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Preface

PHARMACOGRAPHIA, the word which gives the title to this book, indicates the nature of the work to which it has been prefixed. The term means simply a writing about drugs; and it has been selected not without due consideration, as in itself distinctive, easily quoted, and intelligible in many languages.

Pharmacographia, in its widest sense, embodies and expresses the joint intention of the authors. It was their desire, not only to write upon the general subject, and to utilize the thoughts of others; but that the book which they decided to produce together should contain observations that no one else had written down. It is in fact a record of personal researches on the principal drugs derived from the vegetable kingdom, together with such results of an important character as have been obtained by the numerous workers on Materia Medica in Europe, India, and America.

Unlike most of their predecessors in Great Britain during this century, the authors have not included in their programme either Pharmacy or Therapeutics; nor have they attempted to give their work that diversity of scope which would render it independent of collateral publications on Botany and Chemistry.

While thus restricting the field of their inquiry, the authors have endeavoured to discuss with fuller detail many points of interest which are embraced in the special studies of the pharmacist; and at the same time have occasionally indicated the direction in which further investigations are desirable. A few remarks on the heads under which each particular article is treated, will explain more precisely their design.

The drugs included in the present work are chiefly those which are commonly kept in store by pharmacists, or are known in the drug and spice market of London. The work likewise contains a small number which belong to the Pharmacopœia of India: the appearance of this volume seemed to present a favourable opportunity for giving some more copious notice of the latter than has hitherto been attempted.

Supplementary to these two groups must be placed a few substances which possess little more than historical interest, and have been introduced rather in obedience to custom, and for the sake of completeness, than on account of their intrinsic value.

Each drug is headed by the Latin name, followed by such few synonyms as may suffice for perfect identification, together in most cases with the English, French, and German designation.

In the next section, the Botanical Origin of the substance is discussed, and the area of its growth, or locality of its production is stated. Except in a few instances, no attempt has been made to furnish botanical descriptions of the plants to which reference is made. Such information may readily be obtained from original and special sources, of which we have quoted some of the most important.

Under the head of History, the authors have endeavoured to trace the introduction of each substance into medicine, and to bring forward other points in connection therewith, which have not hitherto been much noticed in any recent work. This has involved researches which have been carried on for several years, and has necessitated the consultation of many works of general literature. The exact titles of these works have been scrupulously preserved, in order to enable the reader to verify the statements made, and to prosecute further historical inquiries. In this portion of their task, the authors have to acknowledge the assistance kindly given them by Professors Heyd[1] of Stuttgart, Winkelmann of Heidelberg, Monier Williams of Oxford, Dümichen of Strassburg; and on subjects connected with China, by Mr. A. Wylie and Dr. Bretschneider. The co-operation in various directions of many other friends has been acknowledged in the text itself.

[1] The admirable work of this author—Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1879—appeared when the second edition of our Pharmacographia was already in the press.

In some instances the Formation, Secretion, or Method of Collection of a drug, has been next detailed: in others, the section History has been immediately followed by the Description, succeeded by one in which the more salient features of Microscopic Structure have been set forth. The authors have not thought it desirable to amplify the last named section, as the subject deserves to be treated in a special work, and to be illustrated by engravings. Written descriptions of microscopic structure are tedious and uninteresting, and however carefully drawn up, must often fail to convey the true meaning which would be easily made evident by the pencil. The reader who wishes for illustrations of the minute structure of drugs may consult the works named in the footnote.[2]

The next division includes the important subject of Chemical Composition, in which the authors have striven to point out to the reader familiar with chemistry what are the constituents of greatest interest in each particular drug—what the characters of the less common of those constituents—and by whom and at what date the chief investigations have been made. A knowledge of the name and date provides a clue to the original memoir, which may usually be found, either in extenso or in abstract, in more than one periodical. It has been no part of the authors’ plan to supersede reference to standard works on chemistry, or to describe the chemical character of substances[3] which may be easily ascertained from those sources of information which should be within the reach of every pharmaceutical inquirer.

In the section devoted to Production and Commerce, the authors have given such statistics and other trade information as they could obtain from reliable sources; but they regret that this section is of very unequal value. Duties have been abolished, and a general and continuous simplification of tariffs and trade regulations has ensued. The details, therefore, that used to be observed regarding the commerce in drugs, exists no longer in anything like their former state of completeness: hence the fragmentary nature of much of the information recorded under this head.

The medicinal uses of each particular drug are only slightly mentioned, it being felt that the science of therapeutics lies within the province of the physician, and may be wisely relinquished to his care. At the same time it may be remarked that the authors would have rejoiced had they been able to give more definite information as to the technical or economic uses of some of the substances they have described.

[2] Berg, Anatomischer Atlas zur pharmazeutischen Waarenkunde, Berlin, 1865. 4to., with 50 plates.

Flückiger, Grundlagen der pharmaceutischen Waarenkunde, Einleitung in das Studium der Pharmacognosie, Berlin, 1873.

Planchon, Traité pratique de la détermination des drogues simples d’origine végétale, Paris, 1874.

Luerssen, Medicinisch-Pharmaceutische Botanik, Leipzig (in progress).

