COMMON NAME. Mouth-root.
    MEDICINAL PART. The root.
    Description. -- This plant has a small, creeping, perennial root, of a bright yellow color; the stems are round, slender, and at the base are invested with ovate, acuminate, yellowish scales. The leaves are evergreen, on long, slender petioles; leaflets roundish, acute at base, small and smooth, and veiny and sessile. The flower is a small starry white one, and the fruit an oblong capsule, containing many small black seeds.
    History. -- Goldthread is found growing in dark swamps and sphagnous woods in the northern parts of the United States and in Canada, Greenland, iceland, and Siberia. It flowers early in the spring to July. The root is the medicinal part, and autumn is the season for collecting it.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is a pure and powerful bitter tonic, somewhat like quassia, gentian, and columbo, without any astringency. It may be beneficially used in all cases where a bitter tonic is required, and is decidedly efficacious as a wash or gargle, when a decoction, in various ulcerations of the mouth. In dyspepsia, and in chronic inflammation of the stomach, equal parts of gold thread and golden seal, made into a decoction, with elixir vitriol added in proper quantity, will not only prove effectual, but in many instances will permanently destroy the appetite for alcoholic beverages.
    Dose. -- Of the powder or tincture, from half a drachm to a drachm; of the decoction, the dose is from one wineglassful to a teacupful. The tincture, made by adding an ounce of the powdered root to a pint of diluted alcohol, is preferable to the powder. The dose is from twenty drops to a teaspoonful, three times a day.