country, some physicians relying wholly on this remedy for the cure of croup."

Dr. Macbride, of Charleston, S. C. who has contributed many judicious remarks on the medicinal properties of plants, to Mr. Elliott's excellent Botany of the Southern States; informs me,' that he has found the Blood root useful in Hydrothorax, given in doses of sixty drops, ter de die, and increased until nausea followed each dose. In a week or two the good effect was evident, the pulse being rendered slow and regular, and the respiration much improved. In the same letter he observes, "In torpor of the liver, attended with colic and yellowness of the skin, a disease common in this climate, I use the Puccoon with evident advantage. We use it also in jaundice, but in this disease I do not trust exclusively to it. I prefer the pill or powder (dose from two to five grains) and vinous infusion, to the spirituous tinc

ture."

The tincture of Sanguinaria may be made by digesting an ounce of the powdered root in eight ounces of diluted alcohol. This preparation possesses all the bitterness, but less of the nauseating quality, than the infusion. In the dose of a small teaspoonful, it is used by many practitioners

Letter dated December, 1816.

as a stimulating tonic, capable of increasing the appetite and promoting digestion.

BOTANICAL REFERENCES.

Sanguinaria Canadensis, LIN. sp. pl.-CURTIS, Botan. Mag. t. 162.-AITON, Hort. Kew. ii. 222.-WALTER, Carol. 153.MICHAUX, Flora 1, 309.-PURSH, ii. 366.-Sanguinaria minor, DILLENIUS, Elth. f. 326 and S. major, f. 325 in t. 252.—Chelidonium maximum acaulon Canadense RAIUS, Hist. 1887.-Ranunculus Virg. albus. PARKINSON, Th. 326.-Chelidonium majus Canad. acaulon CORNUTUS, Canad. 212.

MEDICAL REFERENCES.

SCHOPF, 85.-SMITH, Trans. Lond. Med. Society, i. 179.BART. Coll. 28.-CUTLER, Mem. Amer. Acad. i. 455.—THACHER, Disp. 331.

GERANIUM MACULATUM.

Common Cranesbill.

N

PLATE VIII.

In common language the term Geranium includes all that extensive tribe of plants comprised by the old genus of that name, and principally characterised by their beaked fruit and five seeds which are scattered by means of awns. L'Heritier has divided this family into three distinct genera, under different orders in the artificial class Monadelphia. These are Erodium, having five stamens, five nectariferous scales and glands, and the awns of the fruit twisted and bearded. Pelargoni

um, which includes most of the Cape species so commonly cultivated among us, having about seven stamens, an irregular corolla, and a nectareous tube running down the peduncle. Lastly, Geranium having ten stamens, a regular corolla, five nec