32 ASARABACCA. 



to be preferred, and it will be necessary to use them in as recent 

 a state as possible, as the acrimony, on which its properties 

 depend, is lost with keeping ; they should also be dried without 

 the application of much heat, and when rubbed to powder, 

 should be kept in bottles well stopped for use. 



There is an elegant herb snuff, which, not long since, oc- 

 cupied a place in the London dispensatories, and is still re- 

 tained in those of Edinburgh and Dublin, under the name of 

 compound powder of Asarabacca. It consists of the following- 

 articles : — • 



Leaves of Asarum, tlxree parts. 



of Marjoram, f 



Flowers of Lavender, ^ "^ '^^'^^ "'^^ P^''^- 

 Reduce them to a powder, which is to be preserved in close phials. 

 The famous powder of Sainte-Ange is composed of equal 

 parts of the leaves of asarum, and the root of white helle- 

 bore ; and some of the above ingredients, together with herb 

 mastic, lily of the valley, or betony, constitute the cephalic 

 and eye-snufFs that are daily advertised. 



The leaves of asarum, on account of their resemblance to the 

 shape of the human ear, were formerly employed in affections 

 of that organ. For this purpose they were infused in water, 

 which was dropped into the ear, or dried and used by fumiga- 

 tion. This absurd belief in the doctrine of signatures, was very 

 prevalent in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was 

 based on the following hypothesis, that every 7iatural production 

 indicates, hy some obvious external mark, the diseases in which it is 

 efficacious. 



Thus the knotted root of the Scrophularia or figwort, was supposed to 

 indicate its power over scrofulous tumours : the granulated root of the 

 saxifrage, and the hard polished seed of the gromtoell, were used in calcu- 

 lous and gravelly disorders : the spotted hmgivort was exhibited in diseases 

 of the lungs, and birthivort in those of the uterus. The root of the man- 

 drake, from its supposed resemblance to the human form, was esteemed in 

 the earliest ages a remedy for sterility*. Colours were also deemed typical 

 of their properties ; the bright yellow of the turmeric, indicated its efficacy 

 in jaundice, and the scarlet of the poppy, a remedial virtue in erysipelas 

 and haemorrhages. 



l\[any other instances might be adduced of this once popular doctrine, 

 and which even now is not entirely exploded. Cowley and some other 

 poets disfigured their verse with the wild conceit. 



• Genesis xxx. 14. 



