SENNA.
This plant rises from two to four feet in hight, resembling a shrub, and sending out hollow, woody stems; leaves in alternate order, compound, composed of several pairs, oval, pointed and nerved pinnæ, of a yellowish green color; flowers yellow, forming a spike consisting of five petals; the pod is curved and short. It grows in Canada, along the Ottawa river, in great quantities. It has been customary to reject the pedicles of the leaves of senna, but this is mere prejudice, for both leaves and pedicles act in the same way. The American senna operates milder than the senna that is imported, but it must be given in a larger dose.
Pour a pint of boiling water on eight drachms of American senna, and put a teaspoonful of ginger, or the powder of masterwort root, to it; let it stand in the pot for fifteen minutes for use; sweetened, with milk in it, it will prove a mild purge without griping. Children may take one or two teacupsful twice a day. Adults may take a desert-spoonful of the powder, with a teaspoonful of ginger, night and morning. As a safe and gentle purge, the following electuary is an excellent laxative for loosening the bowels of persons of costive habits: Take of senna leaves, powdered, six ounces, masterwort or ginger, one ounce, pulp of French prunes one pound, pulp of tamarinds two ounces, molasses one pint and a half, essential oil of caraway two drachms; boil the pulps in the molasses to the consistence of honey, then add the powders, and when the mixture cools put in the oil, and mix the whole intimately. Dose, a teaspoonful twice a day.
AVENS.
This plant rises a foot in hight; root fibrous, very pleasant and aromatic; leaves large and lyre shape; stalks upright and hirsute; flowers yellow and terminal. It is a perennial plant, and grows wild in the uncultivated fields of New Jersey and the New England states. Flowers from June to July; the roots are fibrous, of a dark red color externally, and white internally; has the flavor of cloves, with a bitterish, astringent taste. The large roots are preferable to the fibrous ones, which must be dug up in April, cut into thin slices and dried in the air as quick as possible. After being pulverized, sift the powder through a hair sieve and put it in bottles, well corked, for use. It is a good febrifuge, and is really an excellent substitute for the Jesuit bark in the cure of intermittent fevers, dysentery, chronic diarrhœa, wind colic, effections of the stomach, asthmatic symptoms, and cases of debility.
Preparation.—After the patient has taken a puke of the American ipecacuanha, and the fever is off, a teaspoonful of the powder may be administered every hour until the fever is broke, then use my stomach bitters, mentioned in this work, in order to prevent a relapse. Take of aven root two ounces, arum root half an ounce, (in powder,) skunk cabbage balls, in powder, half an ounce, gentian and masterwort, each half an ounce, sugar candy one ounce; mix one tablespoonful of these powders and boil them in one quart of rain water and one pint of new milk, for an hour. In all debilitating complaints, or beginning consumptions, the patient may take two teacupsful of this chocolate morning and evening, sweetened with loaf sugar, and ride out every day two hours before dinner.
GARDEN PÆONIE.
This plant rises two feet in hight; leaves cut into lobes which are oblong, or if pinnated, terminate by an odd pinnæ; capsules, two; oblong hirsute, and crowned with a stigma. It grows plentifully in the gardens throughout the United States. The seed is imported from Switzerland; it is noted for its virtues in the cure of epilepsy, and fits in children. The root must be dug in March, dried and pulverized, and kept in bottles, close corked, for use. Adults, subject to epilepsy, may take a desert-spoonful of the powder four times a day, in a teacupful of bitter sweet tea, made as follows: Pour a quart of boiling water on an ounce of the bruised dry bark of bitter sweet, taken from off the roots, and sweeten the tea with sugar; give to children, two years old, ten grains of the powder four times a day, in molasses, and wash it down with the bitter sweet tea. Apply the bruised roots to the soles of the feet when going to bed.