256 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



When this plant is calcined, very little or 

 no salts can be extracted from the ashes, 

 these being naturally volatile.* " The ex- 

 pressed juice, being suffered to putrefy, 

 affords an alcaline volatile salt, which is 

 the reason why it is so beneficial in the arid 

 scurvy. In the other kind of scurvy, it is 

 very pernicious ; in which case I have known 

 it to procure a rupture in the liver. But 

 where there is a defect of heat, and a cold- 

 ness and viscidity of the juices, it is very 

 proper. In a scurvy attended with a hot 

 fever and a putridness, it would destroy the 

 patient.^- " 



Fernel, who was physician to Henry the 

 Second of France, discovered in the juice of 

 this root, a vomit of the safest kind, and a 

 friend to the stomach. We learn from more 

 modern physicians, that if it be infused in 

 w T ater, and a portion of the infusion be taken 

 with a large draught of warm water, it rea- 

 dily proves emetic, and may either be em- 

 ployed to excite vomiting, or to assist the 

 operation of emetics. 



Horse radish root has a quick pungent 

 smell, and a penetrating acrid taste ; it 



# James. f Boerh. Hist. Plant, p. 419. 



