Spec. Plant. Willd. iii. 2106. Cl. 19. Ord.2. Syngenesia Superflua. Nat. ord. Composite. G. 1491. Recep. naked. Seed-down simple. Cal. with equal leaflets. Corol. of the ray have more frequently five filaments without anthers. Species 1. A. montana. Mountain Arnica. Med. Hot. 3d edit.

41. t. 17. Flor. Dan. t. 728. Nuttal. Gen. Aus. ii. p. 164. Officinal. Arnica Montanae flores et radix, Edin. Arnica

Montana; flores, folia, radix, Dub. The flowers and root of Arnica.

Syn. Arnique (F.), Arnika, Woheverleih, Falkraut (G.), Valkruid (Belg.), Wolverley (Dan.), Hast sibler, St. Hansblomster (Swed.), Arnica (I.).

This species of Arnica is a native of the northern parts of the continents of Europe and America, and of Siberia; flowering in July. It is also found in Portugal and on the Pyrenees, and is cultivated in our gardens.1 The root is perennial, brown, woody, praemorse, with bundles of long fibres attached to it: the stem, which rises about a foot in height, is obscurely angular, striated, rough, hairy, and terminated by two or three upright peduncles, each bearing one flower. The radical leaves are ovate, entire, ciliated, and more obtuse than those of the stem, which are in opposite pairs, and lance-shaped. The flowers are of a deep copper-yellow colour, tinged with brown; the calyx is a dirty green, composed of fifteen or sixteen lancet-shaped hairy scales, with purple points; the ray consists of about fourteen ligulate flowers, twice as long as the calyx, striated, three-toothed, and hairy at the base; the disc of tubular florets, with a five-lobed margin. The seeds are oblong, striated, hairy, and crowned with a russet-coloured down.

1 It was introduced by Mr. P. Miller in 1759.

The herbaceous part of the dried herb, which is used equally with the flowers and roots, seems as if covered with a hoary powder.

Qualities.-The dried plant has a pleasant, weak, aromatic odour, and excites sneezing. The taste of the leaves and the flowers is slightly aromatic, bitter, and pungent; that of the root, bitter and acrid. The leaves and the flowers, macerated in boiling water, yield an olive-brown infusion, which has an odour not unlike that of senna, and a bitter, hot taste. It reddens tincture of litmus; but does not precipitate glue, nor alter solutions of tartarized antimony and of oxymuriate of mercury. With sulphate of iron and of zinc, it strikes a deep green colour, and gives dark precipitates; and with sulphate and ammoniated sulphate of copper, a pea-green precipitate. Superacetate of lead coagulates it. The mineral acids render it muddy,-and of a dirty white colour, occasioning brown precipitates; but the alkalies only deepen its proper colour. Both alcohol and sulphuric ether take up from the flowers and leaves a resinous matter, which can be separated from the alcohol by water, and from the ether by evaporation.

Hence we may conclude, that Arnica contains an acid1, (which I have found to be the Igasauric; and from its physiological effects, I am disposed to think it also contains either strychnia or brucia,) resin, a nauseous bitter matter, which, according to MM. Lassaigne and Chevallier, is cytisina2, tannin, and mucus; and that sulphates of copper, iron, and of zinc, super-acetate of lead, and the mineral acids, are incompatible in prescriptions with infusions of its leaves and flowers.

Medical properties and uses.-The leaves and flowers of Arnica are narcotic, stimulant, and diaphoretic; and in large doses, emetic and cathartic; the root is tonic and aromatic; but it is more apt to excite vomiting than the flowers. The leaves are also employed. The flowers have been used with advantage in paralytic affections, amaurosis, gout, rheumatism, and chlorosis. They have been extolled also in convulsive diseases, diarrhoea, and dysentery; but in the latter, their, stimulant properties prove often hurtful. In paralysis, their good effects are generally preceded by a pricking sensation in the affected part; but in general they do not produce any sensible operation, unless when exhibited in too large doses: in which case they produce great anxiety, pain, vomiting, tetanic twitchings, and the other deleterious effects of powerful narcotics. The root has been much extolled in Germany, as a succedaneum for Cinchona in intermittents, putrid fevers, and gangrene; particularly by Dr. Collin of Pazman; but in the hands of British practitioners it has not deserved the high encomiums which he has bestowed on it in these cases.

It is regarded by the French practitioners as an excellent tonic in paralysis.1

1 Bouillon la Grange thinks it is the gallic acid.

2 This principle derives its name from having been first found in the seeds of the Cytisus Laburnum.

Externally the powdered leaves may be used as an errhine.2 Arnica may be exhibited in substance; or in an infusion, made by macerating 3jss. of the leaves and flowers, or Эij. of the bruised root, in f xij. of boiling water, and straining through linen. The infusion soon ferments. A dose of the powder is from grs. v. to grs x.; that of the infusion, f jss, twice or thrice a day.