Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 2.djvu/117

ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.

55 their juice, while yet only half elaborated is narcotic, hut becomes aromatic and stimulant when it is transformed into the true resinous sap. According to this hypothesis the roots having much mucilage and water and little extractive, ought, not to be poisonous and therefore fit for the food of man. This we find the case in many species though certainly not in all, (for we know that the roots of some are very poisonous) but still often enough to afford much evidence in support of his doctrine. In the juices of the herbaceous part of the plant, the green portion, where extractive abounds and can be easily extracted either by infusion or decoction in water, we find concentrated, the narcotic and poisonous properties of the Hemlock fConium mnculatum J, Cowbane ( Cicuta virosa J, the Dead tongue ( /Enanthe crocata J, Fools Parsley ( jEthma cynapium), Sec, while the pi oner sap such as flows spontaneously from wounds in the bark or otherwise is resinous tonic and aromatic. According to this theory tinctures prepared with pure alcohol, which does not dissolve extractive, should not be narcotic and poisonous, whereas we find both Dr. Christison and Mr. Pereira recommending an alcoholic tincture of the bruised seed, not the leaves, of the hemlock as the best mode of administering that powerful and dangerous medicine. As however DeCandolle's theory so generally accords with experience, I should doubt whether the tincture of Hemlock Seed is possessed of the same narcotic properties as the decoction of the leaves. But should experince prove that the seed are narcotic and that this property is communicated to the tincture, then that preparation, for internal use,ought at once to supersede every other form of administration,not only as affording a preparation not liable to the rapid deterioration of watery preparations, but as holding out the prospect of being so much mote uniform in its strength and certain in its action, than those derived from the leaves. These it is well known are frequently inert ; nay more, are liable to lose their properties through unskilful drying and much more from bad management in the preparation of the extract. It seems scarcely necessary to dwell longer on the properties of this family, which can never be expected to become of importance in this country from the unfitness of the climate for their culture, though these observations might easily be extended to any length. Dr. Lindley, in his Flora Medica, gives a catalogue of no fewer than 126 species more or less suitable for medicinal purposes ; and even that list, copious as it is, might be great- ly extended, hefore however concluding, I may remark, that the common garden cellery when •wild and growing in wet ditches and meadows, its usual station, is an acrid poisonous plant, but changed by culture, becomes a favourite sallad. It seems probable that many others might be similarly changed. The seed of the carrot, Which is warm and carmnative, is supposed to act principally on the urinary organs.

Large and very natural orders such as this, are always difficult to divide and arrange in such a manner as to render them easily available in practice towards of discovering the name of a species, and the present is so peculiarly natural, that some Botanists have even gone so far as to assume that it may almost be looked upon as one vast genus and that only very artificial genera can be obtained by its subdivision. To this idea, even in the abstract, I confess I cannot subscribe, for I canuot but think the association of such plants as Ht/drocotyle and Sanict/Ja in the same genus with Angelica and Past inaca would be most unnatural. But while I object to such sweeping combinations as these, 1 cannot avoid thinking, that the number of genera established in this order is already excessive, that is, so far as I can make out from studying their characters. In support of this opinion the genera Pastinaca and Heracleum may I think be safely quoted, Pimpinella and Ptychotis, it appears to me, may with equal safety be referred to as another example of the same kind, and doubtless many others might he found. This multiplication of genera can scarcely be matter of surprise in an order like this, where the general similarity among the species is so marked that nothing short of the most careful study enables one to distinguish them and where, in consequence, characters most minute and difficult to make out, and these not always constant, are apt to have higher values assigned than they merit. To this cause I am dis- posed to attribute the high value attached to the viltae, which, so far as my owu limited observation enables me to judge, they do not merit, not only as being inconstant, but as being in many instances, from their minuteness, of very difficult application in practice and only to be detected in perfectly ripe seed.