day; but if a
liquid medicine be preferred, a dram of the dried leaves is to be
infused for four hours in half a pint of boiling water, adding to the
strained liquor an ounce of any spiritous water. One ounce of this
infusion given twice a-day is a medium dose; it is to be continued in
these doses till it either acts upon the kidneys; the stomach, or the
pulse, (which it has a remarkable power of lowering,) or the bowels.--
Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 221.

This is now become a very popular medicine, but if used incautiously is
attended with danger. Medical practitioners should make themselves
perfectly acquainted with this plant, as the leaves are the only part
used; and their not being readilly discriminated when separated from the
flowers, several accidents have occurred. In the Gent. Mag. for
September 1815 is recorded a very extraordinary mistake, where the life
of a child was sacrificed to the ignorance of a person who administered
this instead of Coltsfoot; a plant so very dissimilar, that, had it not
been well authenticated, I should not have believed the fact.

Similar Plants.--Verbascum nigrum; V. Thapsus; Cynoglossum officinale,
or, after the above mistake, any other plant with a lanceolate leaf, we
fear, may be confounded with it.

205. ERYNGIUM maritimum. SEA-HOLLY. Roots. D.--The roots are slender,
and very long; of a pleasant sweetish taste, which on chewing for some
time is followed by a light degree of aromatic warmth and acrimony. They
are accounted aperient and diuretic, and have also been celebrated as
aphrodisiac: their virtues, however, are too weak to admit them under
the head of medicines. The candied root is ordered to be kept in the
shops.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

206. FERULA assafoetida. ASSAFOETIDA. Gum. L. E. D.--This drug has a
strong fetid smell, somewhat like that of garlick; and a bitter, acrid,
biting taste. It looses with age of its smell and strength, a
circumstance to be particularly regarded in its exhibition. It consists
of about one-third part pure resin, and two-thirds of gummy matter; the
former soluble in rectified spirit, the other in water. Proof-spirit
dissolves almost the whole into a turbid liquor; the tincture in
rectified spirit is transparent.

Assafoetida is the strongest of the fetid gums, and of frequent use in
hysteric and different kinds of nervous complaints. It is likewise of
considerable efficacy in flatulent colics; and for promoting all the
fluid secreti