MEDICINAL PARTS. The tops and leaves.
    Description. -- This is a perennial plant, with a woody root, branched at the crown, and having numerous fibres below. The whole herb is covered with close, silky hoariness; the stems are numerous, bushy, and from one to two feet in height. Their lower part exists for some years, from which young shoots spring forth every year, decaying in cold weather. The leaves are alternate, broadish, and blunted, the lower ones on long petioles, upper ones on shorter, broader, and somewhat winged ones.
    History. -- Wormwood grows nearly all over the world, from the United States to Siberia. It flowers from June to September. The tops and leaves are the parts used. The dried herb, with the flowers, has a whitish-gray appearance, a strong, aromatic odor, and is extremely bitter to the taste. Alcohol or water takes up its active principles. It yields what is known to druggists as Absinthine.
    Properties and Uses. -- It is anthelmintic, tonic, and narcotic. It is used for many diseases, among which may be enumerated intermittent fever, jaundice, worms, want of appetite, amenorrhoea, chronic leucorrhoea, obstinate diarrhoea, etc. It is also used externally in country places as a fomentation for sprains, bruises, and local inflammations. Taken too often, or in large quantities, it will irritate the stomach, and dangerously increase the action of the heart and arteries.
    Dose. -- Of the powder, ten to twenty grains; infusion, one or two ounces.
    Santonin, a well-known anthelmintic, is the peculiar principle obtained from the Artemisia Santonica.
    Dose. -- Three or four grains, twice a day.