Pharmaco-botanologia: or, an alphabetical and classical dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the New London dispensatory ... Decad. II / [Patrick Blair].

  • Blair, Patrick, -1728.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmaco-botanologia: or, an alphabetical and classical dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the New London dispensatory ... Decad. II / [Patrick Blair]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3. A Plant of an Hedge-hog Aloes in Mr. Fairchild's Garden, was ob- ferv’dby his Wife, to be as wet as if dipt'in a River, though in a dry Green-houfe, and complain’d of it to her Husband, lufpefting it to be lick, which he found to be true, for before next Morning it was dead. That ingenious Gardiner is of Opinion, that had he cut off ibmc of the Leaves, or made a final] Inchion in each of them, he might have lav’d the Plant, as we ufe to bleed in a Plethora. See Preface to my Botanick Ef- fays. 4. Cut a Leaf of a Fibrous broad-Leav’d Aloes tranfverfly, you may obferve the outer part fweating a yelknvifh, the more inner a whitilh, and the middle a limpid vilcid juice. 5. Cut the Leaf of a final], thick, lucculent Aloes tranfverfly, and look through it from one end to the other, and you will obferve it tranlpa- rent like Oil of Turpentine through a Bladder, or Varniih through a Phial. 6. Cut the fame Leaf into a thin Slice, and by a Microfcope you may obferve the Cavous Tubuli in the outpart, and the thin longitudinal Septa making up the infide, in the appearance of lo many dark Lines, N. B. the Juice in the outer Tuhidi is yellowilh, the inner Tranfparent. 7. If you cut the Leaf when growing, the Juice in the middle will be fluid, and ready to drop out, let it remain fome time, it will be con¬ geal’d like Blood in a Porringer. 8. Stretch the thin tranfverfe flice with Pins, to preferve it from fhrink- ing upon a white Paper, and you may obferve when it is dry’d, thefe thin Septa like the Veins of a Leaf, while the intermediate juice is Evapc- porated, and the tranfverfe Septa tranfparent as the thinnefi Bladder. Concerning the manner of procuring the infpijfat ed Juice. 1 had made the foregoing Experiments foms Years ago, before I had confulted Muntlngtm his Aloidarium, * and am glad to find that thefe my Experiments feem to agree lo exactly with what he has afferted from Columna, who fiourifhed in the latter end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th Centuries,and has the Character of one of the moft curious Botanifis of any former, and perhaps after Ages. Being defirous at Naples to find out the true Method of procuring the Gum, and doubting whether this was the Plant from which fo noted a Simple in the Materia Medica was procur’d • he cut into final! pieces a Leaf of the Plant, and fome part of the Root he found nothing of that bitterifh Juice, but a certain mucous Subfiance * Hunting«Aloidarlam, p. 24, Am del, 16S2. of