CELANDINE 109 



baceous plant that may be freely met with in the 

 hedgerows, and abounds in an orange juice which 

 flows freely when the stems are broken across. 

 This juice is very acrid, and though it has in olden 

 time had a place amongst the materia medica, its 

 administration in any considerable quantity would 

 probably be dangerous. There is little or no fear 

 of accidental poisoning, however, as merely touch- 

 ing the juice with the tip of the tongue gives a 

 pungent and burning sensation that lasts for a long 

 time, and is so entirely nauseous as to render any 

 considerable repetition of the experiment very im- 

 probable. This yellow juice was naturally held, in 

 accordance with the Doctrine of Signatures, to be 

 a specific for the jaundice. Many other uses were 

 ascribed to the plant, but we need only mention 

 one other, I the application of this juice to the eyes 

 to sharpen the eyesight a remedy which, per- 

 sonally, we should be very chary of trying. The 

 name of the plant is derived from the Greek word 

 chelidon, a swallow, and the plant was so called 

 from a belief that the young swallows were born 

 blind, and that the parent birds gave them sight by 



1 a We omit to recite the many vertues and endlesse faculties 

 ascribed unto plants, which sometimes occurre in grave and 

 serious Authors, and we shall make a bad transaction for 

 truth to concede a verity in half. To reckon it up were 

 an imployment for Archimedes, who undertook to write 

 the number of the sands." BROWNE, " Pseudodoxica Epi- 

 demica," 1650. 



