Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/754

 730 WORMSEED and many diets of the empire were held here. In 1495, under Maximilian, the " eternal peace " was here decreed. Here also took place La- ther's memorable declaration before Charles V. Wonni Cathedral and his first diet, April 18, 1521. Under the Hohenstaufen the population reached 60,000, and at the close of the thirty years' war it still numbered 30,000. In 1689 it was burned by the French. An offensive treaty ( Wormser Traktat) was concluded here Sept. 17, 1743, between England, Maria Theresa as queen of Hungary, and Sardinia. The city suffered much in the early period of the wars of the French revolution. The ancient see of Worms (pop. 20,000) was by the treaty of Lun6- ville (1801) mostly given to France, and one fourth of it on the right bank of the Rhine to Hesse-Darmstadt, the whole reverting in 1814 to the latter country. The colossal monument of Luther, with the figures of the principal re- formers and of the cities of Spire, Magdeburg, and Augsburg, was, after Rietschel's death in 1861, completed by Donndorf and Kietz, and unveiled June 25, 1868. WORMSEED, the popular and trade name for two drugs used as anthelmintics, of very dif- ferent origin and composition. I. The chcno- podium of the United States Pharmacopoeia, often called American wormseed, is the fruit of chenopodium ambrosioides, var. anthelmin- ticinn, or C. anthelminticum of some authors. The structure of the genus is sufficiently de- scribed under PIGWEED ; this belongs to a sec- tion in which the species are scentless and neither smooth nor mealy like the common pigweeds, but furnished with abundant glands containing an aromatic oil. Wormseed is a American Wormaeed (Chenopodl- um ambrosioides, TOT. antbel- mlntlcuni). biennial or perennial, introduced from tropical America, and found in waste places, especially southward. It grows 1 to 2 ft. high, and in the southern states 4 to 5 ft. ; the stem grooved, much branched above, with alter- nate, oblong-lan- ceolate, deeply toothed, and some- times much cut leaves; the minute apetalous flowers in slender termi- nal or axillary ra- cemes. The whole plant has a strong, peculiar, and some- what aromatic odor, due to a vo- latile oil which is especially abun- dant in the seeds. As found in the shops, wormseed consists of small yellowish green grains, about the size of a pin's head, the seed being invested by a thin blad- dery seed vessel ; they have a pungent and bitterish taste. The seeds are used in domes- tic practice and by physicians to expel the round worms in children, and are regarded as very effective. The dose is 20 to 40 grains, but on account of the difficulty of adminis- tering them the oil is most frequently used. The oil, the production of which is peculiar to this country, is mainly prepared in Maryland, where the plant is cultivated for the purpose; it is separated by distillation, and has the proper- ties of the seeds in a concentrated form ; the dose for a child is four to eight drops. II. The European wormseed was probably known to Dioscorides, and has long been in use in various European conn- tries under differ- ent names, such as semen santo- ntOS, semen sane- Euro Wormseed (Artemisia turn, and semen maritima, var. btechmannlana). contra. Its ori- gin was for a long time obscure, but it is now ascertained to be the product of a composita, Artemisia maritima, var. Stechmanniana, nu- merous plants formerly regarded as distinct spe-