[3] For further information, see Flückiger, Pharmaceutische Chemie, Berlin, 1879.

What has been written under the head of Adulteration is chiefly the result of actual observation, or might otherwise have been much extended. The authors would rather rely on the characters laid down in preceding sections than upon empirical methods for the determination of purity. The heading of Substitutes has been adopted for certain drugs, more or less related to those described in special articles, yet not actually used by way of adulteration.

A work professing to bring together the latest researches in any subject will naturally be thought to contain needless innovations. Whilst deprecating the inconvenience of changes of nomenclature, the authors have had no alternative but to adopt the views sanctioned by the leaders of chemical and botanical science, and which the progress of knowledge has required. The common designations of drugs may indeed remain unchanged:—hellebore, aconite, colchicum, anise, and caraway, need no modernizing touch. But when we attempt to combine with these simple names, words to indicate the organ of the plant of which they are constituted, questions arise as to the strict application of such terms as root, rhizome, tuber, corm, about which a diversity of opinion may be entertained.

It has been the authors’ aim to investigate anew the field of Vegetable Materia Medica, in order as far as possible to clear up doubtful points, and to remove some at least of the uncertainties by which the subject is surrounded. In furtherance of this plan they have availed themselves of the resources offered by Ancient and Modern History; nor have they hesitated to lay under contribution either the teaching of men eminent in science, or the labours of those who follow the paths of general literature. How far they have accomplished their desire remains for the public to decide.

CORRIGENDA.

Page 57, footnote 4; for qui produit, read qui a produit. ” 86, 13th line from bottom; for Bauchin, read Bauhin. ” 128, footnote 3; read Adversariorum, for Adersariorum. ” 161, line from top; read southern and south-western part, for northern part. ” 265, footnote 2; for 4794 grammes, read 4·794 grammes. ” 271, line 5 from bottom; read στνραξ νγρὸϛ for πνρα ζνγρὸϛ. ” 368, line 12 from bottom; read Flora, for Floræ. ” ” ” 20 ” ” mossing, for motsing. ” 369, ” 17 from top; read José, for Jose. ” 404, ” 2 from bottom; read Xarnauz, for Xarnaux. ” ” footnote 7; read por, for par. ” ” line 12 from bottom; read Barbarigo, for Barberigo. ” 407, ” 5 ” ” benzoic, for benzoin. ” 469, lines 21 and 24 from top; with reference to _Nicotiana rustica_ and N. repanda, see Pharm. Journ. ix. (1878) 710. ” 558, footnote 3; read 562, for 652. ” 559, line 24 from top; read 1849, for 1749.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The premature death—March 24, 1875—of my lamented friend Daniel Hanbury, having deprived me of his invaluable assistance, I have attempted to prepare the new edition of our work with adherence to the same principles by which we were guided from the beginning.

I desire to acknowledge my obligations for great and valuable assistance to my friend Thomas Hanbury, Esq., F.L.S., who has also honoured the memory of his late brother by causing the scientific researches of the latter to be collected and republished in the handsome volume entitled, “Science Papers, chiefly Pharmacological and Botanical, by Daniel Hanbury, edited, with memoir, by Joseph Ince,” London. 1876. To Dr. Charles Rice of New York, editor of “New Remedies,” I am indebted for much kindly extended and valuable information, and to whose intimate acquaintance with oriental literature, both ancient and modern, many of the following pages bear ample testimony. I am likewise indebted for similar assistance to my friends Professors Goldschmidt and Nöldeke, Strassburg. Information of various kinds, as well as valuable specimens of drugs, have also been courteously supplied to me by the following gentlemen, viz.:—Cesar Chantre, Esq., F.L.S., London; Prof. Dymock, Bombay; H. Fritzsche, Esq. (Schimmel &, Leipzig); E. M. Holmes, Esq., F.L.S., &c., London; J. E. Howard, Esq., F.R.S., &c., London; David Howard, Esq., F.C.S., &c.; Wm. Dillworth Howard, F.I.C., London; Capt. F. M. Hunter, F.G.S., &c., Assistant Resident, Aden; A. Oberdörffer, Esq., Hamburg; Prof. Edward Schär, Zürich; Dr. J. E. de Vry, the Hague, &c.

On mature consideration, it was deemed expedient to omit in the new edition a large number of references relating more especially to chemical facts. Yet, in most instances, not only the author but also the year has been stated in which the respective observation or discovery was made, or at least the year in which it was published or recorded. Every such fact of any importance may thus, by means of those short references, be readily traced and consulted, if wished for, either in the original sources, in abstracts therefrom, or in the periodical reports. Opportunities of the latter kind are abundantly afforded by the German Jahresbericht der Pharmacie, &c., published at Göttingen since 1844, successively by Martius, Wiggers, Husemann, and at the present time by Dragendorff. The same may be said, since 1857, of the Report on the Progress of Pharmacy, as contained annually in the Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association, and likewise, since 1870, of the Yearbook of Pharmacy, for which the profession is indebted to the British Pharmaceutical Conference.

PROF. FLÜCKIGER. STRASSBURG, GERMANY, October, 1879.

EXPLANATIONS.

