Humulus Lupulus, or Common Hop. 31 



acting as a slow poison, and therefore fell into almost 

 total disuse. So powerful is prejudice, that articles 

 of much higher celebrity, as antimony, mercury, and 

 even the Peruvian bark, had once nearly undergone 

 the same fate. Happily for mankind, all these im- 

 portant articles revived in their turn, and, at length, 

 triumphed over the gross ignorance and superstition 

 of the times. Happily too for the great brewers, 

 who annually vend many millions of gallons of malt 

 liquor, that the hop, instead of being deemed a poi- 

 son, is now universally held to be one of the most 

 wholesome ingredients in the composition. 



Convinced, my dear Sir, from observations almost 

 innumerable, of what is daily passing before our eyes, 

 and still more, if possible, from personal experience, 

 that the common hop is not only one of the most 

 pleasant and agreeable bitters yet known, but is also 

 possessed of a real anodyne, soporific power, without 

 the disagreeable effects of opium. It can be taken, 

 for any length of time, with impunity, whereas the 

 Portland-Powder and most other bitters, if long con- 

 tinued, very seldom fail of producing very serious 

 and alarming consequences. Its daily habitual use, 

 among all ranks of people, in sundry malt liquors, 

 seems to have caused it to be considered rather as a 

 dietetic than medicinal article, and to induce the Lon- 

 don College to omit it entirely in their list of the 

 Materia Medica. Writers, accordingly, have either 

 touched on its properties very superficially, or passed 

 it over, in profound silence. Without any documents 

 or communications concerning it, I began to con- 



