COMMENTARY. For the general literature of this subject, we would beg to refer to what we have said in the Appendix to the Greek Lexicon. Notwithstanding all the illustration which it has received, it must be admitted that now we have no practical acquaintance with the article in question, unless we agree with Dr. Pereira in setting it down as the _Amomum Cardamomum_. This opinion, however, which had been previously stated by Feæus (Flor. Virg. xvi, 199), is controverted by the learned Sprengel. (ad Dioscor. i, 14.) But still if the cardamom be not exactly the amomum of the ancients, there can be no doubt that these two substances must have been very similar to one another. Dioscorides treats more fully of this article than Galen, Aëtius, Oribasius, or our author, describing it as being calefacient, astringent, desiccative, soporific, and anodyne when applied in a plaster to the forehead, and stating that it ripens and discusses boils and meliceris, proves useful to persons stung by scorpions, in a cataplasm with basil; relieves gouty persons, soothes inflammations of the eyes, and those in the bowels, with raisins; that it is useful in female complaints, in the form of a hip-bath, and that the decoction of it is fitting in cases of nephritis, hepatitis, and gout. (i, 14.) Serapion quotes the descriptions of it given by Dioscorides and Galen, and adds, upon the authority of Humaim, the son of Isaac, that it is possessed of inebriating and soporific powers. (c. 279.) Avicenna’s account of it is made up from Dioscorides, Galen, and Serapion (ii, 251.) Haly Abbas recommends the decoction of it (_hamama_) in diseases of the liver and kidneys. Celsus includes both the amomum and cardamomum (which, by the way, seems decidedly to prove that they were not _exactly_ the same thing) among the ingredients of an emollient plaster (_malagma_) which he describes, and which he recommends as an excellent application to abscesses, and various schirrous tumours. (v, 18, 7.) It does not occur, we believe, in the Materia Medica of Hippocrates; at least we have failed to detect it while writing this article. Ἀναγαλλὶς, Anagallis, _Pimpernel_; both kinds are of sufficiently detergent powers, having some hottish and attractive properties, so that they extract thorns; and the juice of it purges by the nose. * * * * *