Though the nightshade is common everywhere, Tournefort was the first to describe it with complete accuracy. That great observer even specifies various peculiarities which most of our botanists omit from their descriptions. Thus, he rightly remarks, that the peduncles branch out so as to form a kind of umbel, and do not emerge, as is usually the case, from the axils of the leaves, but a little below, from the very branches of the stem. He was also the first to note--and it was a veritable discovery--that the white flowers of the nightshade, grouped in threes to eights, are each formed of a single cup-shaped leaf,--in other words, that the corolla is monophyllous, and slightly bell-like or campanulated. Nor does he forget to describe the disposition of the five stamens, set close around the pistil, which, as it develops, forms a globular bacciform fruit, embraced by a five-lobed calyx. This fruit, which changes in colour from green to black, is filled with a great number of grains in a thick liquid, exhaling a nauseous odour. As for the leaves, they resemble those of spinach, for which, in some countries, they serve as a substitute. Like all plants found by the wayside, and among heaps of refuse, the nightshade loves to vary its form, and of its various forms some nomenclators have made as many different species. The typical variety, the _Solanum nigrum_, has glabrous stems and leaves, that is, they are covered with short, but hardly visible hairs; its berries are black. The smooth variety, or _Solanum villosum_, is rather rare, and has swollen or bulging leaves and stems; its berries are red or of a reddish yellow. The two varieties seem able, by sowing, to be transformed into one another. A sub-variety of the _Solanum villosum_ has been described as a peculiar species, under the name of _Solanum miniatum_, so named on account of its vermilion-coloured berries. The _Solanum ochroleucum_ and _Solanum luteovirens_, the first with yellowish, and the second with greenish berries, are simply varieties, and the same may be said of the dwarf form, known by the name of _Solanum humile_. But the physician is more interested in the solanum than either the gardener or botanist. For him it is no useless or noxious weed, but, on the contrary, is an eminently precious herb. And, in fact, if it possessed only one-half the virtues formerly attributed to it, we ought to bow to the ground every time we encounter it. Listen to our authorities even if you do not respect them. Cæsalpin asserts that the decoction or juice of the nightshade is a sovereign remedy for complaints of the stomach and the bladder, and regards nightshade-water, mixed with an equal quantity of absinthe-water, as one of the best sudorifics.