28 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



compared to tea as a domestic medicine. It appears to be a stimu- 

 lant which, according to Foeskhal, the Arabs use to dispel sleep. 

 They chew the green leaves, and can then, without fatigue, pass the 

 whole night without sleep. Some travellers, however, say that these 

 fresh leaves are poisonous. Others make it an antidote against the 

 plague. Where this plant is cultivated, they think the plague can- 

 not make victims. Hence, doubtless, the veneration inspired in 

 Yeman by the name of the Sheik Abou-Zerbin, who there introduced 

 Catha} They go so far as to think that by carrying a packet' of these 

 leaves about the person, they can frequent pestiferous places with 

 impunity. The study of the pretended virtues of KMt ^ would pro- 

 bably be full of interest. There is indeed another plant of this 

 family which was, not long since, in Europe itself, an object of much 

 greater infatuation. It is the common Box^ (fig. 28-34). Who 

 Would believe at the present day that the emperor Joseph II. gave a 

 quack 1600 florins to make public a recipe which performed a miracle 

 in the treatment of intermittent fevers, and which was nothing but 

 an alcoholic tincture of Boa; ? This appears very analogous to Gaiac 

 as a sudorific, and, consequently, an anti-rheumatic and anti- syphi- 

 litic. In too large a dose it is purgative and emetic, exactly like 

 Euonymus. It is in fine a very suspicious, dangerous plant, and it is 

 very wrong to substitute it for Grenadier [Punica granatum) as a 

 vermicide, for Senna as a purgative, and especially for Hop in 

 making beer. The active principle of Box^ said to be volatile, dis- 

 appears in the dry wood and in the leaves when subjected to the 

 action of fire.* By distillation over an open fire, it passes as an 

 empyreumatic and fetid oil formerly extolled as an antidote for rheu- 

 matism and epilepsy. The Box is one of those plants to which a 

 thousand properties have been attributed : of curing toothache, red- 

 dening the hair, etc. The Box of Mahon^ has the same properties. 

 In the Balearic Isles it is considered poisonous, and cases are cited of 

 poisoning by honey collected from its flowers. As an industrial and 

 economic plant, the Box has always been celebrated. It is thought 

 that the Eomans introduced it among the Gauls. They have used 

 it continually to decorate their gardens. Cut in a thousand forms, 



1 See EoSENTH. op. cit. 792.— H. Bn. Diet. t. 1, 2 ; Biot. Encycl. So. MH. xi. 296 (5omm, 



Mneycl. So. Mid. xiii. 302. Bois binit, Ozanne. 



' 2 Kdt. Tchai at Choa. * Buxiite (CMH^a AzO^) has been extraeted 



•' Buams sempervirens L. Spec. 983.— G-ren. et from the Box. 



GoD^. Fl.de Fr. iii. 101.— Guib. Drag, simpl. ' B. Bakarica W. Spec. viii. 337. — H. Bw. 



ed. 6, ii. 369. — ^H. Bn. Monogr. Buxac. 41, 39, Monogr. Biuae. 45, 62. 



