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NAT. ORDER. ASCLEPIADEjE, 
less, for I deem it a valuable article : my only object is to endeavor 
to present to the public its prominent virtues, divested of what in 
my own opinion is an aggregation of imputed but unreal qualities. 
A gentleman of Virginia, who, judging from his own writings, is not 
a regular physician, first brought this plant into very general notice, 
as a cure for the pleurisy : hence it is often called Pleurisy-root. He 
has been quoted by the late Prof. Barton, and subsequently by the 
compilers of the American dispensatories ; and thus have his exag- 
gerated accounts been extensively diffused throughout our country, 
without any good effect, perhaps, than that of bringing a plant into 
general notice, which really possesses medicinal virtues, though not 
of the nature and number specified in those accounts. To the gen- 
tleman alluded to, however, is not to be imputed the discovery of 
the remedial effects of White-root. 
Dr. Shoepf mentions this plant, and specifies the property for 
which it seems to me most probable it will become useful — its effect 
in inducing diaphoresis. He says it is a diaphoretic in the dose of 
one drachm ; that it is slightly astringent ; that the powdered root 
is useful in cholic ; an aqueous decoction in hysteria and menorrha- 
gia ; and a vinous decoction in dysentery. This account by Dr. 
Shoepf, of the " Asclepias tuberosa" as he calls it, inadvertently es- 
caped the attention of the late Prof. Barton, otherwise he would, it 
is presumed, have quoted this author when speaking of the plant in 
question. Under the names " Butterfly-root, Pleurisy-root," Shoepf 
also speaks of the use of some plant in pleurisy and febrile dis- 
eases, and then tells us, on the authority of the late Rev. Dr. Muh- 
lenberg, that the name of Pleurisy-root was first applied to the As- 
clepias tuberosa, and that a decoction of it was esteemed a certain 
remedy for pleurisy. Prof. Barton informs us that " the rest of this 
plant is said to possess a remarkable power of affecting the skin, 
inducing general and plentiful perspiration, without greatly increas- 
ing the heat of the body ; that it is much employed by the practi- 
tioners of medicine in some parts of the United States, particularly 
