Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

FAMILY HERBAL. 7
plant ; the leaves are pressed gently, and the juice
received in earthen vessels : ii is set to settle, and then
dried in the sun.
The common aloe is a very fine plant ; the leaves
are above two feet long', and an inch thick ; they are
dented at the edges and prickly, and have a very
sharp thorn at the point.
flowers,
The stalk, when it
is five or six feet high, and divided into
several branches ; the flowers are yellow streaked
with green.
From the juice of the leaves of this plant
are made the hepatic and the caballine aloes ;
the hepatic
part of the juice,
sediment.
is made from the clearer and finer
the caballine from the coarse
The socotrine aloes is the only kind that
should be given inwardly this ; may be known
from the others, by not having
their offensive
smell. It is a most excellent purge ; but it must
not be given to women with child, nor to those
who spit blood, for it may be fatal. The best
way of giving it is in the tincture of hicra
picra.
Aloes Wood. Lignum aloes.
It may be necessary to mention this wood, as it
we are
is sometimes used in medicine, although
not acquainted with the tree which affords it. We
are told that the leaves are small, the tlowers mode-
rately large, and the fruit as big as a pigeon's egg,
and woolly ; and we read also that the juice of the
rree, while fresh, will raise blisters on the skin, and
t'ven cause blindness : but these accounts are very
imperfect.
We see three kinds of the wood in the shops,