guish thofe plants which he prefcribes, is not only fubjected to the impofitions of the ignorant and fraudulent, but muft feel a diffatiffaction which the inquifitive and philofophic mind will be anxious to remove, and to fuch it is prefumed MEDICAL BOTANY, by collecting and fupplying the information neceffary on this fubject, will be found an acceptable and ufeful work; the profeffed design of which is not only to enable the reader to diftinguish with precision all thofe plants which are directed for medical ufe by the Colleges of London and Edinburgh, but to furnish him at the fame time with a circumftantial detail of their refpective virtues, and of the difeafes in which they have been moft fuccefsfully employed by dif ferent writers.'

As a diftinct knowlege of plants is fcarcely to be gained by mere verbal defcription, Dr. Woodville has added beautiful and accurate delineations, from the masterly hand of Mr. Sowerby. On this fubject, he obferves that it is justly a matter of furprize, that, notwithstanding the univerfal adoption of the Linnéan fyftem of botany, and the great advances made in natural science, the works of Blackwell and Sheldrake fhould still be the only books in this country, in which copperplate figures of the medicinal plants are profeffedly given; while fplendid foreign publications of them, by Regnault, Zorn, and Plenck, have appeared in the space of very few years.

In collecting the materials for this work, Dr. W. appears to have taken great pains, and his labour is certainly fuccessful. His botanical defcriptions are accurate; the hiftories which are fubjoined are frequently very full and exact; and the account of the virtues of the different plants is scientific and fatisfactory. As a fpecimen of the author's manner, we will extract the article on the Fraxinus Ornus, or Flowering Afh.

6 FRAXINUS ORNUS. FLOWERING ASH. Synonyma. Fraxinus tenuiore & minore folio. Bauh. Hift. i. P. 177. Fraxinus humilior five altera Theophrafti, minore & tenuiore folio. Bauh. Pin. p. 416. Fraxinus Ornus, foliolis ferratis, floribus corollatis. Lin. Sp. Plant. Mannifera arbor. Succus condenfatus eft Manna. Pharm. Lond. & Edinb. Clafs Polygamia. Ord Dioecia. Lin. Gen. Plant. 1160. Eff. Gen. Ch. Hermaphrod. Cal. o, f. 4-partitus. Cor. o, f. 4-petala. Stam. 2. Pift. 1. Sem. 1, lanceolatum.

‹ Fem. Pist. 1, lanceolatum.

Sp. Ch. F. foliis ovato-oblongis ferratis petiolatis, floribus corol latis. Hort. Kew.

This tree greatly refembles our common afh: it is lofty, much branched, and covered with a greyish bark. The young fhoots produce the leaves, which are pinnated, oppofite, and confift of feveral pair of pinne, or fmall leaves, terminated by an odd one, pointed, ferrated, veined, ftanding upon footftalks, of an oval or oblong shape, and bright green colour. The flowers grow in clofe

thick branched (pikes, and open in May and June. In the fpecimen we have figured, the flowers were all hermaphrodite; the corolla divided into four narrow whitish fegments, fomewhat longer than the flamina; the two filaments tapering, and crowned with large furrowed erect antheræ; the germen oval, and a little compreffed; the flyle fhort and cylindrical; the capfule is long, flat, membranous, and contains a fingle flat pointed feed.

This tree is a native of the fouthern parts of Europe, particuJarly of Sicily and Calabria *. It was first introduced into England about fixty years ago, by Dr. Uvedale †; and at prefent adorns many of the gardens of this country.

The Orus is not the only fpecies of afh which produces manna; the rotundifolia and excelfior, efpecially in Sicily, alfo afford this drug, though lefs abundantly. Many other trees and fhrubs have likewife been obferved, in certain feasons and fituations, to emit a fweet juice, which concretes on expofure to the air, and may be confidered as of the manna kind . In Sicily the three fpecies of the Fraxinus, mentioned above, are regularly cultivated for the purpose of procuring manna, and with this view are planted on the declivity of a hill, with an eastern aspect. After ten years growth, the trees first begin to yield the manna, but they require to be much older before they afford it in any confiderable quantity.

The Ornus is obferved by Dr. Cirillo to be very common on the famous mountain Garganus, fo that the words of Horace may fill apply;

aut Aquilonibus

Querceta Gargani laborant,

Et foliis viduantur orni.

+ Vide Hort. Kew.'

