TUSSILAGO FARFARA (Coltafoot), a perennial plant belonging to the order of compound plants, common in damp, clayey fields, road aides, and the banks of rivers, the yellow flowers of which are seen in spring preceding the nearly heart-shaped, smooth-toothed leaves, which, from their resemblance to a young horse's hoof, have received the popular name of coltsfoot. The whole plant is nearly devoid of odour. The root has a styptic' bitter taste; the leaves and flowers are bitter and mucilaginous. The chief constituents are mucilage, bitter extrac tive, tannic acid, colouring-matter, salts, and woody fibre. The watery infusion becomes of a dark green and turbid appearance on the addition of & solution of anquichlorido of iron. Its properties may easily be inferred from the above statement ; they are demulcent, slightly astringent, tonic, and expectorant. Its name both in Greek and in Latin proves the estimation in which it was held as a means of relieving cough—a reputation which it does not maintain in modern times among professional observers, except a very few ; but with the vulgar it is still in great esteem. Tho young leaves make a wholesome
salad in early spring. The ancients smoked it rather than used it in any other form; and in the north of Europe, and even with our own vulgar, this mode is employed, what is sold under the name of British Herb Tobacco being chiefly coltsfoot. This at least is harmless; not so the nostrum called Essence of Coltafoot, which is a combination of balsam of tofu, compound tincture of benzoin, with a large quantity of rectified spirit of wine, and not a particle of the substance from which it takes its name. In chronic coughs accompanied by much local or general irritation, still more in genuine tubercular consumption, such heating ingredients must be very hurtful ; though a plain decoction of real coltsfoot would be unobjectionable, and might be beneficial. The leaves of coltafoot form, when moistened with warm water, an excellent emollient poultice.