NATURAL HISTORY. 
safety when it shews its first growth, 
or as soon as it has seeded, or when 
the seed is ripened, or any period in 
the last quarter of the year, or in the 
first of the ensuing. Though it may 
be taken up, dried, and used, at the 
end of four years, it will not, how 
properly soever managed, possess 
that solidity which is mecessary for 
its excellence. It will be found in 
its most perfect state at the end of 
seven years, and after that age, if it 
has been carefully cultivated, and 
skilfully cured. 
This last operation must be con- 
ducted in the following manner :— 
As soon as a root, weighing froin 
three or four to seventy pounds, is 
dug up, let it be washed till it is 
thoroughly clean; let the fibrous 
roots be taken away, and not the 
smallest particle of bark left.on the 
large ones: let these be cut into 
square pieces, as nearly as they will 
admit, of four inches in breadth, and 
one and a half in depth: let a hole 
be made in the middle of each, about 
half an inch square;—then let them 
be strung upon a packthread, with a 
knot on each, and at such a distance 
from one another as to keep them 
from rubbing or entangling, Thus 
secured, let them be hung up in the 
form of a festoon, without delay, in 
the warm air ofa kitchen or laundry, 
till the superfluous moisture is ex- 
haled, in order to prevent their be- 
coming mouldy, or any way musty. 
They may be afterwards sufficiently 
dried at more leisure, then wrapt se- 
parately in cotton, and put into a. 
bottle with a wide mouth. 
Let it be observed here, by the 
way, that the tap-roots, next to the 
roots themselves, make excellent 
tinctures: of them too, as well as 
the parings dried and powdered, I 
haye frequently giyen half an ounce, 
383 
with double the quantity of cream 
of tartar, to my horses each day, on 
finding the crust of their blood deep- 
ly tinged with bile, and that for three 
or four days running. Of such 
blood, every race-horse would be 
the better for losing a part the day 
after running, unless he is to ran 
again very soon. 
Ist. Of this cream of tartar let 
half an ounce be dissolved in a quart 
of boiling water; of which let the 
patient drink but one half every 
twenty-four hours, giving, in a cup 
full of it, ten grains of powder of the 
same rhubarb, twice or thrice with- 
in that space of time. 
2d. Burn two or three ounces. of 
this same cream of tartarin a cru- 
_cible till it is red hot, and you have 
a salt which, powdered in a marble 
mortar, and whilst hot and dry, 
poured into a bottle well corked, is 
as good as the salt of wormwood. 
Give twenty. grains of this, dissolved 
in three table-spoonfuls of water and 
one table-spoonful of lemon-juice, 
and you have one of the most use~ 
ful febrifages known io all hot fe- 
vers, if taken four or five times with- 
in the twenty-four hours. 
3d. Mix as much of the salt with 
some of the above solution of the 
cream of tartar, till the effervescence 
is over, and you have tartarized tar- 
tar, of such wonderful use in the 
cure of remitting fevers, jaundice, 
anasarca, obstructions of the liver, 
hypochondres, delirium, melan- 
choly, and even what is called mad- 
ness, if that be not hereditary. 
4th, Add a proper quantity of 
distilled vinegar to a due proportion 
of the above salt of tartar, and you 
have the regenerated tartar or diu- 
retic salt, known even to Pliny the 
natural historian, and whose powers 
are extolled so highly by our best 
cbhymists, 
