MEDICINAL PLANTS OF JAMAICA. 215 



sawn into billets of about three feet long, an auger hole is 

 bored lengthways in each, and one end of the billet so placed 

 on a fire, that a calabash may receive the melted resin which 

 runs through the hole as the wood burns. 



Gum guaiacum may be obtained in small quantities by boil- 

 ing chips, or sawings, of the wood in water and common salt. 

 The resin swims at the top, and may be skimmed off". 



It may also be got by means of ardent spirits, in the way 

 Jalap and Peruvian bark are treated ; but this mode is expen- 

 sive and tedious. 



The venereal disease makes terrible havock amongst the 

 Negroes in Jamaica, and shews itself in all its hideous 

 forms. This is owing to their ignorance or neglect. Amongst 

 this class of mankind it is too common to stop virulent 

 gonorrhoeas with astringent gums, resins, or barks, so that 

 the master or overseer knows nothing; of their situation till the 

 spongy bones of the nose, the palate, or the throat, are great- 

 ly affected ; or their limbs distorted by nocturnal pains, pains 

 of the bones, nodes, and carious ulcers. 



The yaws, though a very different disease from the lues 

 venerea, often produces the same direful effects in the limbs, 

 nose, and throat : happily, however, these are curable by mer- 

 curial alteratives and diaphoretic decoctions. 



Of all the preparations of mercury, the corrosive sublimate 

 appears to me to be the best for curing such inveterate dis- 

 orders, especially when accompanied with such medicines as 

 promote its natural tendency to the skin. Of this sort is guai- 

 acum and sarsaparilla. I have found the following formula 

 the best : 



(ium yuaiacum, ten drachms. 



Virginia snake root, three drachms. 



Pimento, two drachms. 



Opium, one drachm. 



Corrosive sublimate, half a drachm. 



Proof spirits, two pounds. 



