COMMON NAMES. Boxwood, flowering cornel, Green ozier.
    MEDICINAL PART. The bark.
    Description. -- Dogwood is a small indigenous tree from twelve to thirty feet high, with a very hard and compact wood, and covered with a rough and brownish bark. The tree is of slow growth. The leaves are opposite, smooth, ovate, acute, dark green above, paler beneath. The flowers are very small, of a greenish yellow color, and constitute the chief beauty of the tree when in bloom. The fruit is an oval drupe of a glossy scarlet color, containing a nut with two cells and two seeds.
    History. -- This tree grows in various parts of the United States; it flowers in April and May. The fruit matures in autumn. The wood is used for many purposes. The bark yields its virtues to water and alcohol. The chemical qualities are tannic and gallic acids, resin, gum, oil, wax, lignin, lime, potassa, and iron.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is tonic, astringent, and slightly stimulant. It is an excellent substitute for Peruvian bark, and may be used when the foreign remedy is not to be obtained, or when it fails or where it cannot be administered. The bark should only be used in its dried state. Cornine, its active principle, is much used as a substitute for quinine.
    Dogwood, or green ozier, exerts its best virtues in the shape of an ointment. It is detergent in all inflammatory conditions, destructive to morbid growths, and at variance with diseased nutrition. It stimulates granulations, increases the reparative process, induces circulation of healthy blood to the parts, removes effete matter, vitalizes the tissues, and speedily removes pain from the diseased parts. It fulfils these conditions in my great healing remedy, the "Herbal Ointment," see page 469.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, twenty to sixty grains; extract, five to ten grains; cornine, from one to ten grains.