Similar Plants.—Malva officinalis; M. rotundifolia; M. mauritanica;
Lavatera arborscens.
This root gives name to an officinal syrup [L. E.] and ointment [L.] and is likewise an ingredient in the compound powder of gum tragacanth [L. E.] and the oil and plaster of mucilages [L.] though it does not appear to communicate any particular virtue to the two last, its mucilaginous matter not being dissoluble in oils.—Lewis's Mat. Med.
167. AMYGDALUS communis. SWEET and BITTER ALMONDS. L. E. D.—The oils obtained by expression from both sorts of almonds are in their sensible qualities the same. The general virtues of these oils are, to blunt acrimonious humours, and to soften and relax the solids: hence their use internally, in tickling coughs, heat of urine, pains and inflammations: and externally in tension and rigidity of particular parts.
168. ANCHUSA tinctoria. ALKANET-ROOT. E. D.—Alkanet-root has little or no smell: when recent, it has a bitterish astringent taste, but when dried scarcely any. As to its virtues, the present practice expects not any from it. Its chief use is for colouring oils, unguents, and plasters. As the colour is confined to the cortical part, the small roots are best, these having proportionally more bark than the large.
169. ANETHUM graveolens. DILL. The Seeds. L.—Their taste is moderately warm and pungent; their smell aromatic, but not of the most agreeable kind. These seeds are recommended as a carminative, in flatulent colics proceeding from a cold cause or a viscidity of the juices. The most efficacious preparations of them are, the distilled oil, and a tincture or extract made with rectified spirit. The oil and simple water distilled from them are kept in the shops.—Lewis.
170. ANETHUM Foeniculum. FENNEL. Seeds. E.—These are supposed to be stomachic and carminative; but this, and indeed all the other effects ascribed to them, as depending upon their stimulant and aromatic qualities, must be less considerable than those of Dill, Aniseed, or Caraway, though termed one of the four greater hot seeds.—Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 129.
171. ANGELICA Archangelica. GARDEN ANGELICA. The Root, Leaves, and Seeds. E.—All the parts of Angelica, especially the roots, have a fragrant aromatic smell, and a pleasant bitterish warm taste, glowing upon the lips and palate for a long time after they have been chewed. The flavour of the seeds and leaves is very perishable, particularly that of the latter, which, on being barely dried, lose greatest part of their taste and smell: the roots are more tenacious of their flavour, though even these lose part of it upon keeping. The fresh root, wounded early in the spring, yields and odorous yellow juice, which slowly exsiccated proves an elegant gummy resin, very rich in the virtues of the Angelica. On drying the root, this juice concretes into distinct moleculae, which, on cutting it longitudinally, appear distributed in little veins: in this state they are extracted by pure spirit, but not by watery liquors.
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.