*asarabacca*: A genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the dodecandra clas of plants. The calyx is trifid or quadrifid, and rests on the germen; there is no corolla; the capsule is leathery and crowned.—The species are three; the Europeum, the Canadense, and Virginicum. The first species grows naturally in some parts of England. It hath thick fleshy jointed roots; the leaves grow singly upon short foot-stalks, which arise immediately from the root: the flowers grow upon very short foot-stalks close to the ground, so are hid under the leaves. They have a bell-shaped impalement, of a worn out purple colour, which is cut in three at the top, where it turns backward. It delights in a moist shady place, and may be propagated by parting the roots in autumn. The two other species have no remarkable properties.

**Medicinal Uses.** The dried roots of this plant have been generally brought from the Levant; those of our own growth being supposed weaker. Both the roots and leaves have a nauseous, bitter, acrimonious, hot taste; their smell is strong, and not very disagreeable. Given in substance from half a dram to a dram, they evacuate powerfully both upwards and downwards. It is said, that tinctures made in spirituous menstrua, possess both the emetic and cathartic virtues of the plant; that the extract obtained by inspissating these tinctures, acts only by vomit, and with great mildness; that an infusion in water proves cathartic, rarely emetic; that aqueous decoctions made by long boiling, and the watery extract, have no purgative or emetic quality, but prove notable diaphoretics, diuretics, and emmenagogues.

The principal use of this plant among us is as a sternutatory. The root of alarum is perhaps the strongest of all the vegetable erthines, white hellobre itself not excepted. Snuffed up the nose, in the quantity of a grain or two, it occasions a large evacuation of mucus, and raises a plentiful spitting. The leaves are considerably milder, and may be used to the quantity of three, four, or five grains. Geoffroy relates, that after snuffing up a dose of this erthrine at night, he has frequently observed the discharge from the nose to continue for three days together; and that he has known a paralysis of the mouth and tongue cured by one dose. He recommends this medicine in stubborn disorders of the head proceeding from viscid tenacious matter, in palfies, and in soporific distempers. The leaves are the principal ingredient in the *pulvis sternulatorius*, or *pulvis alari compositus*, as it is now called, of the shops.