very few that have not passed entirely out of
official medicine and even out of domestic practice, at least so far as
their intrinsic qualities are concerned. Some, to be sure, are still
employed because of their pleasant flavors, which disguise the
disagreeable taste of other drugs. But this is a very different matter.

One of the most notable of these is fennel. What wonders could that
plant not perform 300 years ago! In Parkinson's "Theatricum Botanicum"
(1640) its "vertues" are recorded. Apart from its use as food, for
which, then, as now, it was highly esteemed, without the attachment of
any medicinal qualities as an esculent, it was considered efficacious in
cases of gout, jaundice, cramps, shortness of breath, wheezing of the
lungs; for cleansing of the blood and improving the complexion; to use
as an eye-water or to increase the flow of milk; as a remedy for serpent
bites or an antidote for poisonous herbs and mushrooms; and for people
who "are growen fat to abate their unwieldinesse and make them more
gaunt and lanke."

But let us peep into the 19th edition of the United States Dispensatory.
Can this be the same fennel which "is one of our most grateful
aromatics," and which, because of "the absence of any highly excitant
property," is recommended for mixing with unpleasant medicines? Ask any
druggist, and he will say it is used for little else nowadays than for
making a tea to give babies for wind on their stomachs. Strange, but
true it is! Similar statements if not more remarkable ones could be made
about many of the other herbs herein discussed. Many of these are spoken
of as "formerly considered specific" for such and such troubles but "now
known to be inert."

The cause is not far to seek. An imaginative and superstitious people
attached fanciful powers to these and hundreds of other plants which the
intervening centuries have been unable wholly to eradicate, for among
the more ignorant classes, especially of Europe, many of these relics of
a dark age still persist.

But let us not gloat over our superior knowledge. After a similar lapse
of time, may not our vaunted wisdom concerning the properties of plants
look as ridiculous to the delver among our musty volumes? Indeed, it
may, if we may judge by the discoveries and investigations of only the
past fifty years. During this time a surprisingly large number of plants
have been proved to be not merely innocuous instead of poisonous, as
they were repute