e of the powdered leaves on lint soaked in the decoction.
For scrofulous joints, or glands, this treatment is invaluable. A green
English Walnut, boiled in syrup and preserved in the same, is an
excellent homely remedy for constipation. It will be noticed that the
fruit becomes black by boiling. The Chinese put the raw kernels into
their tea to give it a flavour.

[602] By the Romans Walnuts were scattered among the people
when a marriage was celebrated, as an intimation that the wedded
couple henceforth abandoned the frivolities of youth.

The "titmouse" walnut produces very delicate fruit, rich in oil, and
with thin shells, so that the little creatures can pierce the husks and
shells while the fruit is still on the bough.

Nuts of various kinds, being charged with carbon and oil, are highly
nutritious, but on account of this oil abounding, they are not readily
digested by some persons. In Southern Europe, the Chestnut is a
staple article of food, The title "nut" signifies a hard round lump,
from _nodus_, a knot.

Leigh Hunt wrote meaningly of the "inexorably hard cocoa nut--
milky at heart." In Devonshire a plentiful crop of hazel nuts is
believed to portend an unhealthy year:--

"Many nits (nuts)
Many pits (graves)."

When eating almonds and raisins at dessert we get the nitrogenous
food of the nuts with the saccharine nourishment of the grapes.

WART-WORT, OR WART-WEED.

This name has been commonly applied to the Petty Spurge, or to the
Sun Spurge, a familiar little weed growing abundantly in English
gardens, with umbels of a golden green colour which "turn towards
the sun." Its stem and leaves yield, when wounded, an acrid milky
juice which is popularly applied for destroying warts, and corns. But
our Greater Celandine (see page 92) or Swallow-wort is better
known abroad as the Wart-wort: and its sap is widely given in
Russia for the cure, not only of [603] warts, but likewise of
cancerous outgrowths, whether occurring on the skin surface, or
assailing membranes inside the body. Conclusive evidence has been
adduced of cancerous disease within the gullet and the stomach--as
well as on the external skin--being healed by this herb. Its sap, or
juice, contains chemically, "chelidonine," and "sanguinarine," which
latter principle (obtained heretofore from the Canadian "blood
root"), is of long established repute for repressing fungoid
granulations of indolent ulcers, when powdered over them, and o