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Materia Medica,

Part II.

general the same properties as the garlic, but in a muchweaker degree. Neumann extracted from 480 parts of thedry root, by means of alcohol, 360, and then by water 30 ;by water applied first 395, and then by alcohol 30: the firstresiduum weighed 56, and the second 64. By distillation thewhole flavour of the onion passed over, but no oil could beobtained.

Medical uses. —Onions are considered rather as an articleof food than of medicine: they are supposed to yield little orno nourishment, and when eaten liberally produce flatulence,occasion thirst, headach, and turbulent dreams : in coldphlegmatic habits, where viscid mucus abounds, they doubt-less have their use; as by their stimulating quality they tendto excite appetite, and promote the secretions: by some theyare strongly recommended in suppression of urine, and indropsies. The chief medicinal use of onions in the presentpractice is in external applications, as a cataplasm for suppu-rating tumours, &c.

Sp. 2. Allium porrum. Lond.Leek.

Off— The root.Porri radix. Lond.

The common leek is rather an article of the Materia Ali-mentaria, than of the Materia Medica. In its properties, itis analogous to garlic, but weaker even than the commononion. A decoction of the beards or filaments of the bulbs-issupposed by the vulgar to be lithontriptic. It is perhaps onthe same belief that it is admitted by the London College.

Aloe.

Willd.g. 659__ HexandriaMonogynia. —Nat. ox&.Liliacece.

Sp. 2. Aloe spicata. Dub. Lond.Sp. 3. Aloe perfoliata. Ed.

The London College now agree with that of Dublin, andwith Thunberg, in indicating the Aloe spicata as the specieswhich produces the Socotorire aloes, and they assume as thesource of the Barbadfbes aloes, a species to be described un-der the name of Aloe vulgaris, in the great work of the lateDr Sibthorpe, the Flora Graeca, now preparing for publica-tion by Dr Smith, who informed Dr Powell, the authorisedtranslator and commentator of the London Pharmacopoeia," that the plant described under the above name is assertedby Dr Sibthorpe to be the true Aloe of Dioscorides, which is

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