Ranunculus, _Crowsfoot_, consists of four varieties, all of which are possessed of powerfully heating and desiccant powers, and also of acrid and caustic, so as to occasion ulceration with pain; but when moderately used, it proves only detergent of the skin. The dried root is a sternutatory. * * * * * COMMENTARY. According to Sprengel, the first species is the _Ranunculus Asiaticus_; the second, the _R. lanuginosus_; the third, the _R. muricatus_; and the fourth, the _R. aquatilis_. Galen recommends it as a powerful escharotic, and our author evidently copies from him. Dioscorides gives a similar account of the ranunculi, recommending them for the removal of leprous nails, psora, stigmata, and other tumours, as a fomentation to chilblains, and as an application to remove toothache. The Arabians treat of the ranunculi in the same terms as the Greeks, copying their medicinal characters from Dioscorides and Galen. See Avicenna (ii, 2, 368), and Ebn Baithar (ii, 343.) Neither of them gives anything original of his own, nor from any Arabian authority. The ranunculi, we need scarcely mention, have now been discarded by the regular practitioner; but yet several of them are still kept in the shops, and have the reputation of being excellent vesicants. Gray (Suppl. to Pharmacop. p. 122.) In like manner old Culpeper affirms that the crowsfoot is an effectual and a much safer blister than cantharides (p. 59.) The modern Greek Pharmacopœia does not contain it. Βάτραχοι, Ranæ, _Frogs_; they are eaten when made into a soup for the bites of venomous animals; when burnt, their ashes become very desiccant; and stop hemorrhages, and cure alopecia, along with liquid pitch. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Dioscorides, Galen, and Serapion recommend them in the cases mentioned by our author. The species with which they must have been most familiar is the green frog. We have stated in another place that the Greeks and Romans did not use the frog as an article of food. (Vol. I, 166.) Βδέλλιον, Bdellium; both the Scythian and Arabian are possessed of powers which prove emollient of indurated tumours, more especially the recent. The Arabian is also diuretic, lithontriptic, and digestive. * * * * *