Laurel berries, and the oil which is obtained by boiling the berries in water, are imported from the Straights. The simple expressed oil is insipid.

Qualities.-Both the leaves and the berries have a sweet, fragrant odour, and an aromatic astringent taste; and the oil, which is of a yellowish green colour, has a stronger but similar odour and taste.

Medical properties and uses.-Bay leaves, berries, and oil, are narcotic and carminative. They were formerly given in coughs, flatulent colic, hysteria, and obstructed menstruation; but their internal use is now abandoned; and, as an external application, they are generally compounded with other stimulants.

5. Laurus Sassafras.

Officinal. Sassafras, Lond. Laura Sassafras lignum, radix, Edin. Sassafras; lignum, radix, et oleum volatile, Dub. The wood, root, and oil of Sassafras.

Syn. Sassafras (F.), Sassafras (G.), Sassofrasso (I.).

This species of laurel is a native of the southern parts of North America and Cochin China. It is cultivated in Jamaica; and withstands the cold of our climate so as to be frequently reared in gardens as an ornamental shrub. The flowers appear in May and June. In America the plant rises twenty,

Dioscoridis.

Diogcoridis, thirty, and even fifty feet in height, with the trunk about twelve inches in diameter, covered with a rough, furrowed, grey bark, and brownish towards the top. The leaves are of different shapes and sizes; some being oval, entire, and about four inches long and three broad; and others, the most numerous, lobed, about six inches long, and nearly as broad: they are of a lucid green colour, downy on the under surface, petiolate, and alternate. The flowers, which appear in spring, immediately under the leaves, before they begin to be evolved, are small, and produced in pendant panicles; and at the base of the pedicels are linear bractes. The corolla is divided into six narrow, convex, yellowish or greenish white segments, enclosing in the male flowers, nine stamens supporting yellow anthers. The hermaphrodite flowers, which are on a separate plant, have six stamens only, and a simple style. The berry, which is oval, and, when ripe, of a deep blue colour, is contained in a small red cup, supported on a peduncle from one to two inches in length.

The sassafras laurel was discovered by the Spaniards, immediately after their conquest of Florida, in 1538, under Ferdinand de Soto, and termed by them cinnamon-wood, on account of its odour.1 It is imported in what are termed logs; which are straight and branched pieces, light, of a spongy texture, and covered with the thick, rough bark. The bark is separated, and the wood then cut into chips, as is also the root.

Qualities.-Sassafras wood, root, and bark, have a fragrant odour, and a sweetish aromatic taste. The wood is of a brownish white colour; and the bark ferruginous within, spongy, and divisible into layers. Their sensible qualities and virtues depend on an essential oil, which can be obtained separate by distilling the chips or the bark with water. It is very fragrant, hot, and penetrating to the taste, of a pale yellow colour, and heavier than water. Water extracts the virtues of sassafras partially: alcohol, completely; and, when the tincture is evaporated, it leaves an extract which contains the whole virtue of the plant.

Medical properties and uses.- Sassafras is a stimulating diaphoretic and diuretic. It has been employed in cases of scurvy, chronic rheumatism, gout, and in cutaneous affections. It was once regarded as serviceable in lues venerea, but it has no pretension whatever to the character of an antisyphilitic. Its effects are very uncertain; and even the diaphoresis which it is supposed to occasion, may rather be ascribed to the guaiac, and other more powerful medicines, with which it is generally combined. An infusion of the chips, taken as tea, is a common domestic remedy in the above complaints; but I know instances in which it has been taken regularly every morning for a couple of years without any perceptible benefit. The infusion, however, is the best form of giving the remedy, as much of the oil is dissipated in making the decoction.1 The oil is sometimes given with the same intentions as the infusion.2

1 Savary's Dictionary, ii. 1. 487.

Officinal preparations.- Oleum Sassafras, L. E. D. Decoctum Sarsaparillae compositum, L. D. Decoctum Guaiaci compositum, L. E. D.