NAT. ORDER. — POMACE.C. 91 



tliey arc [i!aii(eil for hedges. The best quick-set hedges are /oriiiccl 

 by planting theni in two rows, about a foot or afoot-and-a-half apart. 

 The hedges, two or three years after phxnting, ouglit to be clipped 

 once or twice every year, in order to keep them in shape, and 

 thicken them ; and they should be kept perfectly clear from weeds, 

 at least for the first few years. 



Medical Projicrtics ami Uses. This plant was formerly consid- 

 ered as possessing powerful narcotic properties, and some instances 

 are recorded of its fatal efTects, proving a poison. The seeds are 

 considered especially remarkable in producing this effect, and the 

 leaves possess similar properties. Formerly, the t/iorn was used as 

 a medicine, and was highly spoken of as an alterative, and valued 

 in the treatment of scrofula, and cutaneous eruptions. Baron Storck 

 made the expressed juice of the thorn into an extract, and employed 

 it in cases of mania, epilepsy, and some other convulsive affections, 

 and, as he reports, with some advantage. He has, however, been 

 more reserved in his trial with this, and more temperate in recom- 

 mending it, than with respect to most of the others he has practised 

 with. Some other writers have also employed it, and recommended 

 it, but they are chiefly the experiments of Greding which properly 

 ascertained its powers and virtues. 



This industrious physician employed it in a great number of 

 maniacal cases ; and, beginning with small doses, he proceeded to 

 very large ones, but could not, in any one of the cases he employed 

 it in, obtain a cure. Dr. Cullen, speaking of this plant, says : " I 

 have employed this extract in a great number of epileptic cases, and 

 in cases of epilepsy joined with mania, but, except in one single in- 

 stance, have made no cure ; and the great number of cases in w hich 

 it failed, lead me to judge it to be a medicine seldom suited to the 

 cure of those diseases." There are, indeed, cases of both diseases, 

 reported by persons of good credit, in which the extract succeeded. 

 But I do not admit this as a proof of any peculiar power in the 

 thorn, as many other plants produce the same effect. 



