Asplenium five Ceterach Ph. Paris. Ce-terach officinarum C. B. Scolopendria vera Tragi. Asplenium Ceterach Linn. Spleenwort or Miltwaste: a small bushy plant, growing in fissures of rocks and old walls; confiding of capillary blackish roots, and long narrow leaves, cut down to the rib, on each side, alternately, into a number of oblong obtuse narrow fections with broad bases. It has no stalk or flower: the seeds are a yellow powder produced on the backs of the leaves.

The leaves of ceterach have an herbaceous, mucilaginous, roughish taste, and no consider-able smell: with solution of chalybeate vitriol, they strike a blackish colour. They stand recommended as a pectoral, similar to maidenhair, to which they have been frequently joined in infusions and apozems; and likewise as an aperient in obstructions of the viscera. Mr. Morand relates, that there has lately been discovered in them an excellent diuretic virtue; that they were used with great success by count D'Auteuil, a Spanish naval commander, against. the gravel, with which he was violently tormented; that they have since come greatly into use at Paris, Verdun, and Grenoble; that from the observations made there, they appear to gently carry off land, cleanse the kidneys, and allay pains in the urinary passages; and that the way of using them is, to drink infusions of them in the morning as tea, with the addition of such other medicines as particular cases may require.