August 27 , 1870.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
1G7 
-without doubt, one of the best monographs on any 
materia medica substance we have had for some time, 
and will undoubtedly receive the recognition it is so well 
entitled to. Dr. Birdwood tells us that this is the “ first 
of a series of monographs on such of the vegetable pro¬ 
ducts of the East, the history and botany of which need 
further elucidation.” We look with interest, and with 
some degree of impatience, for further contributions from 
his pen, especially when we find he has not overlooked 
one of the most fundamental desiderata of economic 
botany, that of procuring really well-authenticated spe¬ 
cimens of the products collected from the plants them¬ 
selves. He tells us that nearly all the gums and resins 
in the Bombay Museum' were collected by his own 
hands. 
OUR SALAD HERBS. 
BY C. J. ROBINSON. 
There is, perhaps, no country in the world so rich as 
England in native materials for salad-making, and none 
in which ignorance and prejudice have more restricted 
their employment. At every season of the year the 
peasant may cull from the field and hedgerow wholesome 
herbs which would impart a pleasant variety to his mo¬ 
notonous meal, and save his store of potatoes from prema¬ 
ture exhaustion. Besides there can be no question that in 
hot seasons a judicious admixture of fresh green food is 
as salutary as it is agreeable. Much has been said lately 
about the advantage which the labouring man would 
derive from an accurate acquaintance with the various 
sorts of fungus ; he has been gravely told that the Fis- 
tulina hepatica is an admirable substitute for beef-steak ; 
the Agaricus gambosus for the equally unknown veal 
cutlet. But deep-rooted suspicion is not easily eradi¬ 
cated, and there will always be a certain amount of 
hazard in dealing with a class of products in which the 
distinctions between noxious and innocuous are not very 
clearly marked. There is not this difficulty with regard 
to salad herbs, and we conceive that the diffusion of a 
little knowledge as to their properties and value would 
be an unmixed benefit to our rural population. 
The first place must be assigned, on the score of an¬ 
tiquity, to the sorrel plant ( Rumex Acetosa ), which in 
some districts still preserves the name of “ green sauce ” 
assigned to it in early times when it formed almost the 
only dinner vegetable. Its acid is pleasant and whole¬ 
some, more delicate in flavour than that of the wood- 
sorrel (Oxalis Acetosella), which, however, is used for table 
purposes in France and Germany. Chervil ( Anthriscus 
Cerefolium) is often found in a wild state and is an ad¬ 
mirable addition to the salad bowl; and it is unneces¬ 
sary to enlarge upon the virtues of celery ( Apium graveo- 
lens ) when improved by cultivation. John Ray, writing 
in 1663, says that “ the Italians use several herbs for 
sallets which are not yet, or have not been used lately, 
but in England, viz. selleri, w T hich is nothing else but 
the sweet smallage; the young shoots whereof, with 
a little of the head of the root cut off, they eat raw 
with oil and pepper; ” and to this we may add that the 
alisander ( Smyrnium Olusatrum ) is no bad substitute for 
its better known congener. The dandelion, which in 
France is blanched for the purpose, affords that amari 
aliquid which the professed salad-maker finds in the 
leaves of the endive, and the same essential ingredient 
may be supplied by the avens ( Geum urbanum ), the 
bladder campion ( Silene inflata), and the tender shoots 
of the wild hop. Most people are familiar with the pro¬ 
perties of the watercress ( Nasturtium officinale ), and the 
garlic hedge-mustard (. Erysimum Alii aria) ; but it may 
not be generally known that the common shepherd’s- 
purse ( Capsella Bursa-pastoris ) and lady’s-smock ( Carda - 
mine pratensis) are pleasant additions, whose merits have 
long been recognized by our foreign neighbours. In 
fact, there is scarcely a herb that grows which has not 
some culinary virtue in a French peasant’s eyes. Out of 
the blanched shoots of the wild chicory ( Cichorium In- 
ti/bus) he forms the well-known barbe des capucins , and 
dignifies with the title of salade de chanoine our own 
neglected corn-salad ( Fedia olitoria). It would be very 
easy to extend the dimensions of our list of native salad 
herbs, for there are, perhaps, some palates to which the 
strong flavours of the chive ( Allium schcenoprasum ) and 
stone-crop ( Sedum reflexum ) may commend themselves ; 
but enough has been said to show that Nature has not 
dealt niggardly with us, and that only knowledge is 
needful to make the riches she offers available. If the- 
British peasant can be taught to discover hidden virtues 
in these plants, with whose outward forms he has had 
lifelong familiarity, we do not despair of his acquiring 
the one secret of salad-making, viz. the judicious employ¬ 
ment of oil so as to correct the acrid juices of the plants 
and yet preserve their several flavours unimpaired.— 
Nature. 
NITROUS OXIDE GAS. 
In a letter to the £ Times ’ of August 17, Dr. Thudichum 
recommends the use of this gas in surgical operations 
upon wounded soldiers. He remarks :— 
“ All possible efforts ought to be made to reduce the sum 
of pain to which, by surgical operations and dressings, 
they are necessarily subjected. Chloroform is largely 
used for this purpose, but its application meets with dif¬ 
ficulties in many cases. Thus, the mere excitement of 
the wounded soldier is frequently so great that, for fear 
of choking, it cannot be applied at all; in other cases 
it produces sickness which continues often for hours 
after its application and compromises the welfare of the 
patient. Its action is of such a kind that, practically, it 
is only applied for long and severe operations, rarely for 
slight ones; but never in that most painful and oft-re¬ 
peated process, the dressing of wounds. 
“ All the advantages of chloroform, to the exclusion of 
the disadvantages just mentioned, are possessed by ni¬ 
trous oxide gas. It has no smell, produces quickly, in 
four or five full inspirations, a perfect anaesthesia, in 
which all operations can be performed without causing 
pain, and hardly a minute after the cessation of its inha¬ 
lation its influence on the patient has entirely disap¬ 
peared. It never produces choking or sickness, and 
there has never been a case of death under its influence. 
“ The marvellous effect of this gas was originally dis¬ 
covered by Sir Humphry Davy, but was not appreciated 
by the scientific world, owing to the wanton ridicule 
cast upon it by the short-sightedness of Gay-Lussac, and 
of several chemists following in his wake. It is the in¬ 
dubitable and great merit of British dentists to have 
again discovered the pain-killing effect of nitrous oxide r 
and to have' made its use for the relief of suffering a 
matter of daily and easy practice. 
“A bulky gas could not be transported with the ne¬ 
cessary facility, and therefore its use remained limited 
to institutions. But industry seized the processes, and 
the gas was brought into a compressed form. Thie 
compression is now carried to fluidification. Nitrous 
oxide is sold as a fluid in little iron flasks, of which each, 
hardly bigger than a wine bottle without the neck, 
evolves 100 gallons of gas. The production of this fluid 
nitrous oxide is now a branch of industry carried on by 
the aid of steam power erected specially and exclusively 
for this purpose and yet the supply is hardly equal to 
the demand. 
“ Now, from my experience in war-surgery and in the 
application of anaesthetics; from the inquiries which 
I have instituted and the experiments which I have 
made relating to this nitrous oxide, I have come to the 
conviction that this agent would be most useful in the 
military hospitals of the Continent, not only in primary 
operations, but also in the frequent painful dressings. 
There is less difficulty in its administration than in that 
of chloroform, and all surgeons would easily and quickly 
be able to appreciate and use it. 
k 3 
