420  OBSERVATIONS  ON  GOSSYPIUM  HERBACEUM. 
Proximate  Principle. — Experiments  were  made  with  a  view  to 
the  isolation  of  the  active  principle  of  the  root,  which  were  not 
altogether  satisfactory  ;  for  though  there  was  no  crystalline 
principle  obtained,  as  was  desired,  making  the  existence  of  it 
palpable  and  distinct  to  all ;  still  there  is  evidence  in  favor  of  a 
principle  existing  in  it.  Time  did  not  admit  of  an  extended  ex- 
periment in  this  department  of  the  analysis.  The  author  indulges 
a  hope  of  having  time  to  examine  the  active  principle  more 
minutely  than  he  has  yet  done.  What  he  has  seen  suffices  to 
convince  him  that  the  medical  properties  attributed  to  it  are  not 
fallacious. 
The  attention  of  the  medical  profession  was  called  to  the 
medical  properties  of  this  root,  first  by  Drs.  McGown  and  Bon- 
chell,  of  Mississippi ;  the  latter  gentleman  by  an  article  written 
in  the  Western  Journal  of  Medicine  and  Surgery,  about  the 
year  1842,  as  well  as  I  recollect.  For  a  want  of  confirmation, 
it  passed  unnoticed  by  the  profession,  until  the  year  1852, 
when  it  was  again  brought  into  notice  in  an  article  written  by 
Dr.  John  Travis,  of  Marlborough,  Tennessee,  in  the  Nashville 
Journal  of  Medicine  and  Surgery.  He  reported  but  one  case  in 
which  he  tried  it,  and  it  was  with  entire  success,  restoring  the 
menstrual  flow  in  a  short  time,  after  an  absence  of  about  ten 
months. 
I  consider  this  root  one  of  the  very  best  emmenagogues  of  the 
materia  medica,  and  I  think  it  should  be  so  classed.  My  reasons 
for  considering  it  such,  are  grounded  upon  the  different  experi- 
ments which  I  have  made  with  it,  within  the  last  twelve  months. 
I  sometimes  use  a  decoction,  and  at  others  an  infusion,  but  most 
generally  a  decoction,  prepared  thus  : 
R.    Cotton  Root,  ^iv. 
Water,  lbs.  ij. 
boil  down  to  one  pint.  S. — A  wine  glass  full  every  hour.  This 
produces  the  most  salutary  effect  in  dysmenorrhoea  ;  it  acts  as  an 
anodyne  in  allaying  the  pain,  and  as  an  emmenagogue  in  aiding 
or  augmenting  menstruation.;  its  action  is  very  speedy ;  after  its 
exhibition,  in  this  case  it  produces  an  effect  which,  indeed,  ap- 
pears almost  natural,  that  is,  almost  without  pain  ;  the  patient, 
after  its  exhibition,  feels  but  little  inconvenience  from  pain, 
which  soon  subsides,  and  menstruation  is  immediately  aug- 