L. ii. Od. ç.'

Dr. Cullen is certainly right in fuppofing "Manna a part of the fugar fo univerfally prefent in vegetables, and which exudes on the furface of a great number of them;" the qualities of these exudations he thinks are 66 very little if at all different." The principal trees known to produce thefe mannas in different climates and feafons, are the larch, (vide Murray, Ap. Med. i. p. 17.) the fir, (lac. V. Engeftrom in Phyfiogr. Sälfkapets Handl. Vel. i. P. 3. p. 144.) the orange, (De La Hire Hift. de l'acad. d. fc. de Paris, 1708.) the walnut, (Hal. Stirp. Helv. N. 1624.) the willow, (Mouffet in Du Hamel. Phyfique des arbres, P. i. p. 152.) the mul berry, (Micheli in Tragioni Tezzetti Viaggi, Tom. 6. p. 424.) oks, fituated between Merdin and Diarbekir (Niebuhr Lefibreib V. Arab. p. 145. Otter, Voyage en Turquie et en Perfe, Vol. 2. p. 264.) alfo oaks in Perfia near Khounfar (Otter. I. c.) the al hagi Maurorum, or the hedyfarum alhagi of Linnæus; of this manna Dr. Fothergill prefented a fpecimen to the Royal Society, which he confidered as the Tereniabin of the Arabians, (Phil. Tranf Vel. 43. 2.87.) the ciftus ladaniferus in fome parts of Spain produces a manna, which, in its recent ftate, has no purgative quality, and is eaten by the fhepherds; fo that fome fermentation feems neceffary to give it a cathartic power, (Vide Dillon's Travels through Spain, P. 127.)'

Although

Although the manna exudes fpontaneously upon the trees, yet in order to obtain it more copiously, incifions are made through the bark, by means of a fharp crooked inftrument; and the feafon thought to be molt favourable for inftituting this procefs, is a little before the dog-days commence, when the weather is dry and ferene. The incifions are firit made in the lower part of the trunk, and repeated at the distance of an inch from the former wound, ftill extending the incifions upwards as far as the branches, and confining them to one fide of the tree, the other fide being referved to the year following, when it undergoes the fame treatment. On making thefe incifions, which are of a longitudinal direction, about a fpan in length, and nearly two inches wide, a thick whitifh juice immediately begins to flow, which gradually hardens on the bark, and in the courfe of eight days acquires the confiftence and appearance in which the manna is imported into Britain, when it is collected in baskets, and afterwards packed in large chefts*. Sometimes the manna flows in fuch abundance from the incifions, that it runs upon the ground, by which it becomes mixed with various impurities, unlefs prevented, which is commonly attempted, by interpofing large concave leaves, ftones, chips of wood, &c. The business of collecting manna ufually terminates at the end of September, when the rainy season fets in t.

• From

* La manne est le principal revenu de ce pays & de quelques autres qui en font voifins. Il monte dans une bonne année a vingtcinq mille Louis d'or. Houel Voyage Pittorefque, tom. 1. p. 53-'

This account is taken from Houel Voyage Pittorefque, and Seftini Lettere della Sicilia, and related by Murray: to which we fhall fubjoin Dr. Cirillo's account, communicated to the Royal Society. Vide Vol. 60. p. 233.

64

The manner, in which the manna is obtained from the Ornus, though very simple, has been yet very much mifunderstood by all those who travelled in the kingdom of Naples; and among other things they feem to agree, that the best and purest manna is obtained from the leaves of the tree; but this, I believe, is an opinion taken from the coctrine of the antients, and received as an inconteftible oblervation, without confulting nature. I never faw fuch a kind, and all thofe who are employed in the gathering of the manna, kuow of none that comes from the leaves. The manna is generally of two kinds; not on account of the intrinfic quality of inem being different, but only because they are got in a different Inanner. In order to have the manna, thofe who have the management of the woods of the Orni in the month of July and Auguft, when the weather is very dry and warm, make an oblong incifion, and take off from the bark of the tree about three inches in length, and two in breadth; they leave the wound open, and by degrees the manna runs out, and is almost suddenly thickened to its proper confilence, and is found adhering to the bark of the tree. This manna, which is collected in bafkets, and goes under the name of manna grafa, is put in a dry place, becaule moift and wet places will foon diffolve it again. This firft kind is often in large irre

gular

• From this account it is evident, that manna is the fuccus proprius of the tree; any arguments therefore brought to combat the ancient opinion of its being a mel aërium, or honey-dew, are wholly anneceffary: that, with which the Ifraelites were fo peculiarly favoured, could only have been produced through miraculous means, and is confequently out of the province of the natural hiftorian.Manna is generally diftinguifhed into different kinds, viz. the manna in tear, the canulated and flaky manna, and the common brown or fat manna. All these varieties feem rather to depend upon their refpective purity, and the circumstances in which they are obtained from the plant, than upon any effential difference of the drug when the juice tranfudes from the tree very flowly, the manna is always more dry, tranfparent, and pure, and confequently of more eftimation; but when it flows very copiously it concretes into a coarse brown unctuous mafs; hence we have a reafon, why, by applying straws and other fubftances to receive the flowing juice, the manna becomes much improved: Houel, who tafted the manna when flowing from the tree, found it much bitterer than in its concrete ftate; this bitterness he attributes to the aqueous part, which is then very abundant, of courfe the manna is meliorated by all the circumstances which promote evaporation. According to Lewis, the beft manna is in oblong pieces, or flakes, moderately dry, friable, very light, of a whitish or pale yellow colour, and in fome degree tranfparent: the inferior kinds are moift, unctuous, and brown. Manna liquifies in moist air, diffolves readily in water, and, by the affiftance of heat, in rectified fpirit. On infpiffating the watery folution, the manna is recovered of a much darker colour than at first. From the faturated fpirituous folution,

