PARK AND CEMETERY. 
i33 
to whom no monument had been erected. It is un- 
doubtedly a fact that there are many of these en- 
tirely “unknown” on the field. But with marble 
above them or not they assuredly: 
“A loftier monument command, 
The Mountains of their Native Land.” 
One cannot traverse the battlefield at any time 
without meeting with those who recognize what 
sacrifices were made by those who fought on the 
field. Almost every Northern heme, certainly 
every hamlet, could say of some member of it, 
killed at Gettysburg or wounded at Gettysburg , so 
that may we not say of this field, 
“Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; 
Boast of the aged! lesson of the young! 
Which sages venerate and bards adore.” 
Joseph Meehan. 
MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
An illustrated lecture on “Medicinal Plants” was re- 
cently delivered at the American Museum of Natural 
Plistory, New York, in the popular course of the Colum- 
bia University by Prof. Smith Ely Jelliffe. The follow- 
ing abstract is from the New York Sun: 
He traced the development of the science of botany 
from the primitive period, when doctors were botanists, 
pharmacists and physicians, to the present day, when 
the pharmacist has become the expert middleman, whose 
skill in compounding the medicinal virtues of plants and 
exact knowledge of drugs have rendered it unnecessary 
for the physician to bother his head about botany. Pie 
enumerated the herbs and plants and flowers that were 
supposed in the days of the forefathers to possess 
medicinal virtues, but have since been shown to be 
worthless, and described those now fighly prized be- 
cause of real curative qualities. 
First of these, he said, is the May apple that grows 
in abundance along shady streams and along the fences 
of cultivated fields all the way from Canada to Florida. 
Aside from its beauty of bloom and its pulpy yellow 
fruit, it has a medicinal prize in its root from which are 
manufactured podophillum pills. The foxglove, too, 
that grows in stately clusters in old-fashioned gardens, 
has a virtue in' its leaves that was known as early as the 
sixteenth century. From it is made digitalis, a drug of 
great merit in the treatment of heart trouble. Witch 
hazel, which formerly yielded a medicine used exclu- 
sively for bruises and sunburn, has lately been found to 
have great value still in the treatment of skin disease, 
the later discovery being the tincture that is ex- 
tracted from the branches and leaves of the last flowers 
of the year. The poison hemlock, which has been 
transplanted here in waste places from Europe and 
Asia, yields the poison which it is supposed Socrates 
took for his fatal draft, and which is used now in the treat- 
ment of cancer and nervous diseases. Monk’s hood, a 
beautiful plant with blue flowers that is cultivated for 
purely ornamental value in well-kept gardens, yields 
aconite. This lovely plant grows in all parts of the 
world, and it was known to the ancient Chinese for the 
poison extracted from its root. It is a deadly poison. 
A single root, bruised and thrown into a tank of water 
will poison the entire supply. It is used efficaciously to 
depress the action of the heart. The green hellebore 
that decks the spring woods with strong fresh leaves 
and a spike of whitish blossoms yields another sort of 
poison, which makes its root valuable in veterinary 
medicine. Its worth as an insect and animal poison 
was known to the Romans, who used it to poison vermin. 
The yellow-flowered, hairy weed henbane that grows 
here and in Great BritaiMhas'still different and distinct 
medicinal properties in its root and leaves. The ex- 
tract of its leaves is administered to quiet maniacs in 
asylums. The root has an opposite’effect. Belladonna, 
or the deadly nightshade, yields to the pharmacist the 
poison known as atropine, an overdose'of which will 
produce delirium. A good many"'alliedj species of the 
plant grow here, although it is not indigenous to the 
soil. It belongs to the same family as the potato. Well- 
known cases are on record, by the way, of poisoning 
from the eating raw of very young potatoes, which seem 
to contain some of the deadly properties of the bella- 
donna. Atropine is also obtained from the thorn apple, 
a very common poisonous plant which grows in vacant 
lots, and is recognizable by its prickly burr, and a white 
flower resembling the blossom of the morning glory. 
The drug it yields has been known to the Hindoos from 
the most remote time under the Sanskrit name of dha- 
toora. Belladonna and its alkaloids, although a men- 
ace to children, who are liable to eat its berries, is 
prized by oculists for its property of dilating the pupil 
of the eye, and by physicians for its quality of paralyzing 
the nerves in neuralgia and contracting the blood ves- 
sels in cases of inflammation arising from colds. Atro- 
pine is a perfect antidote for the poisonous mushroom. 
Prof. Telliffe described at length 'and entertainingly 
the manufacture of quinine from the bark. Of the dis- 
covery ofjhis most valuable drug he told a romantic 
story. “We are told,” he said, “that an Indian of South 
America, who was lying helpless in a wilderness, sick of 
violent fever, dragged himself to a pool of water near at 
hand to quench his burning thirst. After drinking he 
felt his strength gradually returning, and was eventually 
able to rise and go home. His experience excited the 
greatest surprise, as no remedy was then known for in- 
termittent fever, and many visited the pool. The bitter 
taste of the water led to the discovery that it was im- 
pregnated with the properties of the ba-k of the trees 
growing at the gorge. Its virtue was not known to civi- 
lization, however, until it happened that the wife of the 
Viceroy of Peru was lying ill of the fever, and a Jesuit 
priest recommended that the bark be ground tc a pow- 
der and given to her. The resultant cure was consid- 
ered so wonderful that the Viceroy sent an expedition 
to collect the bark, and taking it to Spain gave away 
large quantities of it to the sick. The name of the Vice- 
roy was Luis Geronimo Fernandez ie Cabreray Boba- 
dilla, fourth Count of Chinchon, and the scientific name 
of quinine chinchona owes its origin to the Countess of 
Cinchon, the Viceroy’s wife, who was cured by the vir- 
tues of chinchona bark.” 
