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 EUPATOPJUM The town was provided with fortifications by order of Omar Pasha, who was at the head of the Turkish troops in 1855. The Kussians made an ineffectual attack on it Feb. 17, 1855. It was evacuated by the allies after the ratifi- cation of the peace of Paris, May 30, 1856. EUPATORIUM. See BONESET. EUPEN (Fr. Neau), a town of Prussia, in the province of the Rhine, capital of a circle of the same name, situated near the Belgian frontier, 9 m. S. of Aix-la-Chapelle ; pop. in 1871, 14,696. It has a Protestant and three Catholic churches, a town school of a high grade, an orphan asylum, and a court of prima- ry jurisdiction. It is one of the most flourish- ing manufacturing towns of the province. EUPHORBIA, the typical genus of the botani- cal family euphorbiacece, or spurges, said to have been so named from Euphorbus, physician to Juba, king of Mauritania. The flowers are mono3cious, collected within an involucre often closely simulating a calyx or corolla ; male flowers consisting of a single stamen on a pedi- cel arising from the axil of a minute bract at the base of the involucre ; fertile flower soli- tary in the middle of the involucre, consisting of a three-celled, three-lobed ovary, with a mere vestige of calyx, and borne on a pedicel which finally elongates and inclines to one side of the involucre ; styles three, stigmas six. The pod separates into three one-seeded carpels. Plants or shrubs, often with a milky, acrid juice. The leaves are whorled or opposite, and some- times wanting, the stem being succulent, and the plant assuming the appearance of a cactus. It is a cosmopolitan genus of many and diverse species. Some are commonly cultivated as or- namental plants, as E. pulcherrima (Poinsettia) EUPHRATES 777 Euphorbia officinarum. of Mexico, whose floral leaves are 4 or 5 in. long and of the brightest vermilion red; E. splendens of the Mauritius, with thick, prickly stems, and cymes of deep red bract-surrounded flowers. The gum resin, euphorUum, is gath- ered in Africa from E. officinarum and E. an- and in the Canaries from E. Cana- nensis; it flows from incisions made in the stems, and is extremely acrid, producing vio- lent inflammation of the nostrils in those who handle it. In India this gum is used external- ly in rheumatism, internally in cases of severe Euphorbia ipecacuanha. constipation. E. Tirucalli is common near Madras, where it is used for hedging ; no cat- tle will touch the leaves; the fresh juice of this species is used as a vesicant. The roots of many species are emetic. Of our native spe- cies, the principal and the only one of general interest is E. ipecacuanha (wild ipecac), which was considered by Barton equal in value to the genuine ipecacuanha (cepJiaelis), and it possesses the advantage of having no disagreeable taste or smell. E. lathyris was one of the plants Charlemagne in his capitularies commanded to be cultivated in all monastic gardens, as its seeds were purgative and known as zemina cataputice minoris. It is said that the capsules of this plant stupefy fish ; it is well known that E. Hibernica and E.piscatoria are so used, and so powerful is the former that a small basket- ful of the bruised plant will stupefy the fishes for several miles down a river. E. Cattimandu furnishes a caoutchouc ; and notwithstanding the generally poisonous qualities of the genus, E. edulis is a pot herb, its acrid qualities being dispelled by boiling. E, lalsamifera is used in the same way. Many species of euphorbia grow in poor sandy soil, through which the roots penetrate to a depth of several yards. Violent vomiting and purging are often pro- duced in children by eating the seeds of a variegated-leaved euphorbia cultivated as an ornamental plant. The uncertainty of their action forbids their general use as medicine. EUPHRATES (Turk. Frat the largest river of western Asia. It rises from two chief sources in the Armenian mountains; one of them at Dumly, 25 m. N. E. of Erzerum, the other on the northern slope of the Ala Dagh,