ANTflEMIS PYRETHRUM. 
33 
acrid quality appears to reside in a fixed oil or resin, soluble in 
alcohol. According to M. Gautier, the oil is deposited in vesicles in 
the bark, is solid, of a reddish colour, and strong odour.* The 
watery infusion is yellowish, red, and clear; its taste is weak, 
scarcely acrid. With sulphate of iron it becomes opaline, and a 
precipitate falls. f Both the alcoholic and ethereal tinctures are 
acrid, hot and pungent. The dried root breaks " with a short 
resinous fracture, the transverse section presenting a thick brown 
bark, studded with black shining points, and a pale yellow, radiated 
inside." 
Medical Properties and Uses. From the aromatic and 
stimulating qualities of Pyrethrum, there can be no doubt but that 
it might be found an efficacious remedy, and equally fitted for an 
internal medicine, as many others of this class now constantly pre- 
scribed.! Its use however has long been confined to that of a masti- 
catory, to stimulate the salivary glands, and excite an increased flow 
of saliva ; by which inflammatory affections of the neighbouring 
parts are often relieved, § as in tooth-ache, and rheumatic aflections 
of the face ; it is also recommended in lethargic complaints and 
paralysis of the tongue, chronic ophthalmia, head-ache, and apo- 
plexy. As a topical application, a decoction, prepared by boiling 
half an ounce of the root in one pint of water until the liquor is 
reduced one half, forms an useful remedy in relaxations of the uvula. 
We are told by Celsus, that Pyrethrum was employed as a resolvent, 
and that it formed one of the ingredients contained in the famous 
cataplasm made use of for maturing pus. || 
Ofi". The Root. 
* Vide Ann. de Chim. et Phys. vol. viii. p. 101 . 
1" Gray's Elements. 
t By the Persians and MoguU it is considered discutlent and attenaant ; and the 
Vytians prescribe an infasion of it with other drugs as a cordial and stimulant, in 
lethargic cases, palsy, and typhus fever. — Ainslie'a Materia Indica, vol. i. p. 300, 301. 
§ Its use in this way is mentioned by Serenns Lamonicas. " Purgatur cerebrum 
mansa radice pyrethri." 
II Vide Celsus, lib. v. cap, itvii. 
VOL. II. F 
