170 niVI BOTANlCr. 



of a centaur, as Sagitlarius — the bowman. Many of the Grecian 

 states instituted divine honours to his memory ; the Magncsians 

 adored him with peculiar rites ; and Hesiod composed an ode in 

 praise of Chiron, the benefactor of mankind. 



Chironia Cenlaurium the Plant. — Here, the most instructed 

 ]Man among the first men of a regenerated world, and the instructor 

 of Men immortalized in the annals of primeval nations, Chiron the 

 Centaur retains a two-fold tribute of veneration from being held in 

 honourable remembrance by the generic and specific names of an 

 Herb whose useful qualities have long been extensively recognized. 

 This herb is the Common Centaury, the " Sancluairie" of those 

 simpling curei"s who make it efficacious, in a stomachic tea, for re- 

 viving the exhausted energies of digestion. Nature is bountiful in 

 providing an abundance of native remedies in every habitable re- 

 gion of the globe, and in adapting thena to the necessities of its in- 

 habitants. 



From the strength of the Bitter Principle which imbues it, the 

 Centaury acts as a mild tonic medicine, producing favourable re- 

 sults in cases of debility or derangement of the functions of nutri- 

 tion, and in some feverish affections. It also promotes the expul- 

 sion of worms from the bowels, and it has entered as an active 

 ingredient into certain fashionable compositions for preventing or 

 moderating attacks of the gout* in persons who are predisposed, by 

 descent or habit, to suffer fits of this inveterate disease. Were the 

 facts furnished by popular experience to receive the attention due to 

 its value as a conservative of health, this well-approved Bitter 

 would supersede most of the more expensive, but less efficient, drugs 

 of the same kind, whose chief importance accrues from their exotic 

 growth. 



• Centaury forms the basis of the celebrated Portland Gout Powder, but 

 in this state it should neither be taken in large doses, nor conliiuiea through 

 a lengthened course. " Centauria is a rj'ghte bytter herbe, and bight, 

 therfore, the gall of tlie crthe ; for one that bight AchironeccntauiKS founde 

 and knewe fyrste the vertue tlierof." — Glanville. " Centorie was called in 

 Greeke Ccnlaurion and Chironion, after the name of Chiron the Contaurc, 

 who first of all founde out the herbe and taughte it to vEsculapius. The 

 decoction of Centoiie the lesse dronken, killeth wormes and driueth them 

 fborth by siege. The small Centorie greene, pounde and layde to, doth cure 

 and heale freshe and newe woundes, and closeth up and soderelh olde malig- 

 nant vlcers that are harde to cure." — Lyte's Niem-e Ilcrball ; folio, London, 

 157"5, p. 327. "The drynke that Centory is soden in, with sugre to delay e 

 the byllerncssc, is good agaynst opylacyon, or stoj)pynge of the lyver, of 

 the niylt, of the rcyncs, and of bladder." — Grcic Jlcrhutl. 



