VOL. XL.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^71 



spread upon the ground like a star; and Gerard gives the same description of 

 it, and Parkinson, in his Theatrum, yet more fully, p. 501, viz. that the leaves 

 lie round about the root in order one by another, thereby resembling the form 

 of a star, and therefore called herba Stella ; by which name, among others, it 

 is called by Caesalpinus, Lobel, &c. But whoever met with the name stellaria, 

 or Stella terrae, among the synonyma of the sesamoides in any botanic writer 

 before Mr. Ray, who afterwards retracted it, as has been fully proved ? In that 

 part of Norfolk where Mr. S. was born, not far from Norwich, towards the 

 sea-coast, where the bucks-horn plant grows abundantly, there was great use 

 made of it when he was but a lad, and always with good success, so f.ir as ever 

 he could hear. One story he could tell of his own knowledge, which might 

 seem too trifling to mention, were it not to show the efficacy of the simple. 

 About 40 years ago, when he lived at a place called Debenham in Suffolk, a 

 person unknown to him, having heard that he knew an herb that was good 

 against the bite of a mad-dog, sent to desire a sample of it, with directions 

 how to use it; and sometime after he had half a dozen fine chickens brought 

 him. He asked whence they came? It was answered from such a one, the 

 name he had forgotten. He said he did not know him: to which the reply 

 was, that it was the man to whom he had sent the plantain, which had saved 

 the lives of half a dozen hogs of his, that had been bitten by a mad dog; and 

 he thought the least he could do was to send me half a dozen chickens as a 

 token of his gratitude. After all, Mr. S. would not be positive, that the 

 lychnis, or catch-fly, was not good contra morsum canisrabidi; but was confi- 

 dent that it was not the true star of the earth. 



In a P. S. Mr. S. states, that a friend of his had informed him, that there 

 was a wonderful cure performed on a woman in Suffolk, several years ago, who 

 had been bitten by a mad-dog, and in whom evident symptoms of the hydro- 

 phobia appeared, who yet was saved, by the use of a powder given by the 

 direction of the Lady Brook in Suffolk. It seems the powder went by the 

 name of The Lady Brook's Powder, and was generally supposed to be chiefly, 

 if not only, the coronopus dried and pulverized: and he had such an opinion 

 of the great virtue of this simple, that till he had some convincing evidence 

 of its having failed, he could scarcely avoid considering it as a specific against 

 the bite of a mad- dog. 



Of the Reduction of Radicals to more Simple Terms, By Mr. Abr. Demoivre, 

 F.R.S. N"451, p. 463. From the Latin. 



Mr. Demoivre having explained, in the appendix to Saunderson's Algebra, 



