EUPHORBIA OFFICINARUM- OFFICINAL EUPHORBIUM OR SPURGE. 
Class II. DODECANDRIA. Order III. TRIGYNIA. 
Natural Order, EUPHORBIA. THE EUPHORBIA TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) the corolla magnified, (b) The germen and styles, magnified, (c) An anther magnified, (d) The calyx, magnified. 
This species of Euphorbia is a perennial, shrubby, and very succulent plant. It is a native of Africa, where 
it grows in great abundance. This plant derived its name from Euphorbius, physician to Juba, King of 
Lybia, who named it in honour of his physician. The genus Euphorbia comprises a very numerous family 
of singular plants, upwards of one hundred and twenty species of which are cultivated in our botanic gardens. 
The Euphorbia Officinarum was first cultivated in this country about the year 1597. 
The stem of this plant rises to about five feet in height, is simple or branched towards the top, erect, 
round and angled or furrowed, with eight or more longitudinal fissures; the branches are destitute of leaves, 
j and go off first horizontally and then ascend ; are more distinctly angled than the stem, scolloped and fur- 
nished with prickles, which are everywhere double ; the flowers are sessile, on the extremities of the 
branches at each pair of spines, of a crimson or yellow colour ; the petals are four, turbinated, gibbous, 
| thick, truncated, and attached by claws to the margin of the calyx ; the filaments are about twelve, capillary, 
longer than the petals, and support globular two-lobed anthers : the germen is roundish, three-lobed, with 
{ a simple short style, crowned with three spreading, obtuse stigmas; the capsule is tricoccous, elastic, and 
contains three roundish seeds. 
Upwards of 200 species of Euphorbia are enumerated in Sprengel’s catalogue, but, according to Merat 
and Lens, the genus includes about 400 . Many of them are grotesque and curious looking plants, well 
worthy cultivation, at least for their strange appearance, if not for their beauty. They are all lactescent, and 
their milky sap, which contains more or less caoutchouc, is so acrid that it will redden or even blister the 
skin, and is used to destroy callosities, whence many species are called f wart-worts J Dioscorides states that 
in old practice this juice was dropped into the eye to remove opacity of the cornea, and also into wounds to 
destroy the venom of the scorpion. It is purgative and emetic, if taken internally in small doses, and the 
i concrete juices of several species form the gum resin of medicine called ‘Euphorbium’ 
The seeds yield a purgative oil, and all parts of the plants possess acrid and active properties, similar 
j to those of the sap, but they are perhaps most powerfully concentrated in the roots of the succulent and 
I perennial species ; and especially in those which are the natives of warm countries. In Africa and Asia the 
leafless euphorbi® are often planted as hedges, and most protective fences they form, their sturdy stems, 
I prickly branches, and acrid juices, almost defying the passage of man or beast. During the wars in Hin- 
I dostan such hedges were more feared by our troops than chevaux de frise, for soldiers not only got their 
flesh torn, but the wounds were filled with the burning sap ; and when cavalry regiment were forced through 
them the horses became ungovernable. 
A species of Cacalia (C.anti-euphorbium), enjoys the reputation of being able to remove the untoward 
effects which follow the internal administration of euphorbium, or the irritation consequent on its external 
use. 
Euphorbium is principally obtained from three species, viz. E. officinarum, E. Canariensis, E. antiquorum, 
the latter of which alone was supposed by the ancients to yield their drug. This gum resin is useful as a 
rubefacient to assist the action of cantharides. 
The sap of E. capitata is esteemed in Brazil as an application to serpent wounds, and that of our in- 
digenous E. Helioscopia, and other species, js also used by the peasants as a caustic for the bites of vipers. 
In India the sap of E. capitata is applied to eruptions. 
E. corollata and Cyparissias are both emetic and purgative ; the former is used in North America to 
evacuate the collected fluids in dropsies ; and the powder of its root is said by Drs. Kean and Coxe to be a 
very serviceable medicine. In some of the French provinces it is called “rhubarbe des pauvres,” for which 
drug, however, it is a miserable substitute, for La Motte mentions a case in which a woman was killed by 
its administration. When eaten in any quantity, it is poisonous to sheep and other animals, as is also E. 
genistoides, the feeding upon which is often followed by a fatal dysury. 
E. heptagona, an Ethiopic species, is a violent poison, and its juice is said to be used by the Africans 
to anoint their arrows and spears, so as to render the wounds inflicted mortal. 
E. ophthalmica has received its name from the employment of its juice, perhaps on the same principle, 
although unconsciously, by the natives in Rio Janeiro, as the lunar caustic unguent has been so successfully 
used here in the treatment of ophthalmia. 
Some of the less acrid Euphorbia, as Peplus and Lathyris, might, if other cathartics failed, be safely 
