98 VIHURNUM. LONICERA. 



evidence ought to be admitted as valid, with a reserve in favour of 

 remedies subsequently discovered or introduced. And this point 

 seems fatal to the re-introduction of the Elder. 



Dr. Cullen was the contemporary of Boerhaave, and yet, in a long 

 and large practice, he seems never once to have prescribed the Sam- 

 bucus in any form. Casting a learned and a sceptical eye over the 

 past, he could not but perceive that the Materia Medica was cumbered 

 with remedies which owed their first use to puerile conceits that were 

 about to be forgotten, and their reputation to the vulgarest empiricism. 

 He was a pure dogmatist, — a bold and an original thinker ; and, 

 pushing forwards into new paths, he did not lumber himself vrith the 

 idols of his fathers, nor with their traditional offerings. The Elder 

 seemed to him of this class ; and his neglect of it operated mainly to 

 remove the plant from regular practice. The Elder was thenceforward 

 scarcely prescribed, and if it was allowed a place in the Dispensatory, 

 it was with a very qualified estimate of its properties. Thus Dr. A. 

 Duncan, in his Edinburgh New Dispensatory, says, — "An infusion of 

 the inner green bark of the trunk in wine, or the expressed juice of 

 the berries in the dose of half an ounce or an ounce, is said to purge 

 moderately, and in small doses to prove an efficacious deobstruent." 

 — The evidence is hearsay, and so it is in every subsequent Dispen- 

 satory ; for indeed the remedy was left entirely now to those who, 

 uneducated in medicine, read a Herbal, and physicked their friends 

 to their comfort, and the annoyance of the doctor. By one of those, no 

 doubt, the remedy was introduced to us ; and after some occasional 

 use by Sir Credulous, who is ever on the look-out in search of a spe- 

 cifick, it will be again neglected and forgotten. 



269. Viburnum opulus. Dog-wood. Occurs sparingly in 

 most of our deans, and by the sides of burns. June. 



270. LoNiCERA PERICLYMENUM. 5tJ)t ffeontPiSucfeU. In deans 

 and amongst rocks, as on Kyloe crags ; often growing inteiniingled 

 with wild briers. Common in hedges. It is the Woodbine of our 

 poets in general ; and some give it the name of Eglantine. 



" Ah how swete and pleasaimte is Woodbinde, in Woodes or 

 Arbours, after a tender soft rain : and how frendly doe this herbe if 

 I male so name it, imbrace the bodies, amies and branches of trees, 

 with his long winding stalkes, and tender leaues, openyng or spreding 

 forthe his swete Lillis, like ladies fingers, emog the thornes or bushes." 

 N. Bulleyne. The Book of Simples, fol. xxii. 



" Then to come, in spite of sorrow. 

 And at my window bid good morrow, 

 Through the sweet-briar, or the vine. 

 Or the twisted Eglantine." — L' Allegro. 



" The wild rose, Eglantine, and broom. 

 Wasted aiound their rich perfume." — Lady of the Lake. 



" Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. 

 So doth the Woodbine, — the sweet Honey-suckle, 

 Gently entuist, — the female Ivy so 

 Em•irlg^ the barky tinners of the elm." — Midsummer Dream. 



