
proportionably stronger almost fiery taste.” 
« Alkalines considerably abate both the bitterness and acrimony 
of the Squill: vegetable acids make little alteration in either, 
though the admixture of the acid taste renders that of the Squill 
more supportable. These acids extract its virtue equally with 
watery or spirituous menstrua.”* 
othe root of the Squill, which appears to have been known as a 
ine an the-early ages of Greece,’ and has so well maintained 
its character ever since, as to be deservedly in great estimation, 
and of very frequent use at this time, seems to manifest a poisonous 
quality to several animals. In proof of this, we have the testi-. 
monies of Hillefeild,* Bergius,‘ Vogel,* and others, Its acrimony 
is so great that even if much handled it exulcerates the skin; and 
if given in large doses, and frequently repeated, it not only 
excites nausea, tormina, and violent vomitings, but it has been 
known to produce strangury, bloody urine, hypercatharsis, car- 
: dialgia, hemorrhoids, convulsions, with fatal inflammation and 
> It may he observed, that this red colour is only confined to the | outer coats 
of the root. 
© Lewis, M. M. 
4 Some refer- its introduction to medical use to Epimenides ; others to Pythagoras. 
Vide Haller, Bib. Bot. p. 12. It was sometimes called Suaaw, and sometimes. 
Nayxexriov, and is noticed by Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen, Actius, Celsus, 
mas Celius Aurelianus, and the Arabian physicians, 
mgt. “© Diss. Experim., circa venena, p. 12. 
* Mat. Med. -p. 265. & V.in Hillef. p. 18. 
