50 bear's-breech. ' 



Milton enumerates this among the plants which decked the 

 primeval bowers of Eden, — 



" on either side 



Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub 

 Fenced up the verdant wall." 



Medical Properties and Uses. — The reputation of this 

 plant as a medicine has much declined in modern days. It was 

 formerly reckoned one of the five emollient plants, and pre- 

 scribed in cataplasms, fomentations, and lavements, to mitigate 

 inflammatory or nervous irritation. It acts as a slight astringent 

 in haemoptysis or spitting of blood, diarrhoeas and dysentery. 



The leaves, boiled and mashed up into a poultice, have been 

 recommended as an application to deep-seated abscesses, for the 

 purpose of hastening suppuration. The roots abound in muci- 

 lage, and may be substituted for those of comfrey and marsh- 

 mallow. 



