PART ir.

Materia Medica,

281

white aril; at first smooth and closed on every side, but atlength, opening at the apex elastically, it rolls hack and throwsoff the seed with considerable force. 1

Qualities. — This plant is inodorous, and has a pleasant aci-dulous taste. The expressed juice reddens vegetable blues;coagulates milk, and instantly precipitates lime from its solu-tions. Its active principle is superoxalate of potash, which isobtained crystallized from the expressed juice, and sold in theshops under the name of Essential salt of lemons.' The samesalt may be formed by cautiously dropping a solution ofpotash into a saturated solution of the oxalic acid, obtained fromsugar by the action of the nitric acid; the superoxalate preci-pitates as soon as the proper quantity of alkali is added. 3

Medical properties and uses. — Wood-sorrel is refrigerant andantiseptic. Boiled with milk it forms a pleasant whey, whichmay prove a useful refrigerant in fevers, as may also the ex-pressed juice, or the superoxalate obtained from it diluted withwater: but although they are much extolled in inflammatory,bilious, and putrid cases, by the continental physicians, yet theirplace is well and easily supplied by lemon juice, or the citricacid, dissolved in water. The recent herb eaten as a salad,may be serviceable in scorbutic affections.

PAP AVER. Spec. Plant. WW, ii. 1 144.CI. 13. Ord. 1. PoJyandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Rhoeda;ae Linn.

Papaveracae Juss.G. 1015. Corolla four-petalled. Calyx two-leaved. Capsule one-celled, opening by pores under the persistent stigma.** tuith smooth capsules.Sp. 5. P- Rhoeas. Corn or Red Poppy Med. Bot. Id edit. 387.

t. 139. Smith Flora. Brit. 567. Eng. Bot. 645.Sp.l. V.somniferum. White Poppy. Med. Bot. 2d edit. 376. t.l3S.Smith Flora. Brit. 568.

1. Papaver Rhoeas. 4Officinal. Rhoeades petala. Lond. Papaver erraticum ; pe-tala. Dub. Petals of the Red Poppy.

Syn. Coquelicot (F.) Klatschrossen [G.) P;issavero s-ilvatieo (/.) Adomiidera sylvestre ,Amapofa (S.)

This species of the poppy is an indigenous annual, growingin the greatest abundance in corn-fields, and waste places, andflowering in June and July. The stem rises about a foot inheight, is branched, and every where furnished with stifhsh

1 Gtertner de Fruchbus, ii. 152. t. 113. fig. 5.

* This salt is prepared on the continent by the following process: The juice is al-lowed to subside after being slightly heated, and then clarified by adding to it water, inwhich a small portion of fine clay is suspended. This clarified juice is next boiled till apellicle forms on its surface, awl put aside for a month to crystallize; the operation beingrepeated until the whole of the salt is obtained, when it is purified by a second crystal-lization. Annates de Chimie, xir. 7. The essential salt of limon of theahops is gene-rally one half cream of tartar.

3 Crell't Annals, (trans.) i,lo7. 4 'Paxi Dioscoridii.