Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/393

 SAG

SAG

be cured by taking them up, peeling off their outer hufks, and drying them in the fun. This feparates the worft part of the deftruaive plant, and the reft becomes foon dried and withered, and incapable ©f farther vegetation, while the root itfelf is uninjured, and when put into the ground will moot again. Mem. Acad. Par. 1728.

The yellow tinge, which this medicine is able to give to the fluids, is carried fo far, that no juice efcapes it. Amatus Lufitanus gives an account of a fcetus in a mother's womb, tinged yellow, by her taking very frequently medicines with faffron in them. This had been difputed and difbelieved by many. But an experiment made at Leipfick on a bitch big with puppies, reftored the credit of Amatus. For on giving this crtsXMid faffron frequently among her food, the puppies had their flefli and the whites of their eyes, when opened, dyed yellow with it ; though the chyle, in the lactcals, was not yellow but whitifh. However, it does not feem im- proper to verify the experiment farther.

Tree Saffron, in natural hiftory, the name of an Eaft-In- dian flirub, which grows to about two feet high, having fquare branches, which are befet with leaves in pairs. The pedicles of the flowers come from the ala,- of the leaves, and are branched, each pedicle fupporting about five flowers ; thefe are of the fhape of the jafmine flowers, and are white above, and of the fine reddifh yellow colour of faffron below. The flowers never open but in the night, and then do not per- fectly expand themfelves, but all the petals remain in fuch a pofition, that they can clofe inftantaneouffy on occafion of the leaft heat ; they are placed each in a green cup, to which they are fo flightly faftened, that the leaft motion makes them fall. They feldom ftand more than four days, often not fo long ; the flowers have no fmell, but are of a cordial virtue, approaching to that of faffron. Mem. Acad. Paris, 1699. Meadow Saffron, cokhicum, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The flower is Of the liliaceous kind, but confitts only of one leaf which arifes immediately from the root, in form of a fine fiender tube, and by degrees expands and enlarges, and becomes divided into fix fegments. The piftil arifes from the bottom of the flower, and terminates in feveral very {lender fila- ments ; this finally becomes a fruit of an oblong trigonal form, which is divided into three cells, and contains round- ifh feeds. To this it is to be added, that the root is doubly tuberofe, one part being flefhy, and the other tuberofe, and both are covered with a common membrane. The fpecies of cokhicum enumerated by Mr. Tournefort are thefe. 1. The common colchiaim. 2. The white cokhicum with purple lines. 3. The common cokhicum with a leaf veined with white. 4. The common cokhicum with a leaf painted with yellow. 5. The common French cokhicum with fmgle blackifh purple flowers. 6. The cokhicum which flowers both in fpring and autumn. 7. The Englifh nar- row leaved white flowered cokhicum. 8. The cokhicum with flowers mottled with white and red. 9. The many flower- ing cokhicum. 10. The white cokhicum with red Breaks. 11. The many flowered variegated cokhicum. 12. The broad leaved variegated cokhicum. 13. The cokhicum varie- gated with a deep purple and mow white. 14. The cokhi- cum variegated with a paler purple and a grey ifli white. 15, The cokhicum with flowers, teflelated like the fritillaries. 16. The Coan purple cokhicum, with large, broad, and curled deep green leaves. 17. The double Portugal cokhi cum with flem coloured and purple flowers. 18. The col- chicunfwixh narrow variegated fegments of the flower. 19, The double flowered variegated cokhicum. 20. The many flowered, broad leaved, variegated cokhicum. 21. The white many flowered cokhicum. 22. The broad leaved many flowered cokhicum with white hellebore leaves. 23. The double autumnal many flowered cokhicum. 24. The vernal many flowered cokhicum with broad convoluted leaves. ■25. The double flowered common cokhicum. 26. The many flowered double white cokhicum. 27. The double many flowered cokhicum with teflelated flowers. 28. The vernal Spanifh cokhicum ; and 29. The narrow leaved mountain cokhicum. Tourn. Inft. p. 349.

Syrup of Saffron. This medicine is thus made : take fine faffron an ounce, cut it fmall, and put it to infufe in a pint of mountain wine ; let it ftand three days without heat, then ftrain off the wine ; to which, after filtration, add twenty- five ounces of double refined fugar: melt the fugar over a gentle heat, and then fet it by for ufe.

TinSfure of Saffron, a preparation made as follows : take faffron an ounce, cut it fmall, and pour on it in a matrafs a pint of proof fpirit ; let them ftand together three days without heat, often making the veflel, then filter off the t'mclure for ufe. Its dofe is from thirty drops to a drachm or more. It is good in all cafes where the faffron in fub- ftance is.

If the fame quantity of wine be ufed inftead of fpirit, it is called vitium crocatum, faffron wine,

SAGADENON, a name given by the antients to what they fay was the very fineft kind of opobalfamum, produced in Paleftine and the country thereabout.

