ON THE FE VILLEA CORDIFOLIA. 
61 
of the more costly bitters of the shops; and this bitter prin- 
ciple obtained, in the present improved state of chemical 
science, in a detached and portable form. Popular opinion 
accords to the plant itself the merit of being antisyphilitic, 
emmenagogue, and stomachic. Bat the bitter principle 
which pervades all the other parts of the plant, presents 
itself in a still more concentrated form in the seeds or coc- 
coons, which have, in consequence, been chiefly, if not ex- 
clusively, employed in the rude practice of our colonies. 
Such is the estimation in which they are held by the 
Spanish inhabitants of South America, to whom they are 
known by the name of avila, or avilla, that they are re- 
puted by them to be worth their weight in gold; and in 
Brazil, the oil obtained from them by expression is regarded 
as a sovereign remedy for those rheumatic pains which 
result from exposure to the cold and dews of night. 
The tincture is prepared by macerating eight or ten of 
these coccoons, scraped and bruised fine in a mortar, in a 
pint of spirit for two or three days, shaking the bottle con- 
taining them frequently, and diluting the tincture with an 
equal quantity of water. This tincture, in doses of a table- 
spoonful, is a good stomachic, and counteracts the effects of 
poisonous fish. According to a numerous series of experi- 
ments made by Mr. Drapier, of which an account may be 
found in the nineteenth number of the Quarterly Journal 
of Science, p. 192, these coccoons are most powerful anti- 
dotes to vegetable poisons; and he has found their external 
application to poisoned wounds equally efficacious. 
Of the efficacy of the tincture, prepared in the manner 
just mentioned, as a hydragogue in the cure of anasarca, a 
striking case was communicated to the Columbian Maga- 
zine, for July, 179S, by a gentleman who had an oppor- 
tunity of witnessing its effect upon a female domestic of his 
own, who had, as he informs us, " been pronounced by the 
medical gentlemen in Spanish Town, in a dropsical state, 
and every thing administered that they thought necessary 
VOL XII. — no i. 6 
