137 
shire they are used for the same purpose; hence they are called 
‘corn-leaves.’ They are likewise used here to make a cooling oint- 
ment, and their juice is expressed and mixed with cream as a cooling 
lotion for sore faces or chaps in children ; in the same manner as the 
juice of the houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum). 
“* Whether Mr. Salter knew of its use amongst the common people 
for ‘ fits,’ and examined for what kind of ‘ fits’ it was used, and found 
it to be epilepsy, of course I am unable to say, but I have no doubt 
it was. used for what the people call ‘ fits, very many years before Mr. 
Salter introduced it into the regular practice of medicine. For it is 
most unlikely that the people should have recently adopted it, as they 
generally are violently opposed to all innovations upon their time- 
honoured customs. Witness the feeling still prevalent in many parts 
against vaccination. The word of a village doctress is much more. 
powerful amongst the ignorant peasantry than that of the qualified 
practitioner. She is a remnant of a bygone age, and I doubt not, as 
surgeons penetrate more into remote districts, the rising generation 
will totally discard the only medical adviser to their forefathers. The 
doctress commenced her practice when it was almost the only mode 
of treatment; and when, if surgeons differed from her, it was only to 
prescribe more absurd and disgusting remedies; she kept it when 
medical men came to be comparatively frequent; and her ‘ occupa- 
tion ’ will only be fully ‘gone? when the class that now constitutes 
her patients has become intelligent enough to prefer science to 
quackery. 
“Ray says, that the root and leaves of Cotyledon Umbilicus (or 
Umbilicus Veneris, as it was then named) were used for erysipelas, 
&c., and refers to Dioscorides and Galen. Dr. Hill, in his ‘ Family 
Herbal,’ gives it as a general cooling medicine, internally and exter- 
nally. In the last edition of Gray’s ‘Supplement to the Pharmaco- 
peias,’ it is said to be used in the same manner; and in Meyrick’s 
‘Family Herbal’ it is given as cooling and diuretic, and good for 
burns ; but in none of these are ‘ fits’ named. Whether the authors 
disbelieved{the”utility of the plant in these diseases, or whether they 
were ignorant of its use in such cases, I cannot tell. It is likewise 
very difficult to determine what ignorant people mean by the term 
‘fits;? apoplexy, paralysis, hysteria, and epilepsy are all ‘ fits’ with 
them: they have no discriminating eye for the different symptoms 
that denote the different kinds of ‘ fits.’ 
“ The only notice I have seen of Cotyledon Umbilicus being used 
in any of the diseases just named, is in the ‘ Pharmaceutical J ournal’ 
VOL. V. ah 
