Spec. Plant. Willd. ii. 63. Cl.6. Ord.1. Hexandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Liliaccae. G. 626. Calyx and Corolla confounded, six-parted, spreading.

Spathe many flowered. Umbel heaped together. Capsule superior.

* Stem-leaves plane. Umbel bearing a capsule.

Species 2. Allium porrum. The Leek. Hick. Med. Bot. t.11 p. 535.

* * Stem leaves plane. Umbel bulbiferous.

Species 14. Allium sativum. Garlic. Med. Bot. 3d edit. t. 256. **** Leaves radical. Stem naked. Species 43. Allium Cepa. The Onion.

1. Allium Porrum.1

Officinal. Porrum, Lond. The Leek.

Syn. Poireau (F.), Spanische lauch ( G.), Porro (I.).

The leek is a biennial plant, a native of Switzerland, flowering in June.

The bulb consists of concentric circles, seated on a radical plate, from which spring fibrous roots. The leaves are broad and gramineous; the stem is a naked scape, bearing a congested capital, or rather spherical umbel of flowers; with rough-keeled petals, shorter than the stamens, which are alternately trifid. It is better known as an alimentary or pot herb than as an article of Materia Medica.

Qualities.-All the parts of the plant have a pungent offensive odour, and an acrimonious taste; properties depending on an essential volatile oil, which is much dissipated by boiling, and can be consequently separated by distillation.

Medical properties and uses.-The leek is stimulant and diuretic. The expressed juice has been given with advantage in ascites and other dropsies. The dose is from f 3 ss. to f 3 ij. mixed with mucilage or syrup.

2. Allium sativum.2

Officinal. Allium, Lond. Allii sativi Radix, Edin. Allium sativum; Bulbus, Dub. Garlic.

Theoplirasti et Dioscoridis.

Theophrasti et Dioscoridis.

Syn. Ail (F.), Knoblauch (G), Aglio(I) Ajo sativo (S.), Knoflook (Belg.), Kvidlogen (Dan.), Hvitloken (Swed)., Czosnek (Polish), Tschesnok (Russian), Seer (Fers.), Soom (Arab.), Bawang (Jav.), Lasiina (San.), Lehsen (H.), Vullay poondoo (Tam.), Bavangpootie (Malay).

Garlic is a perennial bulbiferous plant, found wild in Sicily, and cultivated in most parts of Europe for culinary and medicinal use. It flowers in July.

The bulbs of this species of Allium are numerous; three or more being enclosed in one covering, forming a nucleus, round which others are disposed, and the whole enveloped in a common membrane, from the base of which proceed long white fibrous roots. The stem rises two feet in height, surrounded with many long flat, linear grass-like leaves, proceeding chiefly from the young bulbs;. and is terminated by a mixed cluster of flowers and bulbs, enclosed in a spathe, which opens at one side and withers. The flowers are small, consisting of six oblong white petals, with tapering filaments, shorter than the corolla, and supporting erect anthers: the germen is superior, short, angular, bearing a simple style with a sharp stigma; and becoming a short, broad, three-celled capsule, containing roundish seeds.

Garlic is dug up for use in the month of August: it is then cleaned and dried in the sun, and preserved in bunches in a dry place. In this state the exterior membrane is of a dirty white colour, and of a withered aspect; but the bulbs, which are called cloves, are white, succulent, and juicy. On drying, they lose nine parts in fifteen of their weight. i Qualities.-All the parts of the plant, but particularly the bulbs, have a pungent offensive odour, and an acrimonious biting taste. These properties depend on volatile oil, which can be obtained separate by distillation with water; of a thick and ropy consistence, a yellow colour, heavier than water, and possessing, in an eminent degree, the sensible qualities of the garlic. It blisters the skin when applied to it, and strikes a black colour when triturated with oxide of iron. Simple coction with water renders garlic mild and inert. The acrid principle is obtained also by expression; and it is in a less degree extracted by water, by alcohol1, and by acetic acid; it is destroyed by decoction in water. The odour is so penetrating that, when garlic is applied to the soles of the feet, it is perceived in the breath, the urine, and the perspiration.

From 1406 parts of fresh garlic, Cadet2 obtained 5.20 of mucilage, 37 of albumen, 48 of fibrous matter, and 801 of water by estimate. Bouillon la Grange1 found sulphur also, with vegetable albumen, and sugar.

