Volume 1

Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London.

  • Woodville, William, 1752-1805.
Date:
1790-1793
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ( '72 ) lobes or pointed ferrated fegments, of a bluifli green colour: the footftalks are long, tapering, purplifh, and inferted in the difc of the leaf (peltated) : the flowers are male and female on the fame plant, and produced in a cluftered terminal fpike: the ?nale flowers are without a corolla, and confift of a calyx, divided into five oval pointed purplifh fegments, enclofing numerous long ftamina, which unite at the bafe : the female flowers occupy'the upper part of the fpike, and have the calyx cut into three narrow fegments, of a reddifh colour: the ftyles are three, (lender, and forked at the apex : the capfule is a large three-celled nut, covered with tough fpines, and contains three flattifh oblong feeds, || which are forced out on the burfting of the capfule. It is a native of both the Indies, and flowers in July and Auguft. This plant appears to be the Kw, or kof Diofcorides/ who obferves that the feeds are powerfully cathartic ; -f* it is alfo men- tioned by iEtius, Paulus /Egineta, and Pliny. The Ricinus was firffc cultivated in England in the time of Turner,b (1562) and is now annually reared in many gardens in the neighbourhood of London; and in that of Dr. Saunders/ at Highbury, the plant from which the j] Hujus cuilibet loculo inert nux ovata, utrinque comprerta, interiori praecipue fuper- ficie, quae et linea longitudinali diftinguitur, magnitudine feminis Phafeoli minoris flore phceniceo, hilo prominente furfum notato, cui callus ante adhaeferat. Cortex ex bruno luteoque variegatus, fragilis, cingit nucleum album, veftitum cuticula tenella concotore—• Figurae feminis cum infedto Prtcino (Acaro Ricino L.) bobus & canibus infefto, fimili- tudo anfam denominationis totius plantae dedit. Murr. Ap. Med. vol. iv. p. 197. a Mat, Med. lib. 4. cap. 164. 4 Their violent and irritating effedfs in this way are noticed by almoft all the Materia Medica writers, and feem to be confirmed byThunberg, (DiJJ. die Medicina Africanorum^ p. 4. and Browne, (l. c.). This acrimony however appears from later experiments to be owing to the membranes which invert the kernel, (vide Heyer in Crells n. chem. Entdeck. P. 2. p. 47. Alfo Glendenbe'rg in ejufd. chem. Anna!. 1785. vol. ii. p. 34.J Bergius fays, “ Semen unicum Ricini vulgaris, tempore vefpertino, a viro fano & vegeto marticatum & deglutitum, fapore fuit amygdalarum, fed fenfatiohem mordentem in fau- cibus reliquit. Per totam nodtem tranquille dormivit hie vir ; fed fequente die mane expergefactus, emefi violentia correptus fuit atque per totam diem fuftinuit nifus alter- nantes vomituritionis & purgationis alvi, tametfi parum dejiciebat. Eadem vice nobilis matrona teners conftitudonis, femen unicum pari ter comedit, fed prius teftam membranam- que obvelantem feuulo feparavit abjecitque ; & nullam noxam inde fen fit.” M. M. p. 774* , b Vide Hort. Kevj. c From the number of feeds which the Docrtor has lately procured from different parts of the globe, and his feientific and folicitous care in their cultivation, we are induced to hope, that Medical Botany, under fuch aufpices, will eventually receive confiderable illuftration. prefent