plates and copyright becoming the property of the editor. Every subscriber is invited to send by mail, in legible letters, his views, propositions and preferences; every such letter will be duly acknowledged and answered on the cover.

Additions from trustworthy colaborers are welcome, and will be added; contributors receive a fee after the publication of the work is secured, by checks for the work, not cash.

The Plan of the Work.-The work will be published in monographs, the main medicines and those most proved each in a separate volume, and the clinical experience given separately.

The smaller, less known medicines are to be given in families and the clinical observations united with the symptoms in the same schema. When the smaller provings make it desirable, the symptoms of several families, with their more or less known drugs shall be placed together in one volume. The main rule shall be to publish what is ready for the press as soon as the money for printing has been advanced. As nearly as possible the order is to be the following:-A chemical drug, a plant and drug of animal origin, alternately, and in each kingdom to follow the natural order.

The whole work will, even in a few years, show, like the map of a newly discovered world, how far our explorations have been extended and what still remains for us to do.

The first number will contain the schema, fully elaborated, in German and English, serving as a key to the whole work and at the same time as a glossary to settle all the difficulties of translation. As the majority of provings thus far were originally written in German, and as now the majority of homœopathic physicians speak the English tongue, it ha been thought best to use both languages in opposite columns, facilitating at the same time a familiarity with both languages.

The first volume will contain Sulphur, all the symptoms given by Hahnemann, by the Austrian provers and others, arranged according to the schema, like all other drugs afterwards.

As another series of monographs, which will be separately announced as soon as a sufficient number of colaborers are secured to be able to continue the publication with an equal promptitude to that which can be promised in regard to the first series, a history of each of our proved drugs will be given in the manner first introduced by Dr. Stapf and afterwards adopted by Dr. Franz, Dr. Seidel, Dr. Noack and particularly, by the Austrian provers; a history containing the introduction of the drug into Materia Medica, its application according to the different opinions of the older schools, and cases of poisoning, if there are such, etc. To this will be annexed all the day-books of the provers as be obtained.

far as they can possibly

Such a work would be a real basis to Materia Medica, as a science, in the same measure as our first series will be the basis of our art as an art of healing.

Repertory.-A repertory according to the same schema has also been in preparation for several years, based upon the manuscript of the Materia Medica, and shall be printed in parts according to the main division; the first part, containing the mental symptoms, will be arranged by Dr. Raue as the most efficient colaborer in this psychological part, and shall be printed as soon as finished. It will be considered as belonging to the Materia Medica and will be sent to all the subscribers without further notice. Notwithstanding the high prices of this moment, the work may be delivered to the first thousand prepaying subscribers, in the large dictionary size, like Allibone's Biographical Dictionary, at an approximately (not binding) estimated cost of one sheet for ten or fifteen cents; for five dollars prepaid the subscriber may receive at least thirty, or if the number of subscribers amount to one thousand or if paper becomes cheaper, as many as fifty sheets. Renewing the subscriptions once or twice every year, within a few years every subscriber will be in possession of the completest work on Materia Medica which has ever appeared, and of which the trade price may be very nearly one hundred dollars.

A homœopathic practitioner will not be considered as fitted out for his profession without this work.

PHILADELPHIA; July 4th, 1864.

CONSTANTINE HERING.

CHELIDONIUM MAJUS, L.

By Dr. O. BUCHMANN, of Alvensleben.*

CHAPTER I. PHARMACOLOGICAL.-Chelidonium majus, L. German names, Schellkraut, (not Schöllkraut, as it is now often written), Schwalbenkraut, Maikraut, Goldwurz, Gelbwurz; in Low German, Gehlke.

French, Eclaire; Dutch, Oogen-Klaar, and Stinkende Gouw; English, Celandine; Italian, Cirigogna; Swedish, Sval-ört; Danish, Svale-urt; Spanish, Celidonia; Polish, Jascolce zicle wietsze, Zlotnik, Zologross; Russian, Tschistäk bolschori, Lastowitschnaja Irawa.

Polyandria monogynia, Papaveracea, Linnæus. Jussieu, and Lamarck unite the genus Glaucium with Chelidonium; Tournefort, Haller, and Cranz would have them separated.

Recent botanists have again separated them; since in Glaucium the seeds are imbedded in the spongy septum between the capsules, whilst in Chelidonium they are attached to two processes between the capsules.

