Carota.

The root and seeds of Daucus carota.

Therapeutic Action.—Wild Carrot is diuretic, excitant, aromatic and carminative. The seeds are diuretic, stimulant, aromatic and carminative, and are used in nephritic diseases, gravel, irritution and inflammation of the bladder and urethra, suppression of urine, dysuria from blisters and other causes, gonorrhoea, dropsy, etc.

The dose of the pulverized seed is from half a drachm to one drachm, or one ounce of the bruised seed may be added to one pint of boiling water, and the whole taken in the course of the day. The root is used in the form of a decoction in painful micturition, inflammatory diseases of the urino-genital organs, and sometimes in dropsy. Its properties are analogous in every respect to those of the seeds.

The root of the common garden carrot is in much repute as a cataplasm in cases of phagedenic, ill-conditioned and indolent ulcers, chapped nipples, and as an application in the ulcerated stage of cancer. It is somewhat stimulant, and changes the diseased action of the ulcerated surface, corrects the fetor, allays the pain, and often proves eminently beneficial. The poultice is formed by scraping or grating the root, and mixing it with water. The boiled and mashed root acts simply as an emollient poultice, and is useful in cases of burns, painful tumors and inflamed surfaces.

The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 1898, was written by John M. Scudder, M.D.