ajor_. Qualities: alterative, diuretic,
antiseptic. For scrofulous and cutaneous affections. It has also the
property of destroying living microscopical matter in or on the human
body. The Negro Casta, who discovered this herb, afterwards, as a
remedy against the deadly bite of the rattlesnake, received a
considerable reward from the Assembly of South Carolina. It is a
native of most parts of Europe and Asia, as also of Japan. Plantain
stands in the forefront of all the _cartels des hospitalieres_.

"2. Yellow dock--_rumex_. Alterative, tonic, astringent, detergent,
and anti-scorbutic. Employed in scrofula, Leprosy, cutaneous diseases,
and purigo, and that with much effect.

"3. Sorrel--_rumex ascetocella_. Employed locally to cancers, tumours,
and the open wounds of the Leper.

"4. Burdock--_arctenus lappa_. Aperient, sudorific, and diuretic.
Employed in venereal and Leprous disorders, scrofula, and scurvy.
Fluid extract of lappa is exhibited even now to lepers. Dose, 1/2 to 1
dram.

"5. Monk's rhubarb--_rumex alpinus_. Used for the same purposes as
true rhubarb.

"6. Lily roots. This ancient remedy is in all the books to which the
Franciscan Fathers of the Holy Land have access, and comes down from
Pliny and Dioscorides. "Effugant lepras lilium radices." (Plin.)

"7. Common wormwood--_absinthium vulgare_, _artemisia_.

"8. Daffodil--_narcissus purpurens et narcissus croceus_, called so
from _torpor_. The _oleum narcissenum et unguentum_ is found in all
hospital books, and comes down from Pliny, 2, 19: "Narcissi duogenera
medici usu recipiunt." For Leprosy and cutaneous eruptions called
_mala scabies_. This was what Canon Bethune calls _les calmantes_. Of
this flower, I may say that eight out of ten monastic ruins in England
abound with it, to such a degree that one cannot but conclude that it
was set there of old, that it was cultivated for some purpose, and has
reset and reproduced itself for centuries. Father Birch, S.J.,
confirms this in regard to Roche Abbey--_de Rocca_--an old
Premonstratensian house, in Derbyshire, to which people come from afar
to see the daffodils, which make of the purlieus of the abbey one
great _tapis jaune_ (_sic._), but a carpet varied by every sort of
English spring flowers.

"9. Scurvy grass--_cochlearia officinalis_--has long been considered,
at Nicosia, Cyprus, and elsewhere, as the most effectual of all the
anti-scorbutic plants. It grows in high latitudes, where scurvy is