New guide to health, or, Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice upon a plan entirely new. With a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for the preparing and administering them to cure disease. To which is added a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure.

  • Thomson, Samuel, 1769-1843.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New guide to health, or, Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice upon a plan entirely new. With a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for the preparing and administering them to cure disease. To which is added a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    79/210 (page 73)
    s a ea i ow OR, BOTANIC FAMILY PHYSICIAN. 73 fully dried and pounded or ground to fine powder; and is used as a part of the bitters, (No.4.) A tea, made of this bark is very good for all cases of indi- gestion, and may befreely used. os BITTER ROOT, on WANDERING MILK WEED. This valuable vegetable grows in meadows and in hedges, and in appearance is somewhat like buck- wheat, having similar white blossoms; when the~ stalk is broken it discharges a milky substance; it has two small pods about the size of the cabbage seed pods, with a silky substance. This ‘herb is wandering, that is, the roots run about under ground to a considerable distance, and produces many stalks which grow up from different parts of the root to the height of about two feet. The kind that iscom- monly known by the name-of wandering milk weed, grows only on upland; there is another kind which grows near rivers and on islands, where high water flows over it—this differs some from the other in ap- pearance; the roots run deep in the sand; it hag leaves and pods like the first, and both are good for medicine; the bark of the root is used. The roots should be dug and dried; and we perfectly dry may be pounded in a mortar, when the bark is easily separated from the woody part. This root is very bitter, and is one of the greatest correctors of the bile I know of; and is an excellent medicine to re- move costiveness, as it will cause the bowels to move ina natural manner. A strong decoction of this root, made b tec pia in hot water, if drank freely will operate as a cathartic, and sometimes ag an emetic; and is most sure to throw off a fever in its first stages. It should be used in all cases of costive- ness a di : - = * a. Ld ma,