SASSAFRAS. 
83 
has maintained the reputation of an excellent sudorific, which may be 
advantageously employed in cutaneous affections, in chronic rheumatisms, 
and in syphilitic diseases of long standing. In the last case it is always 
joined with lignum vitae and sarsaparilla. The wood is slightly aromatic, 
but the smell and taste which are peculiar to the vegetable are more'sensi- 
ble in the young branches, and incomparably more so in the bark of the 
roots; this part of the tree, therefore, should always be preferred, for the 
wood appears to me to contain but a small degree of the qualities assigned 
to it, and even this it loses after being long kept. From the thick and 
as it were sanguinolent bark of the roots, a large quantity of essential oil 
is extracted, which, like the other essential oils, after a long repose, deposits 
very beautiful crystals. 
The flowers of the Sassafras when fresh have likewise a weak aromatic 
odor. A great number of people in the United States, in the country and 
even in the cities, consider them as stomachic and efficacious in purifying 
the blood ; and, for this purpose, during a fortnight in the spring, they 
drink an infusion of them with a little sugar. They are carried to market 
in the cities, and sold at 7 or 8 cents a pint. To gather the flowers, the 
branches are lopped and often the whole tree is cut down : great havoc is 
in this way made of the species. 
The dried" leaves and the young branches of the Sassafras contain a 
mucilaginous principle nearly resembling that of the Ocra. Tn Louisiana 
the leaves are used by the inhabitants to thicken their pottage. 
In Virginia, and in the more southern states, the country people make 
a beer by boiling the young shoots of the Sassafras in water, to which a 
certain quantity of mêlasses is added, and the whole is left to ferment : 
this beer is considered as a very salutary drink during the summer. 
Such is the result of my observations on the Sassafras, a tree highly 
interesting from its uses in medicine. It is in my opinion, sufficiently 
valuable in this respect to merit propagation in Europe : in the south of 
France and in Italy it would undoubtedly thrive, since it succeeds in the 
climate of Paris and London. 
PLATE LXXXI. 
A branch with fruit and leaves of the natural size. Fig. 1, Male flowers. 
Fig. 2, Female flowers. 
[As an ornamental tree the Sassafras has not taken the rank it deserves 
in America. The spray is long and irregular, forming a short angle with 
the branches, and curving upwards ; when a group of three or four is formed, 
