There is a pathetic view to be taken of the great plant’s present condition.  For years it has been preparing to flower, and the shoot it has sent up is the dying effort.  The blossoms carry in them the life of new plants, and the old plant dies in giving them birth.  It is commonly supposed that this plant, the Agave Americana, or American aloe, blooms only at the end of 100 years, hence the common name century plant.

Only two plants are on record among the floriculturists as having bloomed in New York State.  Thirty years ago, a century plant, of which the Casey aloe was a slip, flowered in the greenhouses of the Van Rensselaer family at Albany.  In 1869, a second plant blossomed at Rochester.  At present, two aloes, one at Albany, the other at Brooklyn, are reported as giving evidences of approaching maturity.  They are pronounced not American aloes, or century plants, but Agave Virginica, a plant of the same family commonly found in sterile soil from Virginia to Illinois and south, and blossoming much more frequently.  In Mexico the century plant is turned to practical account and made a profitable investment to its owners.  After the scape has reached its full growth it is hewn down, and the sap, which fills the hollow at its base, is ladled out and converted by fermentation into “agave wine,” or “pulque,” the favorite drink of the Mexicans.  This pulque, or octli, has an acid resembling that of cider, and a very disagreeable odor, but the taste is cooling and refreshing.  A brandy distilled from pulque is called “aquardiente,” or “mexical.”  The plant, by tapping, can be made to yield a quart of sap daily.  The fibers of the leaves when dried furnish a coarse thread known as Pita flax, and when green are used in Mexico as fodder for cattle.  Razor strops or hones are also made from the leaves, which contain an abundance of silica and give rise to a very sharp edge on a knife applied with friction across the surface of the dried leaf.

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CREOSOTE A SPECIFIC FOR ERYSIPELAS.

Time was when the advocate of a specific was laughed at by the scientific world, but since it is known that so many forms of disease are the direct result of some kind of germ life, it is no longer a misnomer to call a medicine which will certainly and always destroy the germ which produces so many forms of disease a specific.

In the light of this definition, founded upon the experience of forty years’ successful practice in treating this form of disease with creosote, the writer is prepared to indorse the heading of this article.  Having used all the different remedies ordinarily prescribed, they have long since been laid aside, and this one used in all forms of the disease exclusively, and with uniform success.

In 1863 it was the writer’s fortune to spend several weeks in a military hospital in Memphis as a volunteer surgeon, under the direction of Dr. Lord.  In conversation with him, the use of this article was mentioned, which appeared new to him, and a case was put under treatment with it, with such prompt favorable results as to elicit his hearty commendation, and, at his suggestion, Surgeon-General Hammond was informed of it.