Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Sassafras

SASSAFRAS, is the wood, bark and root of the Sassafras tree, or Laurus Sassafras, L. a native of America, the culture and properties of which we have already described, vol. i. p. 200. It is imported in long straight pieces, which are of a very light and porous texture; emitting a fragrant odour; and having an aromatic sub-acrid, though swetish, taste. The strongest parts are the bark and small twigs; which, as well as the roots, are subject, on importation, to the duty of 2s. 6 1/2d. per cwt.

Sassafras is a warm, aperient, and strengthening medicine; it has often been successfully given in the forms of infusion and decoction, for improving the tone of the stomach and bowels, in persons whose humours were in a vitiated state.—Hoffman has frequently prescribed a scruple of the extract of sassafras, with great benefit, in hypochondriacal spasms, and also at the decline of intermittent fevers.—Infusions of this drug are sold in the streets of the metropolis, under the name of Saloop.