COMMENTARY. It is the _Nerium Oleander_, L. We have treated of it as a poison in another place. (T. ii, 242.) That the plant actually possesses the poisonous properties ascribed to it by the ancients is now very well ascertained. See Lindley (Veg. Kingd. 600.) Dioscorides assigns it a place in his Materia Medica, and says of it that its flower and leaves are destructive to dogs, asses, mules, and most quadrupeds, but are preservative of men, when drunk with wine, from the bites of reptiles, if mixed with rue; but that the weaker animals, such as goats and sheep, when they drink the decoction of it, die. (iv, 82.) Galen, like our author, in treating of this article, does little more than abridge the fuller account of it given by Dioscorides. The Arabians extend the use of this medicine to several cases in which it was not applied by the Greeks. Thus, they say of it, that its leaves form an excellent application to hard apostemes, and are good for prurigo, scabies, and desquamations, more especially the juice of them; that in the form of a plaster they are applied with advantage in chronic pains of the back and knees, and that its flower forms a sternutatory. Rhases (Cont. l. ult. iii, 31) and Avicenna (ii, 2, 522.) We have given the opinions of the Arabians respecting it as a poison in the place referred to above. There is no mention of the oleander, as far as we have been able to discover, in the works either of Hippocrates or Celsus. The term _oleander_ is derived from the Arabians. It is treated of by our recent authorities on toxicology, but has long been unknown to our Pharmacopœia. Νυμφάια, Nymphæa, _the Water-lily_, is possessed of desiccative powers without pungency. It, therefore, constipates the belly and its seed is desiccative. But that species which has the white root is stronger, so that when drunk with dark and austere wine, it cures the female flux. But that which has a black root is also somewhat detergent, so as to cure alphos with water, and alopecia, when rubbed in with liquid pitch. * * * * *