Laurus herba (Ruscus? _Butcher’s-broom?_), called also Alexandrina, is hot, acrid, and somewhat bitter; it therefore promotes the menstrual and urinary discharges. The daphnoides and the chamædaphne are possessed of the same powers; but the latter is edible. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Dioscorides describes the virtues of the bay-tree (_Laurus nobilis_) at considerable length, representing it to be heating and emollient, and hence he says, the decoction of it makes a good hip-bath in diseases of the womb and bladder; the green leaves, he adds, are sub-astringent, and hence prove useful when applied to the stings of wasps and bees. He recommends the berries in phthisis and other complaints of the chest, as alexipharmic, and as forming a good application to leprosy, and as an injection in earache and deafness. The bark, he says, is lithontriptic, kills the fœtus in utero, and proves useful in hepatic diseases. (i, 106.) Galen briefly calls it diuretic and emmenagogue. The Arabians follow Dioscorides. See Avicenna (ii, 2, 444.) The _Laurus_ still holds a place in the Materia Medica, although now seldom used. See Pereira (p. 800.) The concurrent authority of the commentators and herbalists has settled that the Laurus Alexandrina was a species of _Ruscus_, probably the _R. hypophyllum_. The chamædaphne was also a species of _Ruscus_, perhaps the _racemosus_. The daphnoides is generally held to be the mountain laurel of Parkinson, i. e. the _Daphne Alpina_. All the other authorities treat of these plants in nearly the same terms as our author. They are all generally held to be emmenagogue and diuretic. Δέρμα, Pellis, _Skin_; that of a sheep newly taken off and still warm, when applied to those who have been scourged with rods, cures them wonderfully. The skin of the hippopotamus, when burnt and triturated with water and applied, disperses hard tubercles. That of the viper, when triturated and applied in cases of alopecia, promotes the growth of the hair in a wonderful degree. The leather of old shoes burnt has desiccative ashes; hence it cures sores in the feet from friction, if not in an inflamed state; and also burns, intertrigo, and protuberances. * * * * * COMMENTARY. We have mentioned, in the Fourth Book, that the fresh skin of a newly-killed sheep was esteemed an excellent application to parts which had been bruised or cut by scourges. (See Vol. II, 46.) Dioscorides and most of the other authorities recommend the ashes of old shoes in the cases mentioned by our authors. Avicenna recommends the fresh skin of a goat as an application to poisoned wounds. (ii, 2, 539.) Δίκταμνον, Dictamnum, _Dittany_, consists of more subtile particles than pennyroyal, but resembles it in other respects. That variety called Pseudo dictamnum is weaker. * * * * *