SAGDA, orPsAGDA, in natural hiftory, the name of a ftone defcribed by Aldrovand, which he fays is of a green colour, and has the property of attracting wood. Pliny and the antients give this name to a gem of a greenifti colour, very much efteemed at that time ; and about the ori- gin of which the antients had many fabulous reports. Solinus tells us, that it is produced at the bottom of the feaj and thence rifes up of itfelf as mips pafs over the place where it is, and fixes itfelf to their bottoms, and that it cannot be got off again without cutting away a part of the wood. This author has generally taken his accounts of things from Pliny ; though he has been at the pains to difguife them, in fuch a manner, that they are often unintelligible. All that Pliny fays on this occafion, is, that the fagda was of a green co- lour, and was found by the Chaldaeans at the bottoms of their mips ; even this, however, is not very intelligible, unlefs they meant that the {hips which traded to the Red Sea, and lay long in the harbours, and were fometimes aground, picked up at their bottoms the ftones which make up the fhores, and fome of thefe are of the jafper kind, and ufually green ; at this rate it could not be a ltone of any great value, nor do we indeed find any where that it was, except in Solinus.

It is to be obferved, that the antients called a certain ointment by the name fagda as well as this ftone ; this ointment was green, and probably the ftone had its name from the refembling it in colour. This was a cuftom common among the writers of early times; and they have the names o! libanoth, myrrhites, JiafiachateS) and aromatites, from the refemblance which certain agates and jafpers had to the drugs, &c. in common ufe among them. SAGE, jalvia, in botany. See Salvia.

The feveral forts of fige propagated either for the kitchen, or for medicine in our gardens, are to be produced by cuttings planted in any of the fummer months, watering and fbading them till they have taken root, and after that they mould be removed to a dry foil, where they may have the benefit of the fun. Millet's Gardners Diet".

Sage has always been efteemed a cephalic and fudorific. An infufion of it made in the manner of tea, has been long fa- mous as the common drink of people in fevers. It is atte- nuant and diuretic, promotes the menfes, and is good in vertigoes, tremors, palfles, and catarrhs. There ufed to be a fyrup, conferve, and iimple water of fage kept in the mops ; which are all difufed, and the dried herb only retained. Sage apples-, a name given by naturalifts to a fort of foft gall, or protuberance, found frequently on the leaves and ftalks of fage in the eaftern parts of the world, and much refembling the foft gall of the oak leaf, called the oak apple. Thefe are both owing to the fame caufe, the puncture of an infect of the fly kind, which depofits its eggs in the wound, and the worms or maggots hatched from thofe eggs feed on the in- fide of the gall, and occafion a preternatural derivation of juices to the part, whence it fwells and aflumes this form. The leaves of many other plants are alfo liable to the fame acci- dent, particulaily thofe of ground-ivy, on which there grow eatable galls of this kind. The fage apples are fo frequent . in the eaff, that they are brought to market at Conftanti- nople, and eaten as delicacies. See Galls.

SAGENE, a Ruffian sneafure equivalent to feven Englifh feet. Five hundred fa genes make a werft. Phil. Tranf. N° 445. Sect. 7. SccWekst,

SAG1MEN vitri, a name given by fome of the chemifts to any alkaline fait.

SAGLNA, in the Linnaean fyftem of botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The cup is a four leaved perianthium remaining after the flower is fallen ; the leaves being of an ova 1 figure, hollow, and fpread very open. The flower is compofed of four oval obtufe petals, fhorter than the leaves of the cup, and fpread wide open. The ftamina are four capillary filaments, the antheras are roundiih. The germ en of the piftil is of a globofe figure j the ftyles are four in number, tapering in fhape, and bent back ; thefe are downy, and the ftigmata are fimple. The fruit is a capfule, of an oval figure, con- taining four cells, with four valves. The feeds are nume- rous and very fmall, and are fixed to the receptacle. Linnesi Gen. PI. p. 55.

SAGITTARIUA'I akxipharmacum, in the materia medica, the name of a root cultivated with great care in Jamaica, and fuppofed a remedy for the wounds of poifonous arrows. The plant of which it is the root is the carina indica radice alba. Sloan's Hift. 1. p. 253. but its virtues have not yet brought it into ufe on this fide the water, Dale, Pharm. p. 250.

SAGITTATED leaf among botanifts. See Leaf.

SAGOCHLAMYS, among the Romans, a fort of garment that partly refembled the fa gum and partly the chlamys. See Sagum and Chlamys, Cycl. Pitifc. in voc.

SAGOUIN, in zoology, the name of a very beautiful fmall fpecies of monkey, defcribed by Clufius, and feeming the fame with cog id minor of Marggrave. See Cogui. Clufius fays it is of the fize of a fquirrcl, and has the look

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