This resin is considered one of the most elegant aromatics of European growth, though little regarded in the present practice, and is rarely met with in prescription; neither does it enter any officinal composition.

172.  Anthemis nobilis.  Chamomile.  The Flowers.  L.E.D.—­These have a strong not ungrateful, aromatic smell, but a very bitter nauseous taste.  They are accounted carminative, aperient, emollient, and in some measure anodyne:  and stand recommended in flatulent colics, for promoting the uterine purgations, in spasmodic affections, and the pains of women in child-bed:  sometimes they have been employed in intermittent fevers, and the nephritis.  These flowers are also frequently used externally in discutient and antiseptic fomentations, and in emollient glysters.  The double-flowered variety is usually cultivated for medicine, but the wild kind with single flowers is preferable.

Similar Plants.—­Anthemis arvensis; A. Cotula; Pyrethrum maritimum.

173.  Anthemis Pyrethrum.  Pellitory of Spain.  The Root.  L.—­The principal use of Pyrethrum in the present practice is as a masticatory, for promoting the salival flux, and evacuating viscid humours from the head and neighbouring parts:  by this means it very generally relieves the tooth-ach, pains of the head, and lethargic complaints.  If a piece of the root, the size of a pea, be placed against the tooth, it instantly causes the saliva to flow from the surrounding glands, and gives immediate relief in all cases of that malady.

174.  Apium Petroselium.  Common parsley.  The Root.  E.—­Both the roots and seeds of Parsley are directed by the London College for medicinal use:  the former have a sweetish taste, accompanied with a slight warmth of flavour somewhat resembling that of a carrot; the latter are in taste warmer and more aromatic than any other part of the plant, and also manifest considerable bittenress.

These roots are said to be aperient and diuretic, and have been employed in apozems to relieve nephritic pains, and obstructions of urine.

Although Parsley is commonly used at table, it is remarkable that facts have been adducted to prove, that in some constitutions it occasions epilepsy, or at least aggravates the epileptic fit in those who are subject to this disease.  It has been supposed also to produce inflammation in the eyes.—­Woodville’s Med.  Bot. p. 43.  A variety which produces larger roots, called Hamburgh Parsley, is commonly grown for medicinal uses.

175.  Arbutus Uva Ursi.  Trailing Arbutus or bear-berry.  The Leaves.—­This first drew the attention of physicians as an useful remedy in calculous and nephritic affections; and in the years 1763 and 1764, by the concurrent testimonies of different authors, it acquired remarkable celebrity, not only for its efficacy in gravelly complaints, but in almost every other to which the urinary organs are liable, as ulcers of the kidneys and bladder, cystirrhoea, diabetes, &c.  It may be employed either in powder or decoction; the former is most commonly preferred, and given in doses from a scruple to a dram two or three times a-day.—­ Woodville’s Med.  Botany.