146 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



growing on the ruins of old walls, or from the hollow of 

 decayed trees : so hardy is this valuable and neglected 

 tree, that it is found both in sheltered swamps and on the 

 bleak tops of church towers. 



The elder does not appear to have been used medici- 

 nally by the ancients, but the berries were employed by 

 the Romans to dye the hair of the head black. If they 

 be boiled in water, says Pliny, they are as good and 

 wholesome to be eaten as other pot-herbs. 



Sir J. E. Smith has remarked, that this tree is, as it 

 were, a whole magazine of physic to rustic practitioners. 



The bark, leaves, flowers, and berries, are said to have 

 been used with advantage in medicine. The leaves are 

 said to be purgative and emetic, and are applied externally 

 for the haemorrhoids and inflammations ; an ointment is 

 made also with them as well as the flowers : the latter are 

 used inwardly as a carminative. Infusions made from the 

 flowers while fresh, are gentle, laxative, and aperient ; 

 when dry, they are found to promote the cuticular secre- 

 tion, and to be particularly serviceable in erysipelatous 

 and eruptive disorders. Sydenham directs three handfuls 

 of the inner bark to be boiled in a quart of milk and water, 

 till only a pint remains, of which one half is to be taken 

 at night and the other in the morning ; and this repeated 

 every day for those afflicted with the dropsy. Boerhaave 

 recommends the expressed juice of the middle bark, given 

 from a dram to half an ounce, as the best of hydra- 

 gogues when the viscera are sound. It is said that if sheep 

 that have the rot can get at the bark and young shoots of 

 elder, they will soon cure themselves. It is an ingredient 

 in the black dye. 



Elder-flower water, the oil of elder, and elder syrup, 

 are all used as medicines. The flowers are reported to be 

 fatal to turkies, and the berries to poultry in general ; we 

 have observed that it seems the last thing which animals 



