t 422 3 



le£tioii of medical than agricultural eflays : but I think it 

 probable, that the rhubarb No. II. diminifhed the number 

 of motions not by any dire£l: aftringency, but by its gently 

 cathartick, power, which was juft fuch as to ftimulate the 

 bowels fufficiently to make them difcharge the greateft 

 part of their contents in a few evacuations; while the 

 other rhubarbs, by their ftronger purgative quality, pro- 

 duced alfo a confiderable difcharge of the mucus of the 

 bowels. This conclufion feems to correfpond with the 

 comparative coftivenefs which fucceeded the cathartick opera- 

 tion of each rhubarb j that being much alike after the Turkey 

 rhubarb and No. I. ; and after both much greater than froni 

 No. II. although the latter was fufficient to remove the 

 purging in the cafes of Greenaway and Jane White. 



Objervations and Experiments on certain Specimens of 

 Englijh and Foreign Rhubarb y being an Attempt to- 

 wards ejiimating their comparative Virtues. 



Tentanda eft via^— Virg. 



[By A. FoTHERGiLL, M. D. F. R. S.] 



IT is remarkable that Botanifts, till very lately, have 

 been greatly divided in their opinion concerning the 

 fpecies to which the officinal rhubarb belongs. Thus the 

 rheum pahnatum^ the undulatum^ and the compadum^ have 

 each in their turn been pronounced to be the true fpecies. 

 At length the queftion appears to be determined by the 

 celebrated Dr. Fallas, in favour of the firft of thefe; 

 and as he had every advantage of examining them on the 

 fpot, we may now, I think, fafely conclude that the pal- 

 matum is the genuine plant. How far indeed the hybrid 

 plant, produced from the union of the palviatum and un- 



dulatunij 



