86 Eupatorium maculatum.
Whorls about four or five inches apart. The leaves decrease in size
as they approach the top of the stem, where the corymb commences.
They are oval or broad-lanceolate, serrate, acuminate, somewhat
bullated or blistered. Veins very numerous and net-like, of a purplish-
red colour, and quite prominent on the under disk, and considerably,
though less so on the upper. Serratures occasionally very deep and
large, particularly on the longer leaves. Corymb fastigiate and dense,
general and partial peduncles, flowers, stamens, and caiices, being all
of the same red hue. Grows along the borders of meadow-drains
and rivulets in great abundance, flowering in August and September.
The whole plant is intensely bitter, so that the fingers in collecting
it become intolerably so to the taste. By this property, and its deeper
red colour and lower stature, it may readily be distinguished from all
the other red flowering species of Eupatorium. A cold infusion of
the whole plant, including stems, affords one of the most grateful
aromatic, and intense bitters I have ever met with—two drachms being
sufficient to impregnate a pint’of cold water with a sufficient bitterness
to be tolerated by the stomach. Hot water takes the bitterness
more quickly, but not more certainly. As a subsidiary remedy
in the treatment of all cases of disease which require tonics, and particularly
the bark and other bitter roborants, it has been, in my own
extensive practice with it, highly useful. I discovered the medicinal
virtues of this plant several years ago, and recommended it to my bro-
Eupatorium maculatum. 87
ther practitioners in this city, several of whom are greatly attached to
the use of it.* I also employed it daily, during an attendance of six
months in the Philadelphia Alms-House Infirmary, where I introduced
it. After that time it was continued in constant use by the resident
pupils, who had seen so much good effects from it.
The table represents the plant the size of nature, though I have been
obliged to select a small specimen to come within my limits. The
corymb is frequently eight or ten inches in diameter, and the leaves
six of seven inches long.
* Those who have used it most extensively, and aided me in making it known,
are Dr. Hewson, Dr. Colhoun, Dr. Eberle, and Dr. M‘Clellan,
VOL. III. 24