MUSTARD. 1C3 



water, ammonia is plentifully evolved. Hence their constituents 

 appear to be starch, mucus, a bland fixed oil, an acrid volatile 

 oil, and an ammoniacal salt."* Where the seed putrefies it 

 exhales the odour of sulphuretted hydrogen. 



Medicinal Properties and Uses. — Mustard is universally 

 allowed to be stimulant, diuretic, emetic, and rubefacient. It is 

 found to promote appetite, assist digestion, attenuate juices, 

 and by stimulating the fibres, to prove a general remedy in 

 paralytic, chronic rheumatic, and arthritic affections f. In pa- 

 ralysis of the tongue a cold infusion of the seed in white wine, 

 with a small portion of lavender drops, is to be frequently 

 retained in the mouth, the patient at the same time taking 

 two or three tea-spoonsful twice or thrice a-day J. In ad- 

 dition to its stimulating qualities, it frequently, if taken in 

 considerable quantity, proves laxative §, and increases the 

 urinary discharge; hence in the days of Mead || it was extensively 

 used in this country, combined with broom tops, for the cure of 

 dropsy. As a stimulant, Dr. Paris *[[ considers it serviceable 

 only in such cases as are marked by alimentary torpor. In 

 cases attended with muscular irritability he considers it un- 

 questionably useful ; and that he has known it insure a regular 

 alvine discharge, and correct that species of diarrhoea which 

 attends a diseased condition of the mucous surfaces. As to the 

 efficacy of Mustard in ameliorating scurvy, and its attending 

 symptoms, authors are by no means united; nevertheless, Ray ** 

 reports that it has proved beneficial in numerous cases, being 

 taken infused in white wine. The continued use of this article 

 no doubt eventually acts on the whole economy of the human 

 frame ; and on that account it may prove beneficial, not only in 

 scorbutus, but also in cases of anarexia, hypochondriasis, and 

 chlorosis, particularly in atonic and lymphatic subjects : on 

 account of this diffusible action of Mustard, it was used by 



* Thomson's Dispensatory, 1836, p. 592. 



f Adair, Med. Comment. 1783, art. 2. 



J Thomson, Med. Consult, on var. Diseases, 



§ Cullen, Mat. Med. vol. ii. p. 171- 



|| Mead, Monit. et Praec. Med. p. 77* 



5[ Paris, Pharmacologia, 8th edit. p. 670. 



** Ray, Hist. Plant, p. 803. 



M % 



