Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

FAMILY HERBAL 277
bottom. The head is small, not larger than a horse
bean, and the seeds are small, and of a dark colour.
The whole plant is full of a bitter yellowish juice,
which runs out when it is any where broken, and has
something of the smell of opium.
The flowers are used. A syrup is made from
tliem by pouring as much boiling water on them
as will just wet them, and after a night's standing,
straining it olF and adding twice its weight of
sugar : this is the famous syrup of red poppies.
It gently promotes sleep. It is a much weaker
medicine than the diacodium. It is greatly recommended
in pleurisies and fevers ; but this upon no
good foundation. It is very wrong to depend upon
such medicines : it prevents having recourse to
better.
Primrose. Primula "ccris.
A very pretty, and very common spring plant
The leaves r.rc long, considerably broad, of a
pale green, and wrinkled on the surface : they grow
immediately from the root in considerable numbers.
The stalks which support the (lowers are single,
slender, four or five inches high, a little hairy,
and have no leaves on them : one flower stands
at the top of each, and is large, white, and beautiful,
with a yellow spot in the middle. The root is fibrous
and whitish.
The root is used. The juice of it snuffed up the
nose occasions sneezing, and is a good remedy against
the hcad-aeh. The dried root powdered, has the
*ame effect, but not so powerfully.
Privet. Ligustrum.
A little wild shrub in our hedges. It