Mercurialis, the herb _Mercury_, is considerably laxative of the belly, and applied in cataplasms it is discutient. It ought to be known that when its seed is rubbed upon those preternatural excrescences of the body, which the vulgar call narphia, it is found to make them disappear. But the seed must be green, and they must be often rubbed with it. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Most of the botanical authorities agree that it is the _Mercurialis annua_, L. It occurs frequently in the Hippocratic treatises as an article of diet and gentle laxative. Dioscorides, who describes it in two separate places of his Materia Medica, (iii, 130 and iv, 188), speaks of it as being a laxative pot-herb, and a medicine of which the decoction in water proves cholagogue and hydragogue. He also alludes to the popular notion that the leaves of the female plant, when applied to a woman’s parts of generation after her menstrual period, will promote conception of a female, while those of the male plant will promote conception of a male. It does not occur in the works of Celsus, nor, as far as we can discover, in those of any of the Arabians, with the exception of Averrhoes, who calls it a gentle purgative of the same class as Cassia fistula, tamarinds, and the like, and says it evacuates yellow bile and phlegm; and boiled in wine proves an excellent application to large sores, and in particular to the ulcers produced by burns. He further recommends its leaves boiled in vinegar for diseases of the spleen, and its flower in a masticatory and errhine. (Collig. v, 42.) What our author says of its virtues in the diseases called _narphia_, by the vulgar, is taken from Aëtius (i), where, however, the reading is _carphia_. Galen says of it, “everybody uses the herb mercury for purging the belly.” (De Simpl. Med.) Notwithstanding this testimony, which is, in fact, confirmed by that of all the ancient writers who have treated of it, Bergius says, “Virtus suspecta: vis emolliens nondum ritè nobis constat.” However, Moses Charras, who appears to have written from experience, affirms of it that “it loosens the belly, and provokes the menstruums. The dose is from oz. j to iij.” (Roy. Pharm. 106.) Alston likewise acknowledges its laxative powers. Dr. Hill says of it, “This plant is of an emollient nature, and is eaten by many people in the manner of spinach, which, when cultivated in the garden, it greatly excels. If eaten largely it gently opens the bowels.” (Mat. Med.) It held a place in our Dispensatory as late as Quincy. (106.) Λίτρον,