=Polarization.=—Most essential oils, and the solutions of several substances described in this book are capable of effecting the deviation of a ray of polarized light. The amount of this rotatory power cannot be regarded as constant in essential oils, and is greatly influenced by various causes. As to alkaloids and other organic compounds, the deviation frequently depends upon the nature and quantity of the solvent. The authors have thought it needful to record in numerous cases the results of such optical investigations, as determined by means of the Polaristrobometer invented by Wild, and described in Poggendorff’s Annalen der Physik und Chemie, vol. 122 (1864) p. 626; or more completely in the Bulletin de l’Académie impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg, tome viii. (1869) p. 33.

=Measurements and Weights.=—The authors regret to have been unable to adopt one standard system of stating measurements. They have mostly employed the English inch: the accompanying woodcut will facilitate its comparison with the French decimal scale. The word millimetre is indicated in the text by the contraction mm.; micromillimetre, signifying the thousandth part of a millimetre, and only used in reference to the microscope, is abbreviated thus, mkm.

1 inch = 25·399 millimetres. 1 gallon = 4·543 litres. 1 ounce (oz.) avdp. = 28·34 grammes. 1 lb. avoirdupois = 453·59 ” 1 cwt. = 112 lb. = 50·8 kilogrammes. 1 ton = 2240 ” = 1016 ” 1 kilogramme = 2·204 lb. avoirdupois. 1 pecul = 133·33 lb. = 60·479 kilogrammes.

=Thermometer.=—The Centigrade Thermometer has been alone adopted. The following table is given for comparing the degrees of the Centigrade or Celsius Thermometer with those of Fahrenheit’s Scale.

THERMOMETRIC TABLE.

--------------+----------------+-----------------+--------------- CENT. FAHR. | CENT. FAHR. | CENT. FAHR. | CENT. FAHR. --------------+----------------+-----------------+--------------- -29° -20·2° | + 41° + 105·8° | +111 +231·8 | +181 +357·8 28 18·4 | 42 107·6 | 112 233·6 | 182 359·6 27 16·6 | 43 109·4 | 113 235·4 | 183 361·4 26 14·8 | 44 111·2 | 114 237·2 | 184 363·2 25 13·0 | 45 113·0 | 115 239·0 | 185 365·0 24 11·2 | 46 114·8 | 116 240·8 | 186 366·8 23 9·4 | 47 116·6 | 117 242·6 | 187 368·6 22 7·6 | 48 118·4 | 118 244·4 | 188 370·4 21 5·8 | 49 120·2 | 119 246·2 | 189 372·2 20 4·0 | 50 122·0 | 120 248·0 | 190 374·0 | | | 19 2·2 | 51 123·8 | 121 249·8 | 191 375·8 18 -0·4 | 52 125·6 | 122 251·6 | 192 377·6 17 +1·4 | 53 127·4 | 123 253·4 | 193 379·4 16 3·2 | 54 129·2 | 124 255·2 | 194 381·2 15 5·0 | 55 131·0 | 125 257·0 | 195 383·0 14 6·8 | 56 132·8 | 126 258·8 | 196 384·8 13 8·6 | 57 134·6 | 127 260·6 | 197 386·6 12 10·4 | 58 136·4 | 128 262·4 | 198 388·4 11 12·2 | 59 138·2 | 129 264·2 | 199 390·2 10 14·0 | 60 140·0 | 130 266·0 | 200 392·0 | | | 9 15·8 | 61 141·8 | 131 267·8 | 201 393·8 8 17·6 | 62 143·6 | 132 269·6 | 202 395·6 7 19·4 | 63 145·4 | 133 271·4 | 203 397·4 6 21·2 | 64 147·2 | 134 273·2 | 204 399·2 5 23·0 | 65 149·0 | 135 275·0 | 205 401·0 4 24·8 | 66 150·8 | 136 276·8 | 206 402·8 3 26·6 | 67 152·6 | 137 278·6 | 207 404·6 2 28·4 | 68 154·4 | 138 280·4 | 208 406·4 -1 30·2 | 69 156·2 | 139 282·2 | 209 408·2 0 32·0 | 70 158·0 | 140 284·0 | 210 410·0 | | | +1 33·8 | 71 159·8 | 141 285·8 | 211 411·8 2 35·6 | 72 161·6 | 142 287·6 | 212 413·6 3 37·4 | 73 163·4 | 143 289·4 | 213 415·4 4 39·2 | 74 165·2 | 144 291·2 | 214 417·2 5 41·0 | 75 167·0 | 145 293·0 | 215 419·0 6 42·8 | 76 168·8 | 146 294·8 | 216 420·8 7 44·6 | 77 170·6 | 147 296·6 | 217 422·6 8 46·4 | 78 172·4 | 148 298·4 | 218 424·4 9 48·2 | 79 174·2 | 149 300·2 | 219 426·2 10 50·0 | 80 176·0 | 150 302·0 | 220 428·0 | | | 11 51·8 | 81 177·8 | 151 303·8 | 221 429·8 12 53·6 | 82 179·6 | 152 305·6 | 222 431·6 13 55·4 | 83 181·4 | 153 307·4 | 223 433·4 14 57·2 | 84 183·2 | 154 309·2 | 224 435·2 15 59·0 | 85 185·0 | 155 311·0 | 225 437·0 16 60·8 | 86 186·8 | 156 312·8 | 226 438·8 17 62·6 | 87 188·6 | 157 314·6 | 227 440·6 18 64·4 | 88 190·4 | 158 316·4 | 228 442·4 19 66·2 | 89 192·2 | 159 318·2 | 229 444·2 20 68·0 | 90 194·0 | 160 320·0 | 230 446·0 | 21 69·8 | 91 195·8 | 161 321·8 | 231 447·8 22 71·6 | 92 197·6 | 162 323·6 | 232 449·6 23 73·4 | 93 199·4 | 163 325·4 | 233 451·4 24 75·2 | 94 201·2 | 164 327·2 | 234 453·2 25 77·0 | 95 203·0 | 165 329·0 | 235 455·0 26 78·8 | 96 204·8 | 166 330·8 | 236 456·8 27 80·6 | 97 206·6 | 167 332·6 | 237 458·6 28 82·4 | 98 208·4 | 168 334·4 | 238 460·4 29 84·2 | 99 210·2 | 169 336·3 | 239 462·2 30 86·0 | 100 212·0 | 170 338·0 | 240 464·0 | | | 31 87·8 | 101 213·8 | 171 339·8 | 241 465·8 32 89·6 | 102 215·6 | 172 341·6 | 242 467·6 33 91·4 | 103 217·4 | 173 343·4 | 243 469·4 34 93·2 | 104 219·2 | 174 345·2 | 244 471·2 35 95·0 | 105 221·0 | 175 347·0 | 245 473·0 36 96·8 | 106 222·8 | 176 348·8 | 246 474·8 37 98·6 | 107 224·6 | 177 350·6 | 247 476·6 38 100·4 | 108 226·4 | 178 352·4 | 248 478·4 39 102·2 | 109 228·2 | 179 354·2 | 249 480·2 40 104·0 | 110 230·0 | 180 356·0 | 250 482·0 --------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------

