212 MEDICINAL PLANTS OF JAMAICA. 



and if not speedily remedied, a suppuration ensues, a dropsy 

 follows, or a hectic fever, which too often proves fatal. In 

 the beginning of this disorder I give small doses of calomel, a 

 grain at a time ; a little opium is necessary to prevent it run- 

 ning off by stool ; and after six doses, a laxative dose is given ; 

 after a few days six doses more, and another purge, seldom 

 fail to effect a radical cure. But after suppuration has taken 

 place, calomel is very improper and often pernicious. Change 

 of climate, milk diet, fruits and vegetables, would give the 

 best chance of a recovery.) 



The seeds, when beaten in a wooden mortar, and boiled 

 long with water, yield an oil or fat, as white and hard as tal- 

 low ; and they are frequently used for this purpose at the 

 Musquito Shore and Honduras, where candles are made of 

 them. 



51. GeoffRjEA inermis. — Cabbage-Bark Tree. 



In the sixty-seventh volume of the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, I have given a botanical and medical account of this 

 tree, to which the Royal Society have added an elegant en- 

 graving. 



The anthelminthic properties of this bark are pretty gene- 

 rally known ; and it is an article of materia medica in the 

 Edinburgh Dispensatory, as well as in some foreign Dispen- 

 satories. 



Let me in this place remark, that physicians expect too 

 much from anthelminthics. The common symptoms of 

 worms are often delusory, for the same symptoms attend 

 many fevers. When, therefore, the case is doubtful, I al- 

 ways join the Cinchona officinalis or caribaea with the cabbage 

 bark. 



Worms expelled in the end of acute diseases, are in gene- 



