part ii. Materia Medica. — Myroxyli Balsamum. 395

matic, and its taste fatty, pungent, and bitterish. It appearsto be a vegetable cerate, or a triple compound of fixed oil,volatile oil, and wax. Besides the genuine expressed oil, thereare two other sorts found in the shops; one, which is said to comefrom Holland, of a paler colour, and in flat square cakes ; andanother, which is an artificial composition of suet, palm oil,and spermaceti, scented with a little volatile oil of nutmeg.Mace resembles the nutmeg in its odour and taste, but is morepungent and bitter. It is in Iaciniated, flexible, thin pieces,unctuous to the feel, and of a deep reddish yellow colour. Al-cohol and ether extract its active principles; and when theethereal tincture is evaporated on water, a thick deep yellow-coloured, very pungent, and odorous oil is left in drops on thesurface of the water, with some resin : and a small portion ofextractive is deposited, but no waxy granular matter.

Medical properties and uses. 1 —As the medical properties ofnutmeg and mace depend on the essential oil they contain, theyagree in these circumstances ; and both are stimulant, carmin-ative, and, in large doses, narcotic. Mace is more generally usedas a culinary spice; but the nutmeg and its volatile oil are infrequent use to cover the disagreeable taste of other medicines;and are sometimes ordered in cases of languors, vomiting anddiarrhoea, and in flatulent colic. On account of the narcoticproperty of the oil, nutmeg should be cautiously employed inapoplectic and paralytic habits. In India its dangerous effectshave been frequently felt 2 ; and in this country instances haveoccurred in which the nutmeg, taken in large quantity, pro-duced drowsiness, great stupor, and insensibility; and, onawakening, delirium which alternated with sleep for severalhours. 3 The volatile oil is sometimes used as an external sti-mulant, and the expressed oil is seldom employed for any otherpurpose. The dose of the nutmeg and the mace is from grs.v. to 3j ,• that of the volatile oil, titij, to ftfcvi.

Officinal preparation. Spiritus Myristica, L. Ii. D.

MYROXYLON. Spec. Plant. Willd. ii. 546.CI. 10. Ord. 1. Decandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Lomentaceae,

Linn. Leguminosae, Juss.G. 829. Calyx bell-shaped, five-toothed. Pclals five, the upper

one larger than the others. German longer than the corolla.

Legume with one seed only at the point.Species 1. M. peruifcrum. Sweet-smelling Balsam-tree. Hernan-dez No'ca Plant. &jc. Mexican. Hist.fol. 51. cum jigura.Officinal. Myroxyli Peruiferi Balsamum, Edin. Peruvian

Balsam.

Sy)!. Baume de Perou {F.), Feruviauisdicr Balsam [G.'j, Balsamo del Peru(/.), Balsamo de Quinquica ($.)•

1 Avicenna first noticed nutmegs as a medicine.

- Bonlius de Meiicina Indorum. 20. » Cullen, Mat. Med. ii. 204,