I.—PHÆNOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS.

=Dicotyledons and Gymnosperms.=

RANUNCULACEÆ 1 Radix Hellebori nigri 1 Rhizoma Coptidis 3 Semen Staphisagriæ 5 Radix Aconiti 8 Folia Aconiti 11 Radix Aconiti indica 12 ——— heterophylli 14 ——— Cimicifugæ 15

MAGNOLIACEÆ 17 Cortex Winteranus 17 Fructus Anisi stellati 20

MENISPERMACEÆ 23 Radix Calumbæ 23 Pareira Brava 25 Cocculus indicus 31 Gulancha 33

BERBERIDEÆ 34 Cortex Berberidis indicus 34 Rhizoma Podophylli 36

PAPAVERACEÆ 39 Petala Rhœados 39 Capsulæ Papaveris 40 Opium 42

CRUCIFERÆ 64 Semen Sinapis nigræ 64 ———— albæ 68 Radix Armoraciæ 71

CANELLACEÆ 73 Cortex Canellæ albæ 73

BIXACEÆ 75 Semen Gynocardiæ 75

POLYGALEÆ 77 Radix Senegæ 77 ——— Krameriæ 79

GUTTIFERÆ 83 Cambogia 83 Oleum Garciniæ 86

DIPTEROCARPEÆ 88 Balsamum Dipterocarpi 88

MALVACEÆ 92 Radix Althææ 92 Fructus Hibisci esculenti 94

STERCULIACEÆ 95 Oleum Cacao 95

LINEÆ 97 Semen Lini 97

ZYGOPHYLLEÆ 100 Lignum Guaiaci 100 Resina Guaiaci 103

RUTACEÆ 106 Cortex Angosturæ 106 Folia Buchu 108 Radix Toddaliæ 111 Folia Pilocarpi 113

AURANTIACEÆ 114 Fructus Limonis 114 Oleum Limonis 118 ——— Bergamottæ 121 Cortex Aurantii 124 Oleum Neroli 126 Fructus Belæ 129

SIMARUBEÆ 131 Lignum Quassiæ 131

BURSERACEÆ 133 Olibanum 133 Myrrha 140 Elemi 147

MELIACEÆ 154 Cortex Margosæ 154 ——— Soymidæ 156

RHAMNACEÆ 157 Fructus Rhamni 157

AMPELIDEÆ 159 Uvæ passæ 159

ANACARDIACEÆ 161 Mastiche 161 Terebinthina chia 165 Gallæ chinenses seu japonicæ 167

LEGUMINOSÆ 170 Herba Scoparii 170 Semen Fœni græci 172 Tragacantha 174 Radix Glycyrrhizæ 179 Succus Glycyrrhizæ 183 Oleum Arachis 186 Radix Abri 188 Setæ Mucunæ 189 Semen Physostigmatis 191 Kino 194 Lignum Pterocarpi 199 Balsamum tolutanum 202 ——— peruvianum 205 Semen Bonducellæ 211 Lignum Hæmatoxyli 213 Folia Sennæ 216 Fructus Cassiæ Fistulæ 221 Tamarindi Pulpa 224 Balsamum Copaiba 227 Gummi Acaciæ 233 Catechu 240

