The principal use of the American mandrake is medicinal. It is a very efficient cathartic, due to the presence of a resinous principle known as podophyllin, which has been given the name "vegetable calomel." It is no doubt true that this drug is in no small measure responsible for the decrease in the use of the old-time mineral drug calomel. Both rhizomes and leaves may be employed, but the former contain more of the active principle. The drug is rarely given alone because of the griping it produces; it is combined with hyoscyamus and belladonna, also with aloes and colocynth. In large doses it usually acts as an emetic, which would tend to prevent poisoning from an overdose. Podophyllin has been used in dropsy, scrofula and rheumatic affections. Applied externally it acts as a powerful irritant, similar to capsicum and mustard plaster.
Albert Schneider.
I opened the eyes of my soul.
And behold,
A white river-lily: a lily awake, and aware—
For she set her face upward—aware how in scarlet and gold
A long wrinkled cloud, left behind of the wandering air,
Lay over with fold upon fold,
With fold upon fold.