Bear's-Breech.
Acanthus.
A VERY beautiful plant, native of Italy, and some other warm parts of Europe, and kept in our gardens. It grows a yard high; the stalk is thick, round, and fleshy; the leaves grow from the root, and are a foot long, four inches broad, very beautifully notched at the edges, and of a dark glossy green. The flowers stand in a kind of thick short spike at the top of the stalks, intermixed with small leaves; these flowers are large, white, and gaping. The whole plant, when in flower, makes a very beautiful appearance. The root creeps.
This plant is not so much known in medicine as it deserves. The root being cut in slices and boiled in water, makes an excellent diuretic decoction. It was a great medicine with an eminent apothecary of Peterborough, and he gave more relief with it in the gravel and stone, than any other medicine would afford.