ROSACEÆ 244 Amygdalæ dulces 244 ——— amaræ 247 Fructus Pruni 251 Cortex Pruni serotinæ 253 Folia Lauro-cerasi 254 Flores Koso 256 Petala Rosæ gallicæ 259 ——— centifoliæ 261 Oleum Rosæ 262 Fructus Rosæ caninæ 268 Semen Cydoniæ 269

HAMAMELIDEÆ 271 Styrax liquidus 271

MYRTACEÆ 277 Oleum Cajaputi 277 Caryophylli 280 Fructus Pimentæ 287

GRANATEÆ 289 Cortex Granati fructus 289 ———— radicis 290

CUCURBITACEÆ 292 Fructus Ecballii 292 ——— Colocynthidis 295

UMBELLIFERÆ 297 Herba Hydrocotyles 297 Fructus Conii 299 Folia Conii 301 Fructus Ajowan 302 ——— Carui 304 ——— Fœniculi 308 ——— Anisi 310 Radix Sumbul 312 Asafœtida 314 Galbanum 320 Ammoniacum 324 Fructus Anethi 327 ——— Coriandri 329 ——— Cumini 331

CAPRIFOLIACEÆ 333 Flores Sambuci 333

RUBIACEÆ 335 Gambier 335 Cortex Cinchonæ 338 Radix Ipecacuanhæ 370

VALERIANACEÆ 377 Radix Valerianæ 377

COMPOSITÆ 380 Radix Inulae 380 ——— Pyrethri 383 Flores Anthemidis 384 Santonica 387 Radix Arnicæ 390 Flores Arnicæ 392 Radix Taraxaci 392 Herba Lactucæ virosæ 395 Lactucarium 396

LOBELIACEÆ 399 Herba Lobeliæ 399

ERICACEÆ 401 Folia Uvæ Ursi 401

EBENACEÆ 403 Fructus Diospyri 403

STYRACEÆ 403 Resina Benzoë 403

OLEACEÆ 409 Manna 409 Oleum Olivæ 417

APOCYNEÆ 421 Cortex Alstoniæ 421

ASCLEPIADEÆ 423 Radix Hemidesmi 423 Cortex Mudar 424 Folia Tylophoræ 427

LOGANIACEÆ 428 Nux Vomica 428 Semen Ignatii 431 Radix Spigeliæ 433

GENTIANEÆ 434 Radix Gentianæ 434 Herba Chiratæ 436

CONVOLVULACEÆ 438 Scammonium 438 Radix Jalapæ 443 Semen Kaladanæ 448

SOLANACEÆ 450 Stipes Dulcamaræ 450 Fructus Capsici 452 Radix Belladonnæ 455 Folia Belladonnæ 458 Herba Stramonii 459 Semen Stramonii 461 ——— et Folia Daturæ albæ 462 Folia Hyoscyami 463 ——— Tabaci 466

SCROPHULARIACEÆ 469 Folia Digitalis 469

ACANTHACEÆ 472 Herba Andrographidis 472

SESAMEÆ 473 Oleum Sesami 473

LABIATÆ 476 Flores Lavandulæ 476 Herba Menthæ viridis 479 ——— piperitæ 481 ——— Pulegii 486 ——— Thymi 487 ——— Rosmarini 488

PLANTAGINEÆ 490 Semen Ispaghulæ 490

POLYGONACEÆ 491 Radix Rhei 491

MYRISTICEÆ 502 Myristica 502 Macis 508

LAURACEÆ 510 Camphora 510 Cortex Cinnamomi 519 ——— Cassiæ ligneæ 527 ——— Bibiru 535 Radix Sassafras 537

THYMELEÆ 540 Cortex Mezerei 540

ARTOCARPACEÆ 542 Caricæ 542

MORACEÆ 544 Fructus Mori 544

CANNABINEÆ 546 Herba Cannabis 546 Strobili Humuli 551 Glandulæ Humuli 554

ULMACEÆ 556 Cortex Ulmi 556 ——— fulvæ 557

EUPHORBIACEÆ 558 Euphorbium 558 Cortex Cascarillæ 561 Semen Tiglii 565 ——— Ricini 567 Kamala 572

PIPERACEÆ 576 Fructus Piperis nigri 576 ——— longi 582 Cubebæ 584 Herba Matico 589

ARISTOLOCHIACEÆ 591 Radix Serpentariæ 591

CUPULIFERÆ 593 Cortex Quercus 593 Gallæ halepenses 595

SANTALACEÆ 599 Lignum Santali 599

=Gymnosperms.=

CONIFERÆ 604 Terebinthina vulgaris 604 ——— veneta 609 Cortex Laricis 611 Terebinthina canadensis 612 ——— argentoratensis 615 Pix burgundica 616 ——— liquida 619 ——— nigra 623 Fructus Juniperi 624 Herba Sabinæ 626