1 With alcohol, a reddish yellow tincture is obtained, which leaves, when evaporated, a very acrid brown extract, that attracts moisture from the air.

2 Ann. de Chymie, lix. p. 106.

Medical properties and uses.-Garlic is stimulant, diaphoretic, expectorant, diuretic, and anthelmintic, when exhibited internally; and rubefacient when externally applied.

It has been successfully administered in intermittents, and in fevers of the typhoid type. If the body be kept warm during its use, it acts powerfully by diaphoresis. It has long-been esteemed a valuable remedy in pituitous asthma, chronic catarrh, flatulent colic, calculus, and dropsies; and as a preventive of worms. Externally it is applied bruised to the soles of the feet, in the coma of typhus; and in confluent small-pox, when the determination to the head is considerable. A poultice made of it is a good resolvent of indolent tumours. A clove of it, wrapped in cotton or gauze, or a few drops of the juice introduced into the external ear, prove efficacious in atonic deafness; and applied to the pubis as a poultice in retention of urine, owing to a want of action in the bladder, it sometimes is effectual in stimulating that viscus to discharge its contents. The juice is also applied, united with oil, to herpetic eruptions.

Garlic may be exhibited in substance, the whole clove or pieces of it being dipped in oil and swallowed; or it may be formed into pills. The expressed juice also is given mixed with sugar; or the bulb may be infused in milk, which was Rosenstein's mode of administering it to children afflicted with worms. It is frequently united with calomel in the form of pill or bolus, in hydropic cases. An ointment is formed by mixing the juice with oil. The bruised bulb has also been used as a suppurative.

The dose, in substance, is from 3ss. to 3ij or from one to six cloves, swallowed whole, twice or thrice a day; and in pills, united with soap or calomel, from grs. xv. to Э j. Of the juice, 3ss. is given for a dose in any proper vehicle.3

An over dose, or the too liberal use of it as a condiment, is apt to occasion headache, flatulence, thirst, fever, inflammation, and discharges of blood from the haemorrhoidal Vessels.

3. Allium Cepa.3 Officinal. Allium Cepa, Dub. The bulb of the Onion. Bulbus.

1 Journ de Pharm. No. viii. p. 357.

2 Its use as a condiment is of great antiquity. Thus, when the Israelites remembered the flesh-pots of Egypt, among other deprivations, which the malcontents enumerated, were "the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick." Numbers, c. xi. v. 5.

Dioscoridis. The specific appellation is derived from caput, a head, on account of the form of its bulb.

Syn. Ognon (F.), Zwiebel (G.), Uijen (Dutch), Cipolla(I.), Cebolla (S.), Cebola (Port.), Logon (Dan.), Rodlok (Swed.), Ccbula (Pol.), Luck (Russian), Vungayum (Tam.), Loong (Cyng), Pecaz (Pers.), Bavangmera (Malay), Palandoo(Sam.). Pecaj (H.), Bassul (A.), Kanda (Sans.), Brangbang (Jav.), L'Vussel (Bernouse), Bussara (Begharmi).

The onion is a perennial, bulbiferous plant, cultivated all over Europe for culinary purposes : flowering in June, It is so well known, as scarcely to require a particular description. The bulb is simple, formed of concentric circles, with a radical plate at the base, and fibrous roots. The stem is a naked, swelling scape, with fistular, pointed, spreading leaves, sheathing at the base. The flowers are produced in a capital or head, enclosed in a deciduous spathe.

Qualities.-The odour and taste of the onion do not materially differ from those of garlic, but are much weaker. A little acrid, volatile, essential oil, combined with sulphur 1 is obtained by distillation; and the recent juice contains sugar, mucus, phosphoric acid, phosphate of lime, and citrate of lime.2

Medical properties and uses.-The onion, "considered as an article of food, when eaten liberally, is said to produce flatulencies, occasion thirst, headache, and turbulent dreams." As a medicine it is stimulant, diuretic, and expectorant, and may be used in the same cases as garlic. On account of the free phosphoric acid it contains, the juice is supposed to be useful in calculous cases, as it dissolves phosphate of lime out of the body. Onions are, however, scarcely ever employed, except externally, as suppurative cataplasms; for which purpose they are generally roasted, split, and applied to tumours.