botany as DOUGLASS, who sacrificed his life to his enthusiasm, NUTTALL, HARTWEG, JAMES, FREMONT, PARRY, THURBER, etc., had trod.

With regard to the scope of the present work, it is not the intention of the writer to compete in this branch of medical science with the one so thoroughly elaborated by the late Dr. DANIEL DRAKE, in his almost life-long work, "Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America." The medical topography and climate of Dr. DRAKE is almost all that could be desired-certainly more than could have been expected from the labors of one man over so vast an amount of territory-but the regions to which we propose to extend similar observations were but little known to the American public at the time of his writing. Although the arrangement we are obliged to pursue is very different from the systematic form of that great work, yet it may be considered in some sort a continuation of it.

Part 1st---Medical Botany.

RANUNCULACEÆ.-(CROW FOOT FAMILY.)

Clematis, 12; Atragene, 3; Cimicifuga, 1; Trautvetteria, 1; Actæa, 2; Thalictrum, 3; Anemone, 8; Pulsatilla, 1; Myosuris, 1; Cyrtorhynchus, 1; Caltha, 2; Trollius, 1; Ranunculus, 22; Delphinium, 14; Aconitum, 3; Aquilegia, 3; Coptis, 3; Isopyrum, 1; Zanthorhiza, 1; Paonia, 2; Crossosoma, 1.

The species of these plants are nearly all peculiar to the West, but the genera, with the exception of Pæonia and Crossosoma, are fully represented in the Eastern States. There is some doubt about the station of Crossosoma, on account of the want of ripe fruit, which has never yet been collected. Dr. TORREY remarks, that in a memoir, giving a description of this beautiful shrub, “Mr. NUTTALL does not express any opinion with regard to the affinities of this genus, owing to the embryo being unknown, the seeds in all his specimens being imperfect; but he says it may well form a sub-order Crossosomæ. On a ticket, with a fragment of this plant, which he sent us, is written, Nat. Ord. Pæoniaceae.' Unfortunately our specimens are only in flower, and the ripe seeds are still wanting. Although the stamens are decidedly perigynous, and the seeds are furnished with an ample fimbrillate arillus, the plant may neverthe

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less belong to the sub-order Pæoniaceæ. We were once inclined to refer it to the tribe Spiræam of Rosacea, to which it has some resemblance in the flowers, but it is destitute of stipules, and arillate seeds are not found in that order. We should place this remarkable plant in Dilleniacea, were it not for the perigynous stamens. These are inserted in several series into the upper part of a thin disk, which, lining the tube of the calyx, projects in a somewhat tumid border around the base of the pistils, as in Pæonia."

Dr. GRAY, in his Manual of the Botany of the Northern States, enumerates about twenty-one genera and fifty-four species of this order. With regard to their habitat, Dr. LINDLEY remarks, that they characterize a cold damp climate, and when met with in the tropics are only found inhabiting the sides of mountains. In the low lands of hot countries they are almost entirely unknown.

Acridity, causticity and poison are their most notable characteristics, although there are several exceptions to this general rule. Hardly an exception exists, however, to their possession of active properties. Some, such as Xanthorhiza and Coptis, are purely tonic and bitter, while others, such as Hydrastis, etc., besides the bitterness possess alterative and astringent properties. In a practice of over thirty years I think I never lost a case of diptheria or malignant sore throat from scarlatina, where I was able to apply early, directly to the ulcerations, a mixture of the finely powdered Hydrastis Canadensis, with a small portion of sulphate of copper, in honey or treacle. The seeds of the Pæonia are emetic and cathartic, and the root has the credit of being anti-spasmodic. Crossosoma being an anomalous genus, but closely allied to plants possessed of active properties, will be worthy of investigation, when communication with those western regions enable us to obtain it in sufficient quantities.

Cimicifuga, Caulophyllum, and some of the Actæas, are decidedly anti-spasmodic, alterative and emenagogue. Cimicifuga, especially at this time, possesses a high reputation for these properties. CHAS. A. LEE, in Tilden's Journal of the Materia Medica, has given a most excellent and thorough resume of the application of this medicine in chorea rheumatism, dyspeptic and tubercular phthysis, where such men as PHYSIC, CHAPMAN and GARDEN, of the old school,

and CONDIE, WOOD, MEIGS, Hildreth, Davis, and others, of the present day, are quoted as highly extolling its medicinal qualities.

The Ranunculæ and Clematidæ are among the most acrid, and have been known since the days of Hipprocrates, but their acridity is sometimes so severe, and always so unmanageable, that they are seldom used at the present day.

