221. JUNIPERUS communis. JUNIPER. Berries. L. E. D.--Juniper berries have a strong, not disagreeable smell; and a warm, pungent sweet taste, which, if they are long chewed, or previously well bruised, is followed by a bitterish one. The pungency seems to reside in the bark; the sweet in the juice; the aromatic flavour in oily vesicles, spread through the substance of the pulp, and distinguishable even by the eye; and the bitter in the seeds: the fresh berries yield, on expression, a rich, sweet, honey-like, aromatic juice; if previously pounded so as to break the seeds, the juice proves tart and bitter. 222. LACTUCA virosa. WILD LETTUCE. Leaves. E.--Dr. Collin at Vienna first brought the Lactuca virosa into medical repute; and its character has lately induced the College of Physicians at Edinburgh to insert it in the Catalogue of the Materia Medica. More than twenty-four cases of dropsy are said by Collin to have been successfully treated, by employing an extract prepared from the expressed juice of this plant, which is stated not only to be powerfully diuretic, but, by attenuating the viscid humours, to promote all the secretions, and to remove visceral obstructions. In the more simple cases proceeding from debility, the extract in doses of eighteen to thirty grains a-day, proved sufficient to accomplish a cure; but when the disease was inveterate, and accompanied with visceral obstructions, the quantity of extract was increased to three drams; nor did larger doses, though they excited nausea, ever produce any other bad effect; and the patients continued so strong under the use of this remedy, that it was seldom necessary to employ any tonic medicines.--Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 76. Similar Plants.--Sonchus arvensis; Lactuca Scariola. 223. LAVANDULA Spica. LAVENDER. Flowers. L. D.--Lavender has been an officinal plant for a considerable time, though we have no certain accounts of it given by the ancients. Its medical virtue resides in the essential oil, which is supposed to be a gentle corroborant and stimulant of the aromatic kind; and is recommended in nervous debilities, and various affections proceeding from a want of energy in the animal functions.--Woodville's Med. Bot. p. 323. 224. LAURUS nobilis. BAY-TREE. Leaves and Berries. L.--In distillation with water, the leaves of bay yield a small quantity of very fragrant essential oil; with rectified spirit, they afford a moderately warm pungent extract. The berries yield a larger quantity of essential oil: they discover likewise a degree of unctuosity in the mouth; give out to the press an almost insipid fluid oil; and on being boiled in water, a thicker butyraceous one of a yellowish-green colour, impregnated with the flavour of the berry. An infusion of the leaves is sometimes drunk as tea; and the essential oil of the berries may be given from one to five or six drops on sugar, or dissolved by means of mucilages, or in spirit of wine.--Woodville's Med Bot. p. 680, 681.