COLUMBINE. 209 



Goats, and sometimes sheep, will eat this plant ; other animals 

 refuse it. Bees are very fond of the petals, (jiectaries of Lin- 

 naeus,) the tube of which they pierce to obtain the honied juice. 



Qualities. — The odour of the recent plant is weak, ungrate- 

 ful, and rather stupifying ; the taste bitter and nauseous. The 

 bruised seeds are somewhat mucilaginous, with a slight bitter- 

 ness and acrimony, the odour strong, and so tenacious that it is 

 with great difficulty removed from the mortar in which they are 

 pounded. The syrup prepared with the flowers is said to be a 

 better test of acids and alkalies than that of violets. Accord- 

 ing to Geoffroy *, the seeds contain a large quantity of oil and 

 ammoniacal salt. 



With regard to the poisonous effects of this plant, Linnaeus f 

 states that children have lost their lives by taking an over-dose, 

 administered as a medicine by ignorant persons. It certainly be- 

 longs to a suspicious natural order. 



Medical Properties and Uses — The medical properties of 

 Columbine have been greatly extolled at various times. The 

 root, the leaves, the seeds, and the flowers, have been esteemed 

 aperitive, diuretic, diaphoretic, and antiscorbutic. Simon 

 Pauli J asserts that children attacked with measles and 

 small-pox have been recovered as if from the dead, by taking 

 half a drachm of the seeds in powder, or twice that quantity in 

 emulsion. Scopoli § aserts that he has found them extremely 

 useful in facilitating the eruption of the pustules in those dis- 

 eases, and Linnaeus inclines to the same opinion. Tragus || and 

 Matthiolus ordered the pulverized seeds in the dose of a drachm 

 mixed with saffron, to be taken in a glass of wine, as a remedy 

 for jaundice. The former also recommends the root in colic. 

 Camerarius states that in Spain they use the root in calculous 

 and gravelly disorders ; Clusius recommended it in diflScult la- 

 bour, and Ettmuller in scurvy. Tourneforf^ lauded a tincture 

 of the flowers made with spirit of wine, and mixed with equal 

 parts of tincture of lac and mastic, as very efficacious in ulcera- 



* Mat. Med. vol. iii. p. 110. 



f Flora Suecica, p. 187. 



:{: Quadrip. Bot. p. 23. 



§ Flora Carn. ed. 1, p. 551. 



II Kreutterbuch, p. 44. 



^ Hist, des Plantes de Paris, vol. ii. p. 264. 



