FLAX, OR LINE. 207 



little success, for while it is admitted at 

 court, it will naturally be seen in private 

 society. Flax is not known in China. 



From the seeds of this vegetable is drawn 

 linseed oil, so useful to our house painters 

 and other artists. 



"Whether their hand strike out some free design, 

 Where life awakes, and dawns at every line, 

 Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass, 

 And from the canvass call the mimic face." Pope. 



The seeds are esteemed an excellent 

 emollient and anodyne: they are used exter- 

 nally in cataplasms, to assuage the pain of in- 

 flamed humours : internally, a slight infusion 

 of linseed, by way of tea, is recommended in 

 coughs as an excellent pectoral, and of great 

 service in pleurisies, nephritic complaints, 

 and suppressions of urine. Cold-drawn lin- 

 seed oil is of great service in all diseases of 

 the breast and lungs, as pleurisies, peripneu- 

 monies, coughs, asthmas, and consumptions. 

 It likewise helps in the colic and stone.* 



In pleuritic pains, says Raygerusf, I have 

 often experienced linseed oil to be the most 

 successful medicine I could prescribe ; for it 

 immediately facilitated respiration, and pro- 

 moted spitting. In haemoptoe, also, I ex- 



* James. t Germ. An. 6 & 7. 



