SMALL-LEAVED LIGNUM VIT,U. 
19 
efficacious remedy in chronic rheumatism and arthritic 
affections, and may be substituted for the wood, of which 
it is the active medicinal ingredient. Its sensible effects 
are a grateful sense of warmth in the stomach, dryness of 
the mouth and thirst, with a copious perspiration, if the 
body be kept externally warm, or if the guiac be united 
with opium and antimonials : but when the body is freely 
exposed it acts wholly as a diuretic. The tincture diluted 
with water has been employed as a gargle to cleanse the 
mouth, strengthen the gums, relieve tooth-ache, &c. 
It is probable that our variety p ( Guaiacum parvifolium ,) 
may be a distinct species from the true G. sanctum , and 
more nearly allied to the officinal species, but we have seen 
no authentic specimen for comparison, and our plant is 
certainly, at the same time, exactly similar with a speci- 
men so marked and collected in St. Domingo by Poiteau. 
In the Dictionnaire des Plantes usuelles, pi. 295, a. 1, there 
is a bad figure of the G. sanctum , which may be that of the 
G.qfficinale , while plate 294, is made up of the fruit of the 
true officinal Guaiacum, and the simple opposite leaves of 
some other plant foreign both to the genus and order. In 
the leones Plantarum Medicinalium, of Nuremberg, tab. 
540, the same false figure is given as the G. sanctum. 
Plate LXXXVI. 
A branch of the natural size. a. The fruit. 
