ANTHEMIS NOBILIS.— COMMON CHAMOMILE. 
Class XIX. SYGENESIA. Order II. POLYGAMIA-SUPERFLUA. 
Natural Order, CORYMBIFER^E. 
Figs, (a) represents a floret of the radius ; (6) a floret of the disc with the seed and chaffy scale ; (c) the anthers spread; 
(d) a section of the receptacle. 
Chamomile is a well-known perennial plant, which grows wild in Cornwall, Surrey, and many other 
parts of Britain. We found it in great abundance on Wimbledon Common, Enfield Chase, and all the dry 
elevated heaths near London. It flowers in August and September. 
The roots are perennial, jointed, and fibrous. The stems, in a wild state, are mostly trailing, a span 
or more in length, round, furrowed, foliaceous, and downy. The leaves are bipinnate, and of a pale green 
colour ; the leaflets small, rather flat above, somewhat hairy, and generally divided into three pointed seg- 
ments. The flowers are terminal, solitary, with a convex yellow disc, and numerous white, spreading, re- 
flexed rays. The involucrum is hemispherical, and composed of several closely imbricated downy scales, 
with thin membraneous edges; the florets of the disc are numerous, yellow, perfect, tubular, with five equal 
spreading segments; those of the radius, usually about eighteen, white, ligulate, spreading, with three teeth; 
the filaments are five, very short, capillary, and have their anthers united into a cylindrical tube ; the 
germen is obovate, supporting a slender style, and furnished with a bifid reflexed stigma. The seeds are 
ovate, compressed and slightly crowned. The receptacle is conical, surmounted by minute chaffy scales, 
one to each floret, perceptible even to the naked eye, but very conspicuous under a lens. 
The generic name, Anthemis is supposed to be derived from AvOeu jloi'eo, having an abundance of 
flowers; — the English from and an apple, hence the Latin “ chamomilla,” qnoniam odorem mali 
habeat. (Plin. 1. 22. c. 21.) 
Qualities and Chemical Properties.— The flower of this plant is collected before it is fully 
blown, and then dried. As the taste and odour reside in the tubular florets, which are largest in the single 
flowers, these are preferable to the double that are always sold in the shops — another instance of utility 
being sacrificed to appearance. Chamomiles have a bitter, aromatic, and slightly pungent taste, and a 
strong unpleasant odour. By distillation they yield a volatile oil, on which their virtues appear to depend ; 
but in the preparation of the extract it is lost. Boiling also dissipates the oil. Both water and alcohol take 
up their active parts, which are the essential oil, resin, and a bitter principle. 
All soluble preparations of iron, nitrate of silver, oxymuriate of mercury, acetate and sub-acetate of 
lead, solutions of isinglass, and infusion of yellow cinchona bark, are precipitated by the infusion, and there- 
fore “ incompatibles. ” 
Medical Properties and Uses. — Chamomile is a powerful tonic and stomachic, and inferior to 
no other, when properly administered. It is an excellent and popular remedy for a weakened state of the 
stomach, attended by the ordinary symptoms of indigestion, as heartburn, loss of appetite, flatulency, &c. 
In such affections, particularly if accompanied by a sluggish state of the intestinal canal, the cold infusion, 
made with half an ounce of the flowers to a pint of water, and combined with aromatics and alkalies, is 
grateful to the stomach : or, should hot water be employed, it must be allowed to stand on the flowers ten 
minutes only; — the time recommended in the London Pharmacopoeia: unless, indeed, we wish to excite or 
encourage vomiting, when a tepid strong infusion will do both. Administered in substance. Chamomile has 
been successfully employed in intermittent fevers ; but occasionally produces diarrhoea. Sir John Pringle 
states, that the antiseptic powers of the Chamomile are 120 times greater than those of sea-salt: and, ex- 
ternally, the flowers are used for fomentation : hot water, however, is nearly as efficacious. The infusion is 
