156 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



whose luxury is (says he) grown to such an 

 exorbitant height, that they use the most 

 delicious medicines as common aliments." 



The best cinnamon is of a bright brown 

 colour, of a brisk agreeable taste. Its quali- 

 ties are to heat and to dry, to fortify the spi- 

 rits, and to help digestion ; but its principal 

 use in medicine is as an astringent, with which 

 intention it is prescribed in diarrhoeas, and 

 weaknesses of the stomach. It is much used 

 for adding a grateful and agreeable taste to 

 various kinds of aliments, principally by boil- 

 ing it among them. Bauhine expressly af- 

 firms, that whatever virtues the ancients as- 

 cribed to their Cinnamomum and Cassia, justly 

 belong to our cinnamon, since it is of an 

 aromatic, stimulating, and corroborating qua- 

 lity. Hence it is classed among the stoma- 

 chics and uterine medicines, and affords sin- 

 gular relief to women afflicted with a loss of 

 strength, or a lax state of the fibres. In a 

 word, whatever can be said of the use or abuse 

 of aromatics, may be justly applied to cinna- 

 mon ; for, according to Boerhaave, in his 

 Chim. vol. i. cinnamon, the most excellent of 

 all other aromatics, is possessed of the same 

 common virtues with them, though in a 

 higher degree. 



