314 Medical Butany. 



from which the balsam exudes in the form of a thick, whitish, resinous 

 juice. By exposure to the air, this juice soon hardens ; it is then pared 



from the bark with a knife or chisel The inferior sorts of benzoin 



are exported to Arabia, Persia, and some parts of India, where they are 

 burned, to perfume, with their smoke, the temples and houses of the inha- 

 bitants ; to expel troublesome insects, and obviate the pernicious effects of 



unwholesome air or noxious exhalations The greater part, which 



is brought to England, is re-exported to countries where the Roman 

 Catholic and Mahometan religions prevail, to be there burned in the 

 churches and temples." Benzoic acid is obtained by sublimation; that is, 

 by putting a quantity of benzoin, coarsely powdered, into an earthen pot, 

 covering the mouth of the pot with a cone of thick paper, and then apply- 

 ing a very moderate sand-heat. The particles of benzoin rise, or are 

 sublimed, and are attached to the paper. In medicine this acid is little 

 used, except for imparting a pleasant flavour. Court plaster consists of 

 isinglass spread on thin black sarcenet, and brushed over with a weak solu- 

 tion of benzoin in spirits of wine to communicate an aromatic smell. Fu- 

 migating pastilles contain also more or less benzoin, as do the popular 

 medicines, virgin's milk, friar's balsam. Wade's drops, Jesuit's drops, pec- 

 toral balsam of honey, essence of coltsfoot, and Riga balsam. 

 No. XXIX. for May, contains 



113. — Triticum hyb^rnum. Winter Wheat, supposed to have come ori- 

 ginally from the hilly parts of Asia ; under the equator it seldom forms an 

 ear below the elevation of 4,500 feet, or ripens above that of 10,800, and 

 will not vegetate beyond 62° north lat. Medicinally, bread is employed 

 to form emollient poultices. — iSecale cereale, Cereal, or cultivated. Rye. 

 Apparently wild in North America. In France a disease, called the chronic 

 or dry gangrene, has been produced by eating unsound rye, there called 

 ergot. This disease has seldom been observed in England, but is endemical 

 in some districts in France, in which rye forms the principal food of the 

 inhabitants. It is also known in Switzerland, where it was observed that 

 most animals refused to eat diseased rye, or rye affected with the cockspur, 

 as it is called. The Royal Society of Medicine, at Paris, employed M. Tes- 

 sier, a distinguished agricultural writer and man of science, to go into the 

 countries where the dry gangrene prevailed, and collect a sufficient quan- 

 tity of the ergot, or cockspur rye, for experiments. The result confirmed 

 the opinion of those who attributed the disease to the cause assigned. 

 "France afforded also a simple explanation of the fact, that persons might 

 live for a considerable time upon rye affected with the cockspur, without 

 suffering any sensible injury from its use ; since, in all the animals upon 

 which it was tried experimentally, a given quantity was required to pro- 

 duce the specific effect ; and they suggested the only measure, that of 

 separating the diseased from the sound rye, which could prevent so great a 

 national calamity as that which has been so often produced by its use. 

 The spurred rye occasionally occurs in this country, but there are no 

 instances recorded of its producing any such effects as those enumerated 

 above ; but, in the Philosophical Transactions, Dr. Woolaston has narrated 

 several cases in which dry gangrene was produced in one family, by partak- 

 ing of damaged wheat, and nearly the same effects were produced in a 

 family in Wiltshire, by the iolium temul^ntum entering largely' into the 

 composition of bread. In an essay on the genus Scleroticum, by De Can- 

 doUe, in the Memoii'es du Museum d'Histoire, Naturelle, the ergot is stated 

 to be a parasitic production belonging to this genus; but however ingenious 

 his investigations may be, their result is by no means satisfactory ; and it is 

 now generally concluded to be a diseased modification of the grain of the 

 rye itself. Medicinally, it is used in uterine diseases. 



i76rdeum vulgare. Common Barley. Said to have been found wild in 

 Sicily and Russia. Sweet wort was formerly used as an antiscorbutic. — ■ 



