SAMBUCUS. 



ley's Fairy Mythology, p. 93. Auchincraw, e. g. was famous for 

 being the residence of those given to unlawful arts (Hist. Berw, N. 

 Club, i. p. 123); and nowhere can I remember to have seen so many 

 old and ugly Elders. The Witches died with the present generation ; 

 and the Elders have been rooted up as useless. 



The Elder has been long celebrated in rural pharmacy. An oint- 

 ment made with the juice of the bark was famous for healing sores 

 and scurvy spots ; and it is still used by doctors of the gipsy and 

 mendicant orders. The green fetid leaves, boiled in olive oil, form 

 what is known by the name of " Oil-of-Swallow," and is in high repute 

 as a cure for sprains and bruises *. The berries, sometimes called 

 Winhn-berries, are made into a sort of wine or syrup for winter colds ; 

 and the preparation is still in use with, perhaps, some lesser faith in 

 its efficacy. 



An infusion of the inner bark in white wine (3 oz. to the pint) has 

 suddenly become, in our borough, a vaunted remedy for dropsy, from 

 the relief which has followed its use in a vfery few cases. It is an old, 

 and was once a favourite hydrogogue. The earliest medical authors 

 agree in commending the Elder for the cure of dropsy. Adam's 

 Paul. iEgineta, iii. p. 30. And our early herbalists, who directed the 

 popular practice in England, do the same ; but it is uncertain whether 

 they merely copied from the Greek and Roman physicians, or spoke 

 from their own experience. Gerarde, after telling us that the Elder 

 generally hath a purging qualitie, says, — " The inner and greene bark 

 doth more forcibly purge : it draweth forth choler and waterie humors ; 

 for which cause it is good for those that haue the dropsie, being 

 stamped, and the liquor pressed out and drunke with wine orwhay." 

 Herbal, p. 1423. And Parkinson, in his Theatrum Botanicum, informs 

 us that " the distilled water of the inner bark is very powerfull to 

 purge the watery humors of the dropsie or timpanie, taking it fasting, 

 and two houres before supper." It were useless to produce the other 

 herbalists in evidence ; and we rest content with Ray's summary of 

 his predecessors' experience, when he concludes that the bark 

 " educit serosos humores, unde et Hydropicos juvat." Hist. Plant, ii. 

 1609. 



The unconditional commendation of their remedies, — the crudeness 

 of their preparation, — and the queer qualities arbitrarily assigned for 

 their operation, cast a svispicion over the histories of these worthy 

 men; whose simples gave place to new remedies with more power and 

 less nauseousness. But the Elder maintained its reputation. One 

 volume at least was written to display in entirety its virtues ; and 

 a reverend author declared that no shrub deserved a greater regard, 

 for " the medicinal use of its several parts is extraordinary." Borlase, 

 Hist. Cornw. p. 225. Boerhaave and Sydenham, perhaps the two 

 greatest of our practitioners, had satisfied themselves that the juice 

 of the inner bark was the most valuable of diuretics (Sydenham's 

 Works, ii. p. 1/6: Good's Study of Medicine, iv. p. 363); and their 



* The genuine Oil of Swallows is, however, a different composition; and 

 the recei})t for making it is given at length in Willis's Current Notes for 

 January 1853, p. 7- 



VOL. I. H 