=Monocotyledons.=

CANNACEÆ 629 Amylum Marantæ 629

ZINGIBERACEÆ 635 Rhizoma Zingiberis 635 ——— Carcumæ 638 ——— Galangæ 641 Fructus Cardamomi 643 Grana Paradisi 651

ORCHIDACEÆ 654 Salep 654 Vanilla 657

IRIDACEÆ 660 Rhizoma Iridis 660 Crocus 663

PALMÆ 669 Semen Arecæ 669 Sanguis Draconis 672

AROIDEÆ 676 Rhizoma Calami aromatici 676

LILIACEÆ 679 Aloë 679 Bulbus Scillæ 690

MELANTHACEÆ 693 Rhizoma Veratri albi 693 ——— viridis 695 Semen Sabadillæ 697 Cormus Colchici 699 Semen Colchici 702

SMILACEÆ 703 Radix Sarsaparillæ 703 Tuber Chinæ 712

GRAMINEÆ 714 Saccharum 714 Hordeum decorticatum 722 Oleum Andropogonis 725 Rhizoma Graminis 729

II.—CRYPTOGAMOUS OR FLOWERLESS PLANTS.

=Vascular Cryptogams.= LYCOPODIACEÆ 731 Sporæ Lycopodii 731

FILICES 733 Rhizoma Filicis 733

=Thallogens.=

LICHENES 737 Lichen islandicus 737

FUNGI 740 Secale cornutum 740

ALGÆ (FLORIDEÆ) 747 Chondrus crispus 747 Fucus amylaceus 749

APPENDIX. Short Biographic and Bibliographic Notes relating to authors and books quoted in the Pharmacographia 751

INDEX 769

PHARMACOGRAPHIA.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

I.—PHÆNOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS

Dicotyledons and Gymnosperms.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

RANUNCULACEÆ

RADIX HELLEBORI NIGRI.

Radix Ellebori nigri, Radix Melampodii; _Black Hellebore Root_; F. Racine d’Ellebore noir; G. Schwarze Nieswurzel.

=Botanical Origin=—Helleborus niger L., a low perennial herb, native of sub-alpine woods in Southern and Eastern Europe. It is found in Provence, Northern Italy, Salzburg, Bavaria, Austria, Bohemia, and Silesia, as well as, according to Boissier,[4] in Continental Greece.

Under the name of Christmas Rose, it is often grown in English gardens on account of its handsome white flowers, which are put forth in midwinter.

=History=—The story of the daughters of Prœtus, king of Argos, being cured of madness by the soothsayer and physician Melampus, who administered to them hellebore, has imparted great celebrity to the plant under notice.[5]

But admitting that the medicine of Melampus was really the root of a species of Helleborus, its identity with that of the present plant is extremely improbable. Several other species grow in Greece and Asia Minor, and Schroff[6] has endeavoured to show that of these, H. orientalis Lam. possesses medicinal powers agreeing better with the ancient accounts than those of H. niger L. He has also pointed out that the ancients employed not the entire root but only the bark separated from the woody column; and that in H. niger and H. viridis the peeling of the rhizome is impossible, but that in H. orientalis it may be easily effected.

[4] Flora Orientalis, i. (1867) 61.

[5] See the list of theses and memoirs on Hellebore given by Mérat and De Lens, Dict. iii. (1831) 472, 473.

[6] Zeitschr. d. Gesellsch. d. Aerzte zu Wien. 1860, No. 25; Canstatt’s Jahresbericht for 1859. i. 47. 1860. i. 55.

According to the same authority the hellebores differ extremely in their medicinal activity. The most potent is H. orientalis Lam.; then follow H. viridis L. and H. fœtidus L. (natives of Britain), and H. purpurascens Waldst. et Kit., a Hungarian species, while H. niger is the weakest of all.[7]

=Description=—Black Hellebore produces a knotty, fleshy, brittle rhizome which creeps and branches slowly, forming in the course of years an intangled, interlacing mass, throwing out an abundance of stout, straight roots. Both rhizome and roots are of a blackish brown, but the younger roots are of lighter tint and are covered with a short woolly tomentum.

In commerce the rhizome is found with the roots more or less broken off and detached. It is in very knotty irregular pieces, 1 to 2 or 3 inches long and about ²/₁₀ to ³/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, internally whitish and of a horny texture. If cut transversely (especially after maceration), it shows a circle of white woody wedges, 8 to 12 in number, surrounded by a thick bark. The roots are unbranched, scarcely ⅒ of an inch in diameter. The younger, when broken across, exhibit a thick bark encircling a simple woody cord; in the older this cord tends to divide into converging wedges which present a stellate appearance, though not so distinctly as in Actæa. The drug when cut or broken has a slight odour like that of senega. Its taste is bitterish and slightly acrid.

=Microscopic Structure=—The cortical part both of the rhizome and the rootlets exhibits no distinct medullary rays. In the rootlets the woody centre is comparatively small and enclosed by a narrow zone somewhat as in sarsaparilla. A distinct pith occurs in the rhizome but not always in the rootlets, their woody column forming one solid bundle or being divided into several. The tissue contains small starch granules and drops of fatty oil.

=Chemical Composition=—The earlier investigations of Black Hellebore by Gmelin, and Feneuille and Capron, and of Riegel indicated only the presence of the more usual constituents of plants.

