TONICS. 125 
BALMONY (CHEtonrn Gtapra). 
The plant bearing this name is sometimes called snake 
head, thistle bloom, and salt rheum weed. It grows plentifully 
in America, where it is highly esteemed as atonic, stomachic and 
vermifuge. As we deem it a very valuable herb, we intend to 
try and acclimatise it. We give a picture of it, so there is no 
need to supply a verbal description. The leaves are the part 
used. Decoction : one ounce to the pint. In powder they 
form the chief ingredient in the Stomach Bitters Powder. For 
worms in children, about a fourth of a teaspoonful in treacle, 
jam, or water, three or four mornings, followed with a purge, 
willbe found generally effective. The decoctionin wineglassfuls 
three or four times a day, with a dose of the worm pills at bed- 
time, is a good vermifuge treatment for adults. 
BOGBEAN (Meacantuus TRIFOLIATA), 
(Or Buckbean. ) 
This is a perennial plant growing in damp and marshy 
places. While in bloom it is one of those beautiful wild 
flowers that abound in Europe and America. It grows about 
afoot high. There are three leaves on each stalk, which are 
strong, round, and smooth. The leaves are oblong; the 
flowers small, white, and tinged with purple ; the plant bearing 
a strong resemblance to our garden bean. The leaves are 
generally the only part used in Britain, but the Americans use 
also the root, which has the same properties, the chief of 
which is tonic, then antiscorbutic, astringent, and antiseptic, 
and in large doses purgative. Some of the German doctors 
affirm that it cures the worst forms of the ague. 
Haller says that intermittent fevers yield to it. In one 
of the German wars it was used with success instead of 
Peruvian bark. In malarial districts it is most providential 
that such a good medicine grows abundantly. We commend 
an infusion of the leaves for any one whose health is bad from. 
want of appetite, and whose food does not seem to do them 
any good. It isa good and efficient blood medicine In skin 
