COMMENTARY. Two varieties of the lupine, the _sativus_ and _sylvestris_, were used in medicine from the days of Dioscorides down to our Quincy. Though the former of these, which was the one principally used, be well known, there is some doubt as to the species; whether it was the _pilosus_, or the _hirsutus_, or, what is more probable, whether it comprehended both. Dioscorides and Galen agree in enumerating a long list of cases to which the lupine is applicable, but as our author’s account embraces the sum of what they have written on it, we need not enter here into an exposition of their opinions. Suffice it to say, that as an emmenagogue and deobstruent it was much relied upon internally, and applied in a great variety of external complaints in fomentations. The same virtues are ascribed to it by the Arabians, who, however, supply no additional observations of any importance. Avicenna’s account of its medicinal powers is particularly full. (ii, 2, 440.) Rhases derives almost all his information from the Greeks. (Cont. l. ult. i, 435.) Serapion copies altogether from Dioscorides and Galen (De Simpl. 74.) Θηλύπτερον, Which some call Nymphæa or Filix, _Female Fern_, is like the fern in all its properties. When drunk with wine it kills the broad and round worms. It also destroys the fœtus in utero. Its leaves, when eaten, soften the belly. * * * * * COMMENTARY. There seems every reason to refer it to the _Asplenium Filix fœmina_, Bernh., or _Polypodium_, L. Theophrastus recommends it as a vermifuge medicine. (H. P. ix, 20.) Galen, Avicenna, and all the authorities that treat of it, concur in assigning to it this faculty. Dioscorides also sets it down as a medicine calculated to induce sterility and occasion abortion. The powder of it is recommended as an application to ill-conditioned sores. In the days of Quincy it still held an equivocal place in the Dispensatory. Θλάσπι, Bursa Pastoris, _Shepherd’s Purse_, is possessed of acrid powers, so that when drunk it breaks internal abscesses, and occasions a flow of the menses; and if injected by the anus it relieves ischiatic disease by occasioning a bloody discharge. It otherwise purges bile upwards and downwards when drunk to the amount of an acetabulum. * * * * *