Spec. Plant Willd. i. 824.2

1 Annali Universali di Medicina, 1830.

2 The genus was named after Adrian Spigelius, a celebrated professor of anatomy at Padua.

Cl.5.0rd.l. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Spigeliaceae.

G. 308. Corolla funnel-shaped. Capsules twin, two-celled, many-seeded.

Species 2. S. Marilandica. Perennial worm-grass. Med. Bot. 3d edit. 178. t. 69. Edin. Phil. Trans, iii. 151. t.1.

Officinal. Spigelia, Lond. Dub. Edin. Worm-grass root. Syn. Spigelie de Maryland Brinailler (F.), Spigelie (G.), Spigelia (I.).

This is a perennial plant, a native of the warmer parts of North America; flowering in July and August.1 The stems are annual, simple, erect, rough, quadrangular, and rigid; and about seven or eight inches in height. The leaves are opposite, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, quite entire, smooth, and spreading. The flowers are in a solitary spike, with small opposite bractes-; the calyx consists of five awl-shaped, persistent leaflets: the corolla is of a bright red colour on the outside, and deep orange within, pentangular above, gibbous at the throat, widening at the base; with the border five-parted; the segments being lanceolate and revolute: the stamens are five, shorter than the corolla, supporting sagittate, converging anthers; the germen is superior, with a round style, jointed below, with the upper part deciduous; the seeds are angular and rugged.

Qualities. - Spigelia root has a bitter taste, which is imparted to boiling water. Feneuille says its active principle resembles the purgative principle contained in some leguminous plants. The root is most active in the recent state.

Medical properties and uses. - This root is purgative, narcotic, and anthelmintic. Its anthelmintic virtues were discovered by the Cherokee Indians, to whom it is known under the name of unsteetla; and many opportunities of proving its efficacy in worm cases have occurred both in America and this country. When in the recent state, and given in small doses, it occasionally produces giddiness, dimness of sight, and even convulsions: effects which are attributed to a narcotic principle it possesses, but which its powerful cathartic property prevents from acting when the dose is large. It is usual to administer an emetic previous to the use of it; and to aid its purgative operation by the addition of two or three grains of calomel, or eight or ten of rhubarb. It has been found most powerful in expelling lumbrici; and its vinous infusion is said to have been found useful in intermittents. Dr. Barton recommends it in the protracted remitting fever of infants, which often lays the foundation of hydrocephalus. Spigelia root may be administered either in substance or in the form of aqueous infusion.

The dose of the pulverised root is from grs. x. to 3j., given every night and morning until the worms are expelled.

1 It was first cultivated in England in 1694, by Bobart.