FLAG. 319 



Qualities and general Uses. — The leaves of this plant 

 when fresh are eaten by goats, and in a dry state by cows, but 

 are refused by horses and hogs. The root boiled in water, with 

 the aduition of copperas, has been used as a substitute for ink, 

 and as a dye for woollen cloth. The flowers are said to afford 

 a beautiful yellow dye. The seeds roasted resemble coffee. 

 The leaves make excellent thatch, and are used for bottoms to 

 chairs. 



The root, or more correctly the rhizoma, is covered with a 

 fleshy fragile parenchyma, of a greyish colour tinged with red. 

 The odour of the plant in its recent state is lost in drying, but 

 its taste is styptic and rather acrid, though somewhat insipid. It 

 contains a brown extractive matter, a fatty oil, which is acrid 

 and bitter, and a small quantity of volatile oil, which concretes 

 in shining flakes. Its astringent matter is extracted both by 

 water and alcoiiol. 



Medicinal Properties and Uses. — The expressed juice 

 of the recent root is very acrid, and on being snuffed up the 

 nostrils, produces a burning heat in the nose and mouth, accom- 

 panied with a copious discharge from those organs : hence it 

 has been recommended as an errhine and sialogogue, and was 

 used successfully by Armstrong * in obstinate head-ache and 

 tooth-ache when other remedies had failed. The recent root 

 also acts as a strong cathartic and hydragogue, and was adminis- 

 tered with the best efft^cts in a remarkable case of diopsy, by 

 Ramsay t, and in ascites and anasarca by Plater. Ettmuller 

 speaks of its vermifuge properties, and it has been used in the 

 scrofula of children. Blair if recommends the dried root in diar- 

 rhoea and dysentery. 



The dose of the expressed juice is from one to two drachms. 

 The dried root is given in the quantity of a scruple to a drachm. 

 Ettmuller mentions a preparation which enjoyed considerable 

 reputation und^r the name of Nectar adstr/ngens, in cases of 

 vom itiii^ of blood, dysentery, and and every other flux or 

 hemorrhage. The root was for this purpose sliced ; and, if 

 succulent, the juice or the decoction was inspissated by further 

 boiling to a thicker consistence ; after whicli it was formed, by 

 a sufficient quantity of sugar, into a syrup. 



• Account of the diseases of children, p. 146. 

 •f In Med. Essays and Obser. Edinburgh, vol. v. pt. i. p. 93. 

 X Miscellaneous Observations, &c., p. 78. 



