66 EXAMINATION OF THE STROBILES OF THE HOP. 
who, whenever he partakes of them, is attacked with violent 
irritation of his throat. 
Beside the employment of the young shoots indicated 
above, the stems, when macerated in water, afford a coarse 
threading, analogous to that of hemp, and from which excel- 
lent cording can be fabricated. It is to be regretted that our 
cultivators do not seek to employ this part of the plant which 
they reject as useless, and which might furnish to commerce 
yet one more product. All animals eat the plant with avidity, 
and its leaves and suckers, when young and delicate, afford 
them excellent nourishment. 
Finally, every body knows the use which is made of the fruit 
or cones, {strobiles,) in the north of Europe, for flavoring 
beer and preventing it from becoming sour. Employed for 
this purpose the hop must necessarily be placed in the first 
rank of plants — the most cultivated and most interesting. M. 
Richard informs us, that in England small pillows of its stro- 
biles are placed under the head, in cases of insomnolence. It is 
rare, says he, that this measure is not productive of calm and 
restorative sleep. From their narcotic property, they are in ad- 
dition employed internally in medicine, either in decoction or 
infusion, but this property is not manifest except in large quan- 
tity ; thus many persons experience, after having drank seve- 
ral glasses of beer, an insurmountable desire to sleep. But in 
the decoction, or infusion, which is prepared from two drachms 
of the strobiles, this stupifying action is almost inapprecia- 
ble. 
The portion of the plant which has been the principal ob- 
ject of the researches of chemists, is the yellow powder; this is 
golden, resiniform, aromatic and bitter ; it is found upon the 
woolly foliaceous scales, which constitute the cones at the pe- 
riod of maturity. This powder was first studied by Dr. Ives, 
of New York, who named it lupuline. The researches of 
MM. Chevalier and Payen have demonstrated {Journal de 
Pharmacie,yo\. viii., p. 209,) that this substance is composed of 
resin, volatile oil, a bitter principle, gum, extractive matter, 
fatty matter, &e. 
