and gave her sister two spoonsful twice in an interval of two hours. The first effect was, a tranquil profound sleep of twelve hours, during which the pulse and breathing returned to their natural state: after which all sense of pain and every other symptom disappeared. The next day she boiled the roots which had the juice expressed out of them, in a gallon of water, and made her drink the decoction:

Having procured some of the roots and expressed the juice, I began the experience of its qualities upon myself, at tea-spoonful doses. From the first dose I found no other effect, than an unusual flow of spirits; but by continuing the dose, drowsiness, nausea, head-ach, and at length sleep ensued, from which, however, I awoke next morning perfectly refreshed, and had three copious emotions downwards. I preserved some of the juice of the young sappy roots of the zanthoxylum in rum, and some with sirup. These preservations answer all the intentions of the juice, and have frequently administered them in complaints of the bowels with constant success.

An old man of eighty years of age, was seized with convulsions, every hour, similar to epileptic fits, which continued without intermission for four and twenty hours. On being sent for, I immediately gave him a wine glass of the juice preserved in rum. The fit which succeeded the first glass

was much lighter, and the second was little else. than a comatose state, after which, a sound sleep of ten hours, removed all appearance of the disorder except lassitude.

This fungus is sessile, horizontal, consisting of a hard woody substance something like a horse's hoof, the upper side smooth, having circular markings, or ridges, the under side flat, of a white yellowish colour, and full of minute pores.

HISTORY.

It is frequently met with on different kind of trees, viz. the oak, cherry, and plumb, and a spungy sort is found on white pine and old hickory trees. which the Indians call punk.

MEDICAL VIRTUES.

The punk which grows on old hickory and white pine, is not only good for catching fire with flint and steel, but makes an excellent pleasant bitter when infused in spirits.

PREPARATION.

The heart, or medullary part of this agaric of the oak, is to be beaten into a soft powder, and applied over arterial hæmorrhagias, without the use of ligatures. Several English surgeons, Sharp, Warner, Gooch, and others, have published cases, in which the agaric was successfully used. Two ounces of the touch-wood off the white pine cut thin, will be sufficient with two ounces of orange peel, to make a pleasant bitter, equal to the impor ted English gentian, and is a good substitute for it. Take two ounces of the bitter white touchwood of the white pine, and one ounce of orange peel, infused in a gallon of brandy for a week: dose, a table-spoonful taken before meals in a little water, creates a good appetite.

The leaves of tumeric are six inches long, and three or four inches broad, of a bright green colour, and pointed at the end: the flowers grow on stalks ten inches high and about the thickness of the little finger, which are of a pale redish colour, collected in a cone of an oblong figure.

HISTORY.

It is a perennial plant, grows plentifully in WestFlorida and in New-Orleans. The roots are tuberous, long, knotty, wrinkled, outwardly of a pale

yellow colour, internally of a shining saffron brown, and have an aromatic smell, and a slight aromatic taste.

MEDICAL VIRTUES.

The root has been formerly celebrated for the cure of the jaundice, diseases of the liver, &c. it excites a moderate degree of warmth in the mouth, imparts to the saliva a yellow dye, and to the urine a yellow colour. In the present practice, it has been found beneficial in removing the obstructions of the menses, and is effectual in giving speedy relief in fits of the gravel and in resolving tumours.

PREPARATION.

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For the stone in the gall bladder, which may known by feeling a pain in the lower part of the belly on the right side, with a pain in making water, let the patient take near a tea-spoonful of the powder of tumeric root in half a pint of warm ale, with a small piece of fresh butter, about the size of a walnut, melted in it, shake the vessel well, and let him drink it as warm as he can bear, and soak his feet in warm water for fifteen minutes before going to bed, which will give him immediate relief. A certain gentleman, by making use of the above medicine, was relieved of his pains and voided a large quantity of gravel by stool, which was the means of restoring him to perfect health.