Balaustium, _the Flower of the Wild Pomegranate_; it is powerfully astringent, having also desiccant and cold powers. It heals superficial sores, and stops defluxions. * * * * * COMMENTARY. _Balaustine_, or the _Flower of the double Wild Pomegranate_, is an astringent medicine much used by the ancient physicians. Dioscorides recommends it principally as an anthelminthic to kill the broad ascaris, by which he meant the tænia. (See ii, 147.) Galen writes very elaborately on this article, contending that it is a good example of a plant possessed of an astringent quality, and stating that it was in general use with this intention externally in intertrigo and other ulcers, and internally in cases of hæmoptysis, dysentery, and in all defluxions from the stomach or womb. The Arabians give a similar account of it, and further recommend balaustine as a whetter of the appetite, and a restorative from the ill effects of intoxication, and a medicine calculated to stop vomiting. See in particular Serapion (129), and Avicenna (ii, 2, 109.) Although modern authority is not wanting to confirm what the ancients have stated regarding the efficacy of balaustine as an astringent in diarrhœa, dysentery, and menorrhagia, it has been excluded of late years from our British Dispensatories. Our continental brethren still make use of it. The modern Greek Pharmacopœia does not retain the leaves. Βάλσαμον, Balsamum, _Balsam-tree_; that part of it which is like its wood is desiccant and heating in the second degree. It is also composed of subtile particles, but the juice of it is much more so. Its fruit is possessed of similar powers, but its particles are less subtile. * * * * * COMMENTARY. This clearly is the _Balsamum Gileadense_, or Balm of Gilead, being procured, as Dr. Pereira states, from the _Balsamo-dendron Gileadense_, a middling-sized tree growing in Arabia. He says, it is rarely or never employed by Europeans; but is adapted to the same cases as the terebinthinates. The Asiatics use it for its odoriferous as well as its medicinal properties. Dioscorides certainly writes strongly in its favour, recommending it as a detergent application to sores and complaints of the eyes, and internally as an emmenagogue and diuretic, and as an antidote to poisons and venomous animals. Galen treats of it much more reservedly (i, 18.) The balsam occurs in Celsus’s list of articles which concoct and promote suppuration (v, 3.) The Arabians fully coincide with the character of it given by Dioscorides. See in particular Serapion (c. 160); Avicenna (ii, 2, 81.) Though this article has almost ceased to be employed in the practice of the scientific physician, it was the instrument by which one of the most successful pieces of empiricism was perpetrated in the beginning of this century. We allude to Dr. Solomon’s celebrated Balm of Gilead. Βαλωτὴ,