Bastick, on the other hand, in 1852 obtained from the root a peculiar, non-volatile, crystalline, chemically-indifferent substance which he named Helleborin. It is stated to have a bitter taste and to produce in addition a tingling sensation on the tongue; to be slightly soluble in water, more so in ether, and to dissolve freely in alcohol.

Marmé and A. Husemann extracted helleborin (1864) by treating with hot water the green fatty matter which is dissolved out of the root by boiling alcohol. After recrystallization from alcohol, it is obtainable in shining, colourless needles, having the composition C₃₆H₄₂O₆. It is stated to be highly narcotic. Helleborin appears to be more abundant in H. viridis (especially in the older roots) than in H. niger, and yet to be obtainable only to the extent of 0·4 per mille. When it is boiled with dilute sulphuric acid, or still better with solution of zinc chloride, it is converted into sugar and Helleboresin, C₃₀H₃₈O₄.

[7] Between purpurascens and niger, Schroff places L. ponticus A. Br., a plant which Boissier holds to be simply H. orientalis Lam.

Marmé and Husemann succeeded in isolating other crystallized principles from the leaves and roots of H. niger and H. viridis, by precipitation with phospho-molybdic acid. They obtained firstly a slightly acid glucoside which they named Helleboreïn. It occurs only in very small proportion, but is rather more abundant in H. niger than in H. viridis. When boiled with a dilute acid, helleboreïn, C₂₆H₄₄O₁₅, is resolved into Helleboretin, C₁₄H₂₀O₃, of a fine violet colour, and sugar, C₁₂H₂₄O₁₂. It is remarkable that helleboretin has no physiological action, though helleboreïn is stated to be poisonous.

An organic acid accompanying helleborin was regarded by Bastick as probably aconitic (equisetic) acid. There is no tannin in hellebore.

=Uses=—Black Hellebore is reputed to be a drastic purgative. In British medicine its employment is nearly obsolete, but the drug is still imported from Germany and sold for the use of domestic animals.

=Adulteration=—Black Hellebore root as found in the market is not always to be relied on, and without good engravings it is not easy to point out characters by which its genuineness can be made certain. In fact to ensure its recognition, some pharmacopœias required that it should be supplied with leaves attached.

The roots with which it is chiefly liable to be confounded are the following:—

1. Helleborus viridis L.—Although a careful comparison of authenticated specimens reveals certain small differences between the roots and rhizomes of this species and of H. niger, there are no striking characters by which they can be discriminated. The root of H. viridis is far more bitter and acrid than that of H. niger, and it exhibits more numerous drops of fatty oil. In German trade the two drugs are supplied separately, both being in use; but as H. viridis is apparently the rarer plant and its root is valued at 3 to 5 times the price of that of H. niger, it is not likely to be used for sophisticating the latter.

2. Actœa spicata L.—In this plant the rhizome is much thicker; the rootlets broken transversely display a cross or star, as figured in Flückiger’s “Grundlagen” (see p. vii.), fig. 64, p. 76. The drug has but little odour; as it contains tannin its infusion is blackened by a persalt of iron, which is not the case with an infusion of Black Hellebore.

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RHIZOMA COPTIDIS

Radix Coptidis; Coptis Root, Mishmi Bitter, Mishmi Tita.

=Botanical Origin=—Coptis Teeta Wallich, a small herbaceous plant, still but imperfectly known, indigenous to the Mishmi mountains, eastward of Assam. It was first described in 1836 by Wallich.[8]

=History=—This drug under the name of Mahmira is used in Sind for inflammation of the eyes, a circumstance which enabled Pereira[9] to identify it with a substance bearing a nearly similar designation, mentioned by the early writers on medicine, and previously regarded as the root of Chelidonium majus L.

[8] Trans. of Med. and Phys. Soc. of Calcutta, viii. (1836) 85. Reprinted in Pereira’s Materia Medica, vol ii. part 2 (1857), 699.

[9] Pharm. Journ. xi. (1852) 204; also Mat. Med. l.c.

Thus we find that Paulus Ægineta in the 7th century was acquainted with a knotty root named Μαηιρά.[10] Rhazes, who according to Choulant died in A.D. 923 or 932, mentions Mamiran, and it is also noticed by Avicenna a little later as a drug useful in diseases of the eye. Μαμιρὰϛ likewise occurs in exactly the same way in the writings of Leo, “Philosophus et Medicus.”[11] Ibn Baytar called the drug Mamiran and Uruk, and described it as a small yellow root like turmeric, coming from China. Other writers of the middle ages allude to it under the name of Memeren.

Hajji Mahomed, in the account of Cathay which he gave to Ramusio (circa A.D. 1550) says that the Mambroni chini, by which we understand the root in question, is found in the mountains of Succuir (Suh-cheu) where rhubarb grows, and that it is a wonderful remedy for diseases of the eye.[12] In an official report published at Lahore in 1862,[13] Mamiran-i-chini is said to be brought from China to Yarkand.