There are, besides, two species known as yet; one of which grows in Japan, (Ch. Japonicum, Thunberg), and one in North America, (Ch. diphyllum, Mich.).

The name of the plant has continued the same as that in use among the ancients, for Dioscorides describes it in his Materia Medica (Chap. 2, 211) as xeλidóviov μeya in contradistinction to χελιδονιον μικρον (Ranunculus ficaria, L.), which, however, has not the slightest resemblance to the Celandine, except the acrid juice of the root.

He holds that the plant is called Chelidonium, or swallowwort, because it begins to flower at the time of their arrival, *From the Allg. Hom. Zeitung, vol. lxx, p. 66.

and goes out of bloom at the departure of that bird, but takes into account also the opinion of some, that the swallows cure the blindness of their young ones by bringing them the plant.

According to Matthiolus (Commentar. in Dioscorid., Venetiis, 1559), the chemists called it Cælidonium, not knowing the meaning of the Greek name.

Description. Root cylindrical, reddish-brown, with many fibres; stem upright, hairy, branched, one to three feet high. Leaves soft, pinnate, netted; bright green above, glaucous beneath; with large trifid terminal lobes. Tip oval, sinnate, or crenate. Petioles winged, hairy. Flowers of four petals, yellow, in four- to nine- flowered axillary cymes, each flower with a peduncle and bract. Petals nearly round. Calyx of two convex green deciduous, nearly smooth sepals. Stamens 20; divergent, equal. Fruit a siliquose, manyseeded, knotty capsule, with two carpels. Seeds shining, blackish-brown, with little pits. Duration. Perennial.

Habitat.-Very common on walls, hedges, brick-fields, rubbish heaps, and hollow trees. The plant belongs to the set that affect the neighbourhood of human habitations, being very seldom found far from them.

Country. Except the most northern regions, the plant grows in all Europe, North America, and the corresponding parts of Asia.

Varieties. Formerly many varieties were admitted, which are now reduced to one, Ch. laciniatum, (Miller). This is distinguished from Ch. majus by the following marks: folioles and leaf-lobes with longer stalks, pinnatifid beyond the middle. Tip, longish, incised, crenate, the terminal foliole three to seven lobed. Petals often incised, and crenate. Rare, about Baden-Baden, Carlsruhe, Baireuth, Eisleben, Frankfurt-on-the-Oder (Koch's Synopsis).

Properties. In the whole of Europe no other plant grows, which, when injured, gives out golden-yellow milk; and from this peculiarity, no plant is so well known to every village child. The milk of the root has a redder tinge than elsewhere.

This fluid is contained in special canals which reticulate over the leaves and opens into main vessels along the ribs. Schultz first made known the movement of the latex called by him Cyclosis (Uber den Kreislauf des Safts im Schellkraut, etc., Berlin, 1822.)

If a recently gathered tender leaf be placed under a good microscope, one can see the reticulated canals coloured by the yellow juice, and plainly distinguish the slow movement of the latex, whilst crowds of globules pass through the petioles. If a leaf be torn across, the yellow juice issues in drops out of the larger veins on both sides of the ribs.

On the skin the juice makes yellow spots, which on drying turn brownish-black, and also colours the dried root blackish.

The smell of the recent plant is disagreeable; the taste sharp and bitterish, especially that of the root. On drying, it almost entirely loses the smell. The milk, when dry, tastes more bitter than sharp.

After chewing the plant, the taste remains for several hours, and gives a sensation of heat in the mouth, throat, and stomach. Eight pounds of the fresh plant lose one pound eight ounces by drying in the shade.

Preparations.-(1.) The fresh plant distilled with water yielded a liquid quite colourless, smelling slightly of the plant, and tasting rather acrid. In twelve months it had lost the greater part of the smell, but not of the taste.

(2.) The chopped root took about six days before it fermented properly. The fluid first drawn off was pale yellow, alcoholic, with the acrid smell and taste of the plant. A later draught had a milder taste, but the same smell.

(3.) Out of sixteen ounces of the recent plant about eight ounces of juice were pressed with the hand. This is of a deep green, nearly inodorous, with a herbaceous, rather bitter, and acrid taste.

(4.) Four ounces of the fresh root, dried and pulverized, yielded a reddish-brown decoction of the colour of light "Brown beer" of weak herbaceous taste, and bitter, rather acrid taste. The aqueous extract, rather dry than soft, pre