648 



MEDICAL BOTANY. 



rigm Ker, Bot. Mag. 1113; 



Nuttall, Gen. i. 223 ; Bi- 

 gelow, Med. Bot. iii. t. 

 58 ; Barton, Fl. N. A. 

 t. 33 ; E. dens cams, Mi- 

 chaux, Fl. Bor. Am.; 

 E. lanceolatum, Pursh, 

 Fl. Am. Sept. i. 230. 



Common Names. — 

 Dog-tooth violet; Adder's 

 tongue ; Yellow Snow- 

 drop, &c. 



A native of most parts 

 of the United States, grow- 

 ing in shaded and some- 

 what moist situations, 

 flowering very early in 

 the season. There are 

 several varieties. The 

 flowers are fully expand- 

 ed and revolute during 

 bright days, but in cloudy 

 weather are nearly closed. 

 The recent root has been 

 spoken of as an emetic 

 in doses of from twenty 

 to thirty grains, but it is 

 very uncertain in its ope- 

 ration, and is almost inert 

 in a dried state. When 

 cooked, these bulbs are 

 bland and edible. The 

 leaves are also stated to 

 be active, and more cer- 

 tain in their effects than 

 the roots, but neither of them are capable of supplying the place of Colchi- 

 cum, as proposed by Dr. Bigelow. In domestic practice this plant, and the 

 E. albidum, have attained some reputation as external applications to scro- 

 fulous sores, for which purpose the leaves and roots are boiled with milk and 

 used as a cataplasm. 



The bulbs of E. dens cams of Europe, are said by Pallas and Gmelin to 

 be much employed in Siberia as articles of food, and in Styria, according to 

 Clusius, they were formerly considered efficacious in epilepsy, and as an 

 anthelmintic. In India the E. indicum is used by farriers in strangury of 

 horses, and is even employed by physicians as a substitute for squills. 

 (Ainslie, Mat. Ind. i. 402.) 



E. americanum. 



Other plants of this tribe have been considered to possess medicinal pro- 

 perties. Thus, Lemery states that the bulbs of Tulipa ges?wriana are use- 

 ful in the form of cataplasms, as resolvents and maturants ; and according to 

 Poiret (Encyclop. Method.) those of T. syhestris are emetic. The bulbs of 

 Calochortus elegans are employed as food by the Indians of the West (Pursh, 



