308 



MEDICAL BOTANY. 



Fig. 151. 



E. elaterium. 





Common Names. — Squirting or Wild Cucumber ; Wild Balsam Apple. 

 Foreign Names. — Concombre sauvage ou d'ane, Fr.; Concomero salva- 

 tico, It. ; Esselsgurten, Ger. 



Description. — Root fleshy and 

 large, giving rise to several 

 thick, round, rough, trailing 

 stems, divided into many bran- 

 ches, destitute of tendrils. The 

 leaves are irregularly-cordate, 

 somewhat lobed, rough, hairy, of 

 a grayish-green colour above, 

 and paler beneath, supported on 

 long petioles. The flowers are 

 axillary, of a straw-yellow co- 

 lour, and both male and female 

 on the same plant ; the males on 

 short peduncles, the female, ses- 

 sile on the ovary ; the corolla is 

 composed of five acute segments, 

 tomentose and veined with 

 green ; the stamens are short, in- 

 serted into the base of the corolla, 

 and support recurved, double- 

 headed, orange-coloured anthers; 

 the style is short, cylindrical, 

 three-cleft and terminated by an oblong stigma. The fruit is watery, of a coriaceous texture, 



pendulous, oblong, of a grayish colour, and 

 Fig. 152. closely set with short bristles. The seeds, 



iSlAf / when mature, are black. When ripe, this 



Wjll pepo bursts and throws out, with some vio- 



lence, the juice and seeds, through a hole at 

 the insertion of the footstalk. 



The Wild Cucumber is a native of the 

 south of Europe, growing in waste 

 places; being a hardy annual it will 

 grow in most parts of the United States 

 without much attention. Its specific 

 name was used by Hippocrates for all 

 drastic purgatives, but he appears to 

 have known and employed this article, 

 and Dioscorides, describes the method 

 of preparing it for use. Pliny also 

 alludes to it, and it was familiar to most 

 of the medical writers of the middle 

 ages. In consequence of the peculiar 

 manner the mature fruit expels its seeds, 

 Richard removed the plant from Mo- 

 mordica and made it the type of a new 

 genus which he called Ecbalium ; in 

 this he has been followed by Nees von 

 Esenbeck and others. 



All parts of the plant are actively 

 cathartic, and a century since, the root 

 was the part principally used. James 

 (JPharmacop. Universalis), says, "after 

 an incredible number of experiments, M. 

 Boulduc found that an extract from its 



E. elaterium. 



a. Pepo discharging its seeds and juice. 



b. Stalk, c. Transverse section of pepo. 



