The Pepper-Mint 



to diminish the number of white corpuscles in the 

 blood when it is taken as a medicine. 



Menthol, an increasingly popular remedy for 

 neuralgia, rheumatism, toothache, etc. — in fact, a 

 local anaesthetic — is a crystalline substance derived 

 from oil of Pepper-Mint. Attention was first called 

 to it in the Lancet of 1879, but the Japanese have 

 known it for two hundred years, and it was carried 

 as a matter of course by Japanese gentlemen in a 

 little medicine box attached to their girdles. Nowa- 

 days, however, the Japanese variety of the Pepper- 

 Mint is commonly employed for making it, as this is 

 cheaper. This Japanese variety of the plant has 

 been satisfactorily grown near Colchester. 



167 



