MEDICINAL PART. The root.
    Description. -- This biennial plant has a fleshy, spindle-shaped root, and an erect, smooth, branching stem. The radical leaves are biternate, bright green, and on long petioles; leaflets wedge-shaped. Flowers white or greenish, and petals rounded and barely emarginate.
    History. -- Although Parsley is reared in all parts of the civilized world as a culinary vegetable, it is a native of Europe. The root is the officinal part. From the seeds French chemists have succeeded in obtaining an essential oil, named Apiol, which has proved to be a good substitute for quinia in intermittent fevers, and for ergot as a parturient.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is diuretic, and very excellent in dropsy, especially that following scarlatina and other exanthematous diseases. It is also frequently used to remedy retention of urine, strangury, and gonorrhoea. The seeds are sometimes used as carminatives. They kill vermin in the head. The leaves, bruised, are a good application for contusions, swelled breasts, and enlarged glands. The bruised leaves applied to the breasts are used by wet-nurses to "dry up" the milk.
    Dose. -- Of the oil, for diuretic purposes, three or four drops a day; of the infusion, two to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.