4 Spec. Plant. Willd. ii.' 415. Cl. 8. Ord. 1. Octandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Thymelaceae G. 773. Cal. none. Cor. four-cleft, corollaceous, withering, enclosing the stamens. Drupe one-seeded. * Flowers lateral. Species 1. D. Mezereum. Common Mezereon. Med. Bot. iv. 716.

t. 68. Smith, Flor. Brit. 420. , Officinal. Mezereum, Lond. Daphnes Mezerei cortex, Edin.

Dub. The bark of the root.

Syn. Laureole gentile, Garou (F.), Kellerkals ( G.), Pepperbompje (Dutch), Kielderhals (Dan.), Tibast (Swed.), Wyleze lyko (Pol.), Mezereo (I.), Mezereou (S.), Mezereo (Port.).

Mezereon grows wild in England, and the north of Europe; but for medical use, and as an ornamental shrub, it is cultivated in gardens. Its flowers expand in March, before the leaves. It is a hardy plant, seldom exceeding four feet in height, with a strong woody branching stem, covered with a smooth grey cuticle, and a tough fibrous inner bark. The root is of a fibrous texture, pale-coloured, with a smooth olive-coloured bark: the leaves which are protruded from the extremities of the branches are tender, pale green, deciduous, lanceolate, sessile, entire, and smooth: the flowers are of a pale rose-colour, odorous, surrounding the twigs in clusters below where the leaves are sent off; they are sessile, two, three, and four clustered, with deciduous bractes at the base of each cluster; monopetalous, tubular, and the lip divided into four ovate spreading segments; the stamens are alternately shorter; the four higher ones displaying their yellow anthers at the mouth of the tube: the germen is oval, supporting a flattish stigma on a very short style; and the fruit is a red pulpy drupe, containing one round seed.

There is a variety of the mezereon with white flowers and yellow fruit, but the medicinal effects of both are the same.1

1 Mat. Med. ii. 534.

2 Ibid.

3 Tract, de Hydrope, Opera, 466.

Theophrasti et Dioscoridis.

For medical use, the roots are dug up in the autumn, after the leaves have fallen. The cuticle of the dried root is corrugated, and the inner bark has a white cotton-like appearance. It is imported chiefly from Germany.

Qualities.-The inner bark of every part of this plant, when fresh, is tough, pliable, fibrous, and striated: it is very acrid, capable of producing inflammation, vesication, and a discharge of serum when applied to the skin; and when chewed, excites a considerable heat of the mouth and fauces, which continues for many hours afterwards. The fruit is equally acrid, acting as a corrosive poison, if eaten. The bark retains its acrimony when dried. It yields its virtues to water and vinegar. By digesting the bark in alcohol, then evaporating the liquid to separate the resin, and diluting the residual fluid with water, filtering, and adding acetate of lead, a copious yellow precipitate falls, which, when freed from the lead by means of sulphureted hydrogen gas, is found to be a vegetable principle sui generis; to which the name of Daphnina has been given.2 This salt is procured in prisms united in bundles, transparent and shining; it dissolves readily in hot water, and crystallizes again as the solution cools; it is also soluble in alcohol and ether. Nitric acid converts it into oxalic acid.

Gmelin and Bar have separated from Mezereon an acrid resin of a dark green colour, slightly soluble in water, and possessing a vesicating property.

Medical properties and uses.-Mezereon operates as a stimulating diaphoretic, increasing the general arterial action, and determining powerfully to the surface; but it is apt to

1 In France, Daphne Guiolium, and in Germany, D. Laureola, are used indiscriminately with D. Mezereum.

2 Vauquelin first obtained this from D. Alpina. Ann. de Chim. lxxxiv.p. 174. disorder the primae vise, and occasion vomiting and purging. It was long externally employed as a stimulus to ill-conditioned ulcers; and the recent bark, macerated in vinegar and applied to the skin, is recommended in France for producing and keeping up a serous discharge in chronic local affections. To form the issue, the bark must be renewed every night and morning; and afterwards once in twenty-four hours, to keep open the drain. Dr. Withering employed it successfully as a local stimulant in a case of difficulty of swallowing occasioned by paralysis. Although the case was of three years' standing, the patient recovered the power of swallowing in about a month, by very frequently chewing thin slices of the root. For this purpose it should be sliced longitudinally, as the acrimony resides in the bark only, the woody fibre being nearly inert. Internally, a decoction of this bark has been used against chronic rheumatism, scrofulous swellings, lepra, and some other cutaneous diseases; and, till lately, it was considered an antivenereal remedy of great efficacy, when given in conjunction with sarsaparilla, in the Lisbon diet drink. The dose in substance is gr. j. to grs. x.

It is scarcely ever prescribed in this form.

Officinal preparations.-Deooctum Daphnes Mezerei, E, Decoc-tum Sarsaparillae comp. L.