gular pieces of a brownish colour, and frequently is full of duft and other impurities. But when the people want to have a very fine manna, they apply to the incifion of the bark, thin ftraw, or small bits of fhrubs, fo that the manna, in coming out, runs upon those bodies, and is collected in a fort of regular tubes, which give it the name of manna in cannoli, that is, manna in tubes: this fecond kind is more efteemed, and always preferred to the other, because it is free and clear. There is indeed a third kind of manna, which is not commonly to be met with, and which I have seen after I left Calabria: it is very white, like fugar; but as it is rather for curiofity than for ufe, I fhall fay no more of it. The two forts of manna already mentioned undergo no kind of preparation whatsoever, before they are exported; fometimes they are finer, particuJarly the manna grassa, and fometimes very dirty and full of impurities; but the Neapolitans have no intereft in adulterating the manna, because they always have a great deal more than what they generally export; and if manna is kept in the magazines, it receives often very great hurt by the fouthern winds, fo common in our part of the world. The changes of the weather produce a fudden alteration in the time that the manna is to be gathered; and, for this reason, when the fummer is rainy, the manna is always very scarce and very bad.”

great

great part of it feparates as the liquor cools, concreting into a flaky maís, of a snowy whitenefs, and a very grateful fweetness."

6

Manna is well known as a gentle purgative, fo mild in its operation, that it may be given with fafety to children and pregnant women; in fome conftitutions however it produces trouble fome flatulencies, and therefore requires the addition of a fuitable aromatic, especially when given to an adult, where a large dofe is neceffary; it is therefore ufually acuated by fome other cathartic of a more powerful kind. The efficacy of manna is faid, by Vallifnieri, to be much promoted by caffia fiftularis, a mixture of the two purging more than both of them feparately; it is therefore very properly an ingredient in the electuarium e caffia.'

The virtues of the Arum Maculatum, or Wake Robin, are thus described:

The root is the medicinal part of this plant, which in a recent and lactefcent state is extremely acrimonious, and upon being chewed excites an intolerable fenfation of burning and pricking in the tongue, which continues for feveral hours: when cut into flices and applied to the fkin, it has been known to produce blifters. This acrimony, however, is gradually loft by drying, and may be fo far diffipated by the application of heat, as to leave the root a bland farinaceous aliment; its medical efficacy therefore refides wholly in the active volatile matter, and confequently the powdered root must lofe much of its power on being long kept, a circumftance which very properly caufed the omiffion of the Pulvis ari compofitus in the laft edition of our Pharmacopoeia. Lewis fays.

the fresh and moderately dried roots were digefted in water, in wine, in proof fpirit, and in rectified fpirit, with and without heat: the liquors received no colour, and little or no taste. In diftillation neither fpirit nor water brought over any fenfible impregnation from the Arum. The root, neverthelefs, lofes in thefe operations almost the whole of its pungency +." The qualities of this root are thus enumerated by Bergius: "Virtus recent. ficcata: ftimulans, aperiens, incidens, diuretica; recentis vehementiffima; annofæ nutriens ."-Dr. Cullen § feems to confider it as a general ftimuJant, not only exciting the activity of the digeftive powers, where they happen to be languid, but ftimulating the whole fyftem; ia

* In this ftate it has been made into a wholesome bread. It has also been prepared as ftarch. The root, dried and powdered, is ufed by the French to wash the fkin with, and is fold at a high price, under the name of Cypress Powder: It is undoubtedly a good and innocent cofmetic. Withering, 1. c.-Thefe roots are alfo faid to poffefs a faponaceous quality, and have been used in washing linen, to fupply the place of foap. Raii Hift. p. 1208.'

+ Lewis M. M. 119.'

Tales radices Ari annofæ vix acres funt, prout fupra monuimus, & quæ reftare poteft acrimonia, mitigatur penitus ebullitione. Cæterum plures Ari fpecies apud varias gentes efculenta funt. Nutriunt omnes fuo farinofo. Bergius, 1. c.' Lewis M. M. 722.

§ M. M. vol. 2. 212.

proof