CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

SQUILL

Name. Called also sea-onion.

Description. This has a perennial root, consisting of a very large coated bulb, full of a thick slimy juice, and a large cluster of long, thick, white fibres, proceeding from its base. The leaves are three or four inches broad, of a thick juicy substance, smooth on the surface, entire at the edges, and of a fine bright green colour. The stem sometimes grows to be three feet high, is round, slender, and of a tender succulent substance. The flowers grow in longish spikes, and they are small and white.

Place. It grows frequently upon the Italian and Spanish sea-shores, and here is found only in the gardens of the curious.

Time. It flowers here in the middle of Summer.

Government and virtues. This is a hot, biting, martial plant. The root is bitter to the taste, and so acrid as to blister the skin if it is much handled; taken internally in doses of a few grains, it promotes expectoration and urine; in larger doses it vomits, and sometimes purges. It is one of the most certain diuretics in dropsical cases, and expectorants in asthmatic ones, where the lungs or stomachs are oppressed by tough viscid phlegm, or injured by the imprudent use of opiates. On account of their very ungrateful taste, they are commonly given in the form of pills, made of the dried root reduced to powder, and beaten into a mass, with the addition of syrup, or mucilage of gum arabic. Beside the fresh and dried roots, there are preparations of them kept in the shops, namely, vinegar of squill, and a syrup of oxymel, either of which may be used as expectorants, in doses of two or three drachms, in cinnamon water, or some other cordial liquid; for in whatever form they are given, unless it is designed for them to act as an emetic, the addition of some warm grateful aromatic is necessary to prevent that nausea which they are apt to occasion when given alone in ever such small quantities.