400 WATER-DROPWORT. 



affected with a most severe cutaneous eruption, which had re- 

 sisted every proposed remedy. " At length he was recommended 

 to take every morning fasting, a table-spoonful of water- 

 parsnep in two spoonsful of white wine ; and the person who 

 recommended this remedy, procured him about half a pint of 

 what he said was the juice of water-parsnep. The first dose 

 produced such vertigo, sickness, vomiting, cold sweats, and 

 long continued rigor, that it almost proved fatal. So strong, 

 however, was his desire of relief, that with the intermission of 

 one day, he repeated it in nearly the same dose. It was fol- 

 lowed by the same sickness and vomiting as before, but the 

 succeeding rigor was by no means so violent. He was obliged, 

 therefore, gradually to reduce the dose to about half the quan- 

 tity he had taken at first. Before he had taken this juice a 

 month, he was sensible of a very great change for the better, 

 and by persisting in it for some time longer, his symptoms 

 were almost entirely removed. It deserves to be remarked, 

 that this juice never purged, although, even in its reduced dose, 

 it never failed to occasion vertigo, nausea, and sickness, which 

 were soon relieved if vomiting supervened. After he had thus 

 far recovered, he desisted from the juice, but drank every 

 morning for breakfast an infusion of the leaves. This infusion 

 neither ( xcited nausea nor sickness, but always brought on a 

 slight degree of vertigo. The only sensible operation he could 

 observe from the plant was, that it produced an increased 

 flow of urine, in which there was a copious sediment." Dr. 

 Pulteney afterwards discovered that it was the juice of the 

 root of CEnanthe crvcata that had been taken. 



Externally, the herb is used in some parts of the country in 

 the form of cataplasm for the felon, or the worst kind of whit- 

 low *. 



* " Mr. Gough informs me, that the country people in Westmorland 

 apply a poultice of the herb to the ulcer which forms in the fore-part of the 

 cleft of the hoof in horned cattle, and is called ' the foul.' ■ Withering 

 Hot. Arrang. vol. ii. p. 379. 



