MILKY-Hedge, the English name of a shrub growing on the coast of Coromandel, where it is used for hedging. The whole shrub grows very bushy, with numerous erect branches, which are composed of cylindrical joints as thick as a tobacco pipe, of a green colour, and from three to six inches long: the joints are thicker than the other parts, but always give way first on any accidental violence offered to the plant. When broken it yields a milk of an excessively caustic quality, which blisters any part of the skin it touches. When the joints are broken off at each end, the tube then contains but very little milk. In this state Mr Ives ventured to touch it with his tongue, and found it a little sweet. In the hedges it is seldom very woody; but when it is, the wood is very solid, and the bark gray and cracked. This plant, he informs us, has acquired great reputation in curing the venereal disease, on the following account: A poor Portuguese woman, the eldest female of her family, had wrought surprising cures in the most inveterate venereal disorders, even such as the European physicians had pronounced incurable. These facts became so notorious, that the servants of the Company, and especially their surgeons, were induced to offer her a very considerable premium for a discovery of the medicine; but she always refused to comply, giving for a reason, that while it remained a secret, it was a certain provision for the maintenance of the family in the present as well as in future generations. On account of this denial the English surgeons were sometimes at the pains to have her motions without doors carefully watched; and as they were not able to discover that she ever gathered of any other plant or tree but this, they conjectured that the milk of this tree was the specific employed. Mr Ives inquired at the black doctors concerning the virtues of this plant; who all agreed, that it will cure the lues venerea, but differed as to the manner of administering it; some saying that a joint of it should be eaten every morning; others that the milk only should be dropped upon sugar; and then put into milk, oil, &c. and given daily to the patient.