272 ^ ELDER. 



ish oil. The berries are inodorous, acidulous, and sweetish ; 

 they contain saccharine matter, jelly, and malic acid ; and their 

 deep purple juice is as delicate a test of the presence of alkalies 

 and acids as litmus paper *. 



Medical Properties and Uses. — If the Elder be, as is 

 generally supposed, the ukt-^ of the Greeks, we find it mentioned 

 by Dioscorides t, Theophrastus, and Galen. Hippocrates % 

 used it as a purgative in dropsies and other diseases ; and from 

 his time to the present, it has enjoyed more or less celebrity. 

 According to Dr. Ainslie, the Arabians and Syrians of the pre- 

 sent day are well acquainted with it. To begin with the flowers : 

 — These when recent are slightly purgative and resolvent, 

 but in their dried state they appear to act by the cutaneous 

 exhalants and provoke perspiration, and are hence considered 

 diaphoretic and sudorific. With this view, an infusion of them 

 sweetened with sugar, has been regarded as very useful at the 

 onset of pulmonary catarrhs, coryza, sore throat, and other 

 affections arising from suppressed perspiration. It has also 

 been employed in the latter stage of bronchial catarrh and pul- 

 monary affections, where there is no fever, heat, or thirst ; and 

 has been highly extolled in small-pox, measl,es, scarlatina, and 

 other eruptive diseases which have been accidentally checked 

 in their determination to the skin. Externally, the flowers have 

 been employed either in infusion or cataplasm, to resolve in- 

 flammatory and cedematous swellings. 



The berries are considered aperient, and slightly excitant and 

 sudorific, and have been ordered in rheumatism, erysipelas, and 

 febrile diseases. When dried they were formerly, but er- 

 roneously, called grana actes. The seeds, are laxative. 



The bark and leaves are the most powerful parts of the plant. 

 They excite purging and vomiting in a large dose, and in some 

 instances have produced hypercatharsis §. The inner bark has 

 been extolled as an excellent hydragogue purgative, and in small 

 doses as deobstruent. Sydenham j] and Boerhaave ^ speak of it& 



• Chevalier, in Journ. de Pharm. Avril, 1820. 



t De Mat. Med. lib. iv. c. 17^, P- -^IS. 



:{: De morbis, lib. ii. p. 468. 



§ Vide Barthol. Act. Hafn. vol. i. p. 1G4, et Eph. nat. cur. Dec. 2, ann. 

 9, p. 48. 



II Opera, p. 496. 



m Hist. Plant, t. i. p. 20?. 



