282 FAMILY HERBAL. 



agreeable to the stomach, good against sicknesses 

 and reacliings. 



Rattle-Snake Root Plant. Seneca. 



A small plant, native of America, with weak 

 stalks, iittlc leaves, and white flowers. It grows a 

 foot high. Tiie stalks are numerous, weak, and 

 round, few of them stand quite upright, some gene- 

 rally lie upon the ground. The leaves stand irre- 

 gularly : they are oblong and somewhat broad, and 

 of a pale green. The flowers are little and white : 

 they stand in a kind of loose spikes, at the tops of 

 ihe stalks, and perfectly resemble those of the 

 common plant we call milkwort, of which it is' in- 

 deed a kind : the whole plant has very much the 

 aspect of the taller kind of our English milkwort. 

 The root is of a singular form : it is long, irregu- 

 lar, slender, and divided into many parts, and these 

 have on each side, a kind of membranous margin 

 hanging from them, which makes it distinct in its 

 appearance, from all the other roots used in the 

 shops. 



We owe the knowledge of this medicine, orisri- 

 nally to the Indians : they give it as a remedy against 

 the poison of the rattle-snake, but it has been 

 . ^tolled, as possessing great virtues. Dr. Tcnnaut 

 brought it into England, and we received it as a 

 powerful remedy against pleurisies, quinzies, and 

 ai! other diseases where the blood was sizey : it was 

 i;aid to dissolve this dangerous texture, better than 

 all oilier known medicines ; but experience does 

 v. t seem to have warranted altogether these effects, 

 for it is at present neglected, after a great many and 

 \er\ fair trials. 



\Yhen this remedy was discovered to be the 

 root of a kind of polygala, which discovery was 



