e middle letter "n" in this word being changed
into "r," making it _Seliron_, or, in the Italian, Celeri, our Celery
(which is a Parsley) obtained its title. It is a cultivated variety of
the common Smallage (_Small ache_) or wild Celery (_Apium
graveolens_), which grows abundantly in moist English ditches, or
in water. This is an umbelliferous herb, unwholesome as a food,
and having a coarse root, with [95] a fetid smell. But, like many
others of the same natural order, when transplanted into the
garden, and bleached, it becomes aromatic and healthful, making
an excellent condimentary vegetable. But more than this, the
cultivated Celery may well take rank as a curative Herbal Simple.
Dr. Pereira has shown us that it contains sulphur (a known
preventive of rheumatism) as freely as do the cruciferous plants,
Mustard, and the Cresses. In 1879, Mr. Gibson Ward, then
President of the Vegetarian Society, wrote some letters to the
Times, which commanded much attention, about Celery as a food
and a medicament. "Celery," said he, "when cooked, is a very fine
dish, both as a nutriment and as a purifier of the blood; I will not
attempt to enumerate all the marvellous cures I have made with
Celery, lest medical men should be worrying me _en masse_. Let
me fearlessly say that rheumatism is impossible on this diet; and
yet English doctors in 1876 allowed rheumatism to kill three
thousand six hundred and forty human beings, every death being
as unnecessary as is a dirty face."

The seeds of our Sweet Celery are carminative, and act on the
kidneys. An admirable tincture is made from these seeds, when
bruised, with spirit of wine; of which a teaspoonful may be taken
three times a day, with a spoonful or two of water. The root of the
Wild Celery, Smallage, or Marsh Parsley, was reckoned, by the
ancients, one of the five great aperient roots, and was employed in
their diet drinks. The Great Parsley is the Large Age, or Large
Ache; as a strange inconsistency the Romans adorned the heads of
their guests, and the tombs of their dead with crowns of the
Smallage. Our cultivated Celery is a capital instance of fact that
most of the poisonous plants call, by [96] human ingenuity, be so
altered in character as to become eminently serviceable for food or
medicine. Thus, the Wild Celery, which is certainly poisonous
when growing exposed to daylight, becomes most palatable, and
even beneficial, by having its edible leaf stalks earthed up and
ble