Cydonium Vulgaris. Quince Seeds.

Description: Natural Order, Pomaceae. This is the common quince shrub of our gardens, so much cultivated for its richly flavored fruit. Its characters are too well known to need any detailed description.

Properties and Uses: The seeds of quince contain a large quantity of a peculiar and very pleasant mucilage, which most abounds in their leathery covering. They yield this property to boiling water, and a drachm of the seeds is sufficient to make a pint of water quite mucilaginous. It forms an excellent drink in inflammations and irritations of the bowels, kidneys, and bladder; and is deserving of larger employment than is commonly given to it. The seeds have a slightly bitter taste; which renders the infusion less insipid, and more grateful to the stomach, than most demulcents. It forms a good local application in acute ophthalmia; and I have used it both as a drink and an injection during the inflammatory stages of gonorrhea, and with happy results.

The Physiomedical Dispensatory, 1869, was written by William Cook, M.D.
It was scanned by Paul Bergner at http://medherb.com