MED 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



MEL 



103 



valors. It grows naturally on dry banks and hilly pastures, 

 chiefly in a sandy or dry soil, and is common in New Eng- 

 land, 'flowering in June and July. This plant has been much 

 sown of late years for sheep-feed in open fit-Ids, where it is 

 a considerable improvement, first for the sweet food, and 

 then to help the land by ploughing; it in, getting a good crop 

 of wheat after it on different soils. The seed falls so rea- 

 dily, that great loss ensues from moving it; and in threshing, 

 the least stroke clears it. The best way therefore is to 

 thresh it in the field on" a cloth, which is moved to the seed, 

 arid not the seed to the cloth. 



9. Medicago Marina; Sea Medick. Peduncles racemed; 

 i ^umes spiral, spiny; stem procumbent, tomentose. Miller 

 describes it as a perennial plant, with trailing woolly branches 

 about a foot long, divided into many small branches; leaves 

 small, downy, on short footstalks at each joint; flowers from 

 the side and at the ends of the branches, in small clusters, 

 of a bright yellow colour. They appear in June and July, 

 and the seeds ripen in September. Native of the shores of 

 the Mediterranean. This plant is propagated by seeds, sown 

 upon a warm border of dry soil in the spring, where the plants 

 aie designed to remain. When the plants are come up, two 

 or three of them may be transplanted into small pots, to be 

 sheltered in winter, because in very severe frosts those which 

 are in the open air are frequently destroyed; though it will 

 endure the cold of our ordinary winters, in a dry soil and 

 sheltered situation. The remaining plants require only to be 

 thinned and kept clean. It may also be increased by cut- 

 tings, planted in June or July, in a shady border, covering 

 them close with a glass, to exclude theexternal air: they will 

 take root in about six weeks, and may then be either planted 

 in a warm border or in pots, and treated in the same way as 



-I'edlings. 



10. Medicago Polymorpha ; Variable Medick. Legumes 

 spiral ; stipules toothed ; stem diffused. Root animal, oblong, 

 branched. Linneus justly names this species Polymorpha; 

 and remarks, that, like the dog among the animals, this plant 

 produces numerous varieties, though not in the same country. 

 Some of these varieties are erected into species by Gerard, 

 Miller, Geertner, and others, but they are not worth enume- 

 ration here. Some of them are common in flower-gardens 

 among other annuals, under the names of Snails and Hedge- 

 hogs, from the singular form of their seed-vessels. Native of 

 the south of Europe, Great Britain, &c. They are propa- 

 gated by seeds sown in the middle of April, where they are 

 to remain; they require no culture but to be thinned and kept 

 clean. The variety called Heart Trefoil, or Heart Clover, 

 but more properly Heart Medick, or Spotted Medick, is fre- 

 quently very luxuriant among Lucern, Saintfoin, and Trefoil, 

 and might be cultivated for the same purpose as the latter; 

 but on account of its hairiness, and the roughness of the 

 seeds, it should be cut or pastured when young. 



1 1. Medicago Prostrata ; Prostrate Medick. Legumes 

 spiral, unarmed ; leaves ternate, wedge-shaped, toothed at 

 the top; stipules bristle-shaped, quite entire; stem diffused. 

 This very small plant has a small fruit, and is nearly allied 

 to the preceding, although perennial. Native of exposed 

 stony ground in Hungary and Italy. 



Medical Terms. In order to explain the difficult medical 

 terms used in the various prescriptions with which this work 

 abounds, we have introduced the following elucidations. 

 Relaxing medicines, when externally applied, and supposed 

 to soften the parts, are called emollients; while others, which 

 are supposed to possess the power of augmenting the secre- 

 tion of pus in inflamed parts, are termed suppurative. Seda- 

 tive n>edicines, that have the power of assuaging pain, are 

 VOL. it. 74. 



denominated paregorics; if they altogether remove or destroy 

 pain, they are called anodynes; if they take oft' spasm, anti- 

 spasmodics ; if they procure quiet sleep, hypnotics ; if a 

 very deep ud unnatural sleep, together with considerable 

 stupefaction of the senses, narcotics. Tonic medicines obtain 

 the name of corroboratives, analeptics, or nervines, when 

 they slightly increase the contractile power of the solids; but 

 of astringents or adstringents, if they do this in a great degree. 

 Some of this order of medicines have been supposed to pro- 

 mote the growth of flesh, to consolidate wounds, and restrain 

 haemorrhages, and hence the name of sarcotics and traumatics, 

 or vulneraries. Other astringents again are called repellent, 

 discutient, stimulant, or alterative, according to the respect- 

 ive modes by which they are conceived to promote one com- 

 mon effect. Medicines of the inflammatory tribe, are in like 

 manner divided into vesicatories or blisters, if by their appli- 

 cation they raise watery bladders on the skin; cathwretics, 

 escharotics, or corrosives, if they eat into and destroy the 

 substance of the solid parts themselves; and rubefactive or 

 rubefacient, if, possessed of less power than the vesicatories, 

 they merely produce redness on the part to which they are 

 applied. The alterant tribe is divided into absorbents, anti- 

 septics, coagulants, resolvents, calefiants, and refrigerants, 

 according to the peculiar mode by which they are supposed 

 to operate. The evacuants are called emetics, when they 

 evacuate the contents of the stomach by vomiting; cathartics, 

 if they induce purging; laxatives, if they produce a moderate 

 discharge of feces. Again, they are named diaphoretics, if 

 they promote the expulsion of humours through the pores of 

 the skin, with only a small increase of action; sudorifics, if 

 the increase of action be greater, and the discharge more 

 copious. Such as excite urine are called diuretics; such as 

 produce evacuation from the glands of the palate, mouth, 

 and oalivary ducts, salivating medicines; those that promote 

 the discharge of mucus from the throat, apophlegmatics ; 

 those that evacuate by the nose, ptarmics, errhines, sternu- 

 tatories; and those which promote the menstrual discharge, 

 emmenagogues. Those medicines which expel worms are 

 sometimes called anthelmintics; those that are supposed to 

 remove or dissolve stones in the bladder, lithorrtriptics ; and 

 those that remove wind, carminatives. 



Medick. See Medicago. 



Medlar. See Mespilus. 



Medusa's Head. See Euphorbia. 



Meesia; a genus of the class Cryptogamia, order Musci. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Capsule : oblong ; peristome 

 double; outer with sixteen short blunt teeth; inner with ar 

 many sharp cilias, distinct, or connected by net-work. Males: 

 approaching the females, or discoid on a different plant. 

 Three species are all that have been referred to in this genus 

 by Hedwig, and these have been reduced to Bryum. 



Melaleuca; a genus of the class Polyadelphia, order Icoa- 

 andria. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix : perianth turbi- 

 nated, five-cleft, half superior. Corolla: petals five, rounded, 

 inserted into the inner margin of the calix. Stamina: fila- 

 menta many, rery long, united in five bundles ; antherse 

 incumbent. Pistil: germen turbinate, fastened to the bot- 

 tom of the calix; style one, filiform, upright; stigma simple. 

 Pericarp: capsule subglobular, half inferior, or half covered 

 with the calix, three-celled. Seeds : oblong, when unripe 

 linear-chaffy; when ripe, usually winged. ESSENTIAL CHA- 

 RACTER. Calix: five-cleft, half superior. Petals: five- 

 Filamenta : many, very lon, in five bodies. Style : one.' 



Capsule: three-celled. This a fine genus of aromatic trees 



knd shrubs, with lateral inflorescence, and simple entire leaves ; 

 aH growing in New Holland, except the first. Eighteen specie* 



a D 



