154 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



cine in the first stage of the disease, and we have witnessed its suc- 

 cess in some of the London Hospitals, even while the inflammatory 

 symptoms prevailed to a very considerable degree. This seems 

 contrary to the experience of Dr. Cullen, who says, t( As I con- 

 sider the disease as especially consisting in a phlogistic diathesis, 

 I hold the bark to be absolutely improper, and have found it mani- 

 festly hurtful, especially in its beginning, and in its truly inflam- 

 matory state." 



In the confluent small -pox the bark has been recommended to 

 promote the rising of the pustules ; this opinion our own experi- 

 ence teaches us to reject; but after maturity of the pustules is 

 completed, or where symptoms of putrescency, or a dissolved 

 state of the blood supervenes, the bark cannot be too liberally em- 

 ployed. The other diseases in which the bark is recommended, are 

 gangrenous sore throats, and indeed every species of gangrene ; 

 scarletina, disentery, all hemorrhages of the passive kind ; likewise 

 other increased discharges ; some cases of dropsy, especially when 

 unattended with any particular local affection, scrophula, ill condi- 

 tioned ulcers, rickets, scurvy, states of convalescence, certain stages 

 of phthisis pulmonalis, &c. 



The officinal preparations of the bark are the powder, the extract, 

 the tincture, and the decoction. This last, though frequently em- 

 ployed, is in many respects inferior even to a simple watery infu- 

 sion ; but the best form is that of powder, in which the constituent 

 parts arc in the most effectual proportion. 



[Editor, Linnaeus, Woodville. Mutis, Zea. 



SECTION VII. 



Cascarilla, 

 Clutia Cascarilla. Croton Cascarilla. Lucy. 

 Theiie is still a difference of opinion concerning the plant which 

 produces the officinal cascarilla. Linnaeus observes, Dr. Woodville, 

 whose authority is certainly the best, in his first edition of the Mat. 

 Med. considered the Cascarilla as a species of the Clutia ; but in 

 the second edition it is described as a Croton, and in his Amcenitates 

 Academicae we are again presented with the Clutia Cascarilla. 

 What adds to this uncertainty is, that under both these genera it 



