Beta vulgaris.

BETA VULGARIS, L. Garden Beet. Root sweet, good food boiled, baked or pickled. Leaves diluent, refrigerant, useful in sore eyes, head ache, tooth ache, coryza, &c. applied on the parts: the best dressing for inflammations, cutcers, suttons. As good as spinage for greens. Blossoms errhine. Beet sugar is made in France on a large scale, is nearly as good as cane sugar, but lighter: the mashed roots after the juice is pressed out, are excellent food for cattle.


Medical Flora, or Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America, Vol. 2, 1830, was written by C. S. Rafinesque.