But with all its virulence, it is so easily dissipated by drying or dilution with water, as to render it unattainable, excepting in the fresh state, and cannot therefore be preserved beyond its season. Acids, honey, sugar, wine and alcohol are said by DE CANDOLLE to augment the acridity of these plants. It seems to us that the active principle of the Ranunculæ could be made highly available in many inveterate diseases, especially those of a rheumatic character, if modern chemistry, which has already furnished us with so many valuable equivalents, would still go on and discover some means of fixing the volatile principle of these plants so as to enable us to graduate their potency to the requirements of their Therapeutic agency. I have known the Ranunculus Abortivus used with speedy relief, in severe cases of rheumatism, after it had assumed somewhat its chronic form. It was used in the following manner: a small quantity of the fresh root was bruised and applied to the swollen joint, until vesication ensued. The sore was pretty severe, but healed kindly. A saturated tincture of the root was then made, of which the patient took a teaspoonful at a dose, repeated three times daily, for a week or ten days.

The Delphinidæ, besides the usual acrid principle of the Ranunculæ, unite highly narcotic and poisonous powers with it. The proximate principle Delphinine has already been obtained and exhibited in half grain doses, to the extent of three or four grains in the twenty-four hours, without exciting vomiting In these doses, however, it sometimes acts upon the bowels. In most instances it acts as a diuretic, producing a considerable flow of pale urine. When taken in sufficient doses it occasions sensations of heat and tingling in various parts of the body, almost exactly similar to that of Veratria. It may be applied to the skin by friction, like Veratria, with the same effect. The Aconites and Hellebores are among the most active medicines and poisons we have. Aconitum Napellus, a general favorite of

the garden, on account of its deep blue showy flowers, is probably the cause of more accidental fatality by poisoning than any other agent. It is a native of the northwest, and Dr. FLEMING says it is the only one of all the European species that is of any importance in medicine, being a native of Europe as well as of America. Dr. TURNBULL, in a treatise on the medical properties of the Ranunculæ, among them enumerates only Aconitum Napellus and Delphinium Stavesagria, both of which are very potent remedies, and in their concentrated forms much resembling the Veratria obtained from the seeds of Asagræa Officinalis, a plant common in the Alpine regions of Mexico. The seeds are known in our shops under the name of Sabadilla, belonging to a very different order, however, the Melanthaceæ, in which Colchicum and Veratrum Viride are found. In his monograph upon these plants Dr. TURNBULL limits himself to the two species above named, and moreover principally to the concentrated alkaloids they both contain, which are so similar to that of Veratria, being nearly equivalent in their action and application to the diseases of the human system. Colchicum internally, and Veratria externally, are considered by many eminent practitioners as almost specific in some forms of rheumatism and gout. Aconitine and Delphinine are used in the same and similar diseases, but are yet more powerful in their action upon the system. The diseases to which they have generally been applied are gout, rheumatism, sciatica, neuralgia, symptomatic and organic palpitation of the heart, paralysis and dropsy. Besides relating many cases of neuralgia, rheumatism, palpitations of the heart, etc., Dr. TURNBULL relates a case of ascites, complicated with general anasarca, which had obstinately resisted all the usual modes of treatment. Finally, as a last resort, they prescribed four grains of Veratria.made. into an ointment with an ounce of lard, which was rubbed over the surface of the swollen abdomen at bed time, with the effect to produce, during the course of the night and the next morning, the discharge of eight pints of urine; when previously, mercury, squills, acetate and supertartrate of potass, digitalis, colchicum, spirit of nitrous æther, juniper and broomseed had failed to produce more than one English pint of urine in twenty-four hours. Great prostration, of course, ensued, but stimulants and tonics in the intervals,

with a second and third repetition of the external application of the Veratria ointment, graduated in strength as the patient could bear, proved a complete and radical cure. It should be borne in mind that in this case, there was no permanent infarction or inflammation in the tract of the digestive viscera to remove, to make the reduction of the hydrops permanant and effectual. So also their application to affections of the heart, to be permanent, must depend upon the removal of any organic disease preceding, and upon which it is merely symptomatic.

From the fact that modern chemistry has made great improvements, in fixing and developing the most volatile principles of the odors of plants, I cannot see why the volatile and vesicatory principles of the Ranunculace proper may not be equally fixed and rendered permanent, so as to be made available to the necessities of the physician at all seasons, and when thus fixed, the doses so graduated as to be made uniform in their effects. In my opinion, the most solid advantages accruing to practical medicine within the last few years, has arisen from the improvements in pharmacological chemistry, and one of the most important evolved is the fixing the dose so as to be so uniform that the intelligent prescriber may calculate, with a great degree of certainty, upon its effects. The value of the fluid extracts lately made, and brought into general use, depends almost altogether upon this fact, in addition to rendering the active principle of the medicine less liable to decomposition or loss of power. With what serene satisfaction does a physician prescribe when he knows that he can handle his agents with the same precision that the surgeon does his scalpel! And herein mainly consists the difference of the two in gaining a lasting reputation and the confidence of the public.

Before the introduction of Cantharides, the Ranunculæ were often relied upon for vesicatories, but the uncertainty of their power, together with the inability to procure them at certain seasons of the year, has greatly tended to depreciate their real value. Prof. JACOB BIGELOW, of Boston, in his Medical Botany of the United States, observes that the similarity of the properties of the different species of Ranunculi are so much alike, that it is rendered almost unnecessary, in a medicinal or economical point of view, to distinguish