5 Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 102.

Cl. 2. Ord. 1. Diandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Scrophularineae.

1 The price of the best roots is about 3l. per cwt___Stevenson, 1. c.

2 To procure glycion, precipitate infusion of liquorice root with sulphuric acid, wash the precipitate, dissolve in alcohol, and neutralize with carbonate of potassa in fine powder : let the sulphate of potassa separate by rest, and evaporate the solution to dryness. Pure glycion is a yellow transparent mass, sweet, soluble in water and alcohol, and combustible. It unites with alkalies; but is precipitated from its solution by all the alkalies.

3 When Robiquet obtained Asparagin from liquorice root, he thought it different from true Asparagin, and named it Agedoite: it is a crystalline substance.

4 The ancients believed that chewing the root allayed thirst: but this opinion was founded on a mistake.- Cullen, Mat. Med. ii. p. 407.

5 The name means Gratia Dei, from the supposed virtues of the plant.

G. 49. Corolla irregular, reversed. Stamens two, sterile. Capsule two-celled. Calyx seven-leaved; the two exterior leaves spreading. Species 1. G. officinalis. Hedge Hyssop. Med. Bot. 3d edit. 359.

t. 131. Flora Danica, t.363. Officinal. Gratiolae officinalis herba, Edin. The herbaceous part of Hedge Hyssop.

Syn. Gratiole (F.), Gradenkraut ( G.), Genadekruid (Dutch), Gudsnaadesurt (Dan.), Jordgalla (Swed.), Kenjtrud (Pol.), Graziola (I.), Graciola (S. Port.).

This plant is a perennial, a native of the south of Europe, growing in marshy or moist pastures, and flowering in June and July. It is cultivated in Britain.1 The root is creeping, cylindrical, fleshy, and fibrous; and sends up several upright, smooth, round stems, nearly a foot in height, with sessile leaves, in some degree sheathing, and opposite in pairs. They are lanceolate, smooth, serrated towards the point, of a bright somewhat deep green colour; nearly two inches long, and half an inch broad; punctured, and longitudinally veined beneath. The flowers are axillary and solitary, on slender reddish peduncles: the calyx is divided into five elliptical segments, with two lanceolate, spreading, brae teal leaves : the corolla is tubular, divided at the lip into four obtuse segments, the uppermost of which is much broader than the other three, and more reflected; the tube is yellowish, intermixed with reddish streaks; the limb pale purple. Two of the filaments only are furnished with anthers; and the style is tapering, erect, with a divided stigma.

The capsule is oval, and contains many small seeds.

The sensible qualities of Gratiola are strongest when it is in flower; at which time, therefore, it should be gathered for use.

Qualities.-It has scarcely any odour; but the taste is very bitter and nauseous. Boiling water extracts its sensible qualities more perfectly than alcohol. The colour of the infusion approaches to that of Madeira wine: it slightly reddens litmus paper, and strikes an olive colour with a solution of sulphate of iron without occasioning a precipitate. When sulphuric acid is added to the unstrained infusion, it emits the odour of tamarinds; and when the infusion is filtered and slowly evaporated, spicular crystals are formed, which appear to be tartaric acid.

Medical properties and uses. - Gratiola is cathartic, diuretic, and emetic, producing, in very large doses, all the effects of an irritative poison. It has been much recommended by the German physicians in dropsy; and has also been used in jaundice and worm cases. Hufeland found it extremely efficacious in visceral obstructions and scrofulous affections1; and we are even told that in the Vienna hospital it has cured the most confirmed cases of the lues venerea !2

1 It was first cultivated in Britain by Turner in 1568.

It is given either in the form of powder, or of infusion combined with aromatics. The dose of the powder is grs. xv. to 3ss; that of the infusion, made with 3 ij. of the dried herb and Oss. of warm water, from f 3 iv. to f j. three times a day.