trong styptic taste, but imparts no peculiar sapid flavour. This
has been long held in great estimation as an astringent. Dr. Cullen has
used it with gentian with great effect in intermittent fevers. Lewis
recommends an ounce and a half of the powdered root to be boiled in
three pints of water to a quart, adding towards the end of the boiling a
dram of cinnamon. Of the strained liquor, sweetened with an ounce of any
agreeable syrup, two ounces or more may be taken four or five times a-day.

284. TUSSILAGO Farfara. COLTSFOOT. Herb. L. E. D.--Tussilago stands
recommended in coughs and other disorders of the breast and lungs: the
flowers were an ingredient in the pectoral decoction of the Edinburgh
Pharmacopoeia.

285. VALERIANA officinalis. VALERIAN. Root. L. E. D.--Valerian is a
medicine of great use in nervous disorders, and is particularly
serviceable in epilepsies proceeding from a debility in the nervous
system. It was first brought into esteem in these cases by Fabius
Columna, who by taking the powdered root, in the dose of half a
spoonful, was cured of an inveterate epilepsy after many other medicines
had been tried in vain. Repeated experience has since confirmed its
efficacy in this disorder; and the present practice lays considerable
stress upon it.

286. VERATRUM album. WHITE HELLEBORE. Root. L. E. D.-The root has a
nauseous, bitterish, acrid taste, burning the mouth and fauces: wounded
when fresh, it emits an extremely acrimonious juice, which mixed with the
blood, by a wound, is said to prove very dangerous: the powder of the
dry root, applied to an issue, occasions violent purging: snuffed up the
nose, it proves a strong, and not always a safe, sternutatory. This
root, taken internally, acts with extreme violence as an emetic, and has
been observed, even in a small dose, to occasion convulsions and other
terrible disorders. The ancients sometimes employed it in very obstinate
cases, and always made this their last resource.

Similar Plant.--Gentiana lutea, which see.

287. VERONICA Beccabunga. BROOKLIME. Herb. L. D.--This plant was
formerly considered of great use in several diseases, and was applied
externally to wounds and ulcers; but if it have any peculiar efficacy,
it is to be derived from its antiscorbutic virtue.

As a mild refrigerant juice, it is preferred where an acrimonious state
of the fluids prevails, indicated by prurient eruptions upon the skin,
or in what has been calle