The rhizome of Coptis is used by the Chinese under the names Hwang-lien and Chuen-lien.[14] It is enumerated by Cleyer[15] (1682) as “radix pretiosa amara,” and was described in 1778 by Bergius[16] who received it from Canton.

More recently it was the subject of an interesting notice by Guibourt[17] who thought it to be derived from Ophioxylon serpentinum L., an apocyneous plant widely removed from Coptis. Its root was recommended in India by MacIsaac[18] in 1827 and has been subsequently employed with success by many practitioners.

There is a rude figure of the plant in the Chinese herbal Pun-tsao.

=Description=—Tita, as the drug is called in the Mishmi country, whence it is sent by way of Sudiya on the Bramaputra to Bengal, is a rhizome about the thickness of a quill occurring in pieces an inch or two in length. It often branches at the crown into two or three heads, and bears the remains of leafstalks and thin wiry rootlets, the stumps of which latter give it a rough and spiny appearance. It is nearly cylindrical, often contorted, and of a yellowish-brown colour. The fracture is short, exhibiting a loose structure, with large bright yellow radiating woody bundles. The rhizome is intensely bitter,[19] but not aromatic even when fresh.

It is found in the Indian bazaars in neat little open-work bags formed of narrow strips of rattan, each containing about half an ounce. We have once seen it in bulk in the London market.[20]

[10] See also Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, ii. (1855) 419.

[11] F. Z. Ermerins, Anecdota medica Græca, e codicibus MSS. expromsit. Lugd. Bat. 1840. Leonis Philosophi et Medici conspectus medicinæ, lib. iii. cap. I. (Κεϕ. ά. Περὶὑϕθαλμῶν.....σαρκοκόλλς, γλαμκίῳ, μαμηρᾀ καἰ καμϕορᾷ).

[12] Yule, Cathay and the way thither, (Hakluyt Society) i. (1866) p. ccxvi.

[13] Davies, Report on the trade of the countries on the N. W. boundary of India, Lahore, 1862.

[14] Otherwise written Honglane, Chonlin, Chynlen, Chouline, Souline, &c.

[15] Specimen Medicinæ Sinicæ, Med. Simp. No. 27.

[16] Mat. Med. ii. (1778) 908.

[17] Hist. des Drog. ii. (1849) 526.

[18] Trans. of Med. and Phys. Soc. of Calcutta, iii. (1827) 432.

[19] Teeta is the Hindustani tāītā, from the Sanskrit tikta, “bitter.” (Dr. Rice.)

[20] Two cases were offered for sale as Olen or Mishmee by Messrs. Gray and Clark, drug-brokers, 22nd Nov. 1858.

=Microscopic Structure=—Cut transversely the rhizome exhibits an inner cortical tissue, through which sclerenchymatous groups of cells are scattered. The latter are most obvious on account of their bright yellow colour. In the woody central column a somewhat concentric arrangement is found, corresponding to two or three periods of annual growth. The pith, not the medullary rays, begins to be obliterated at an early period. The structure of the drug is, on the whole, very irregular, on account of the branches and numerous rootlets arising from it.

The medullary rays contain small starch granules, while the bark, as well as the pith, are richer in albuminous or mucilaginous matters.

=Chemical Composition=—The colouring matter in which the rhizome of Coptis abounds, is quickly dissolved by water. If the yellow solution obtained by macerating it in water is duly concentrated, nitric acid will produce an abundant heavy precipitate of minute yellow crystals, which if redissolved in a little boiling water will separate again in stellate groups. Solution of iodine also precipitates a cold infusion of the root.

These reactions as well as the bitterness of the drug are due to a large proportion of Berberine, as proved by J. D. Perrins.[21] The rhizome yielded not less than 8½ per cent., which is more than has been met with in any other of the numerous plants containing that alkaloid.

As pure berberine is scarcely dissolved by water, it must be combined in Coptis with an acid forming a soluble salt. Further researches are requisite to determine the nature of this acid. In some plants berberine is accompanied by a second basic principle: whether in the present instance such is the case, has not been ascertained.

=Uses=—The drug has been introduced into the Pharmacopœia of India as a pure, bitter tonic.

=Substitutes=—Thalictrum foliolosum DC., a tall plant common at Mussooree and throughout the temperate Himalaya at 5000-8000 feet, as well as on the Khasia Hills, affords a yellow root which is exported from Kumaon under the name Momiri. From the description in the Pharmacopœia of India, it would appear to much resemble the Mishmi Tita, and it is not impossible that some of the observations made under the head History (p. 3) may apply to Thalictrum as well as to Coptis.

In the United States the rhizome of Coptis trifolia Salisb., a small herb indigenous to the United States and Arctic America, and also found in European and Asiatic Russia, is employed for the same purposes as the Indian drug. It contains berberine and another crystalline principle.[22]

[21] Journ. of Chem. Soc. xv. (1862) 339.

[22] Gross in Am. Journ. of Pharm. May 1873. 193.

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SEMEN STAPHISAGRIÆ

Stavesacre; F. Staphisaigre; G. Stephanskörner, Läusesamen.

=Botanical Origin=—Delphinium Staphisagria L., a stout, erect, biennial herb growing 3 to 4 feet high, with palmate, 5-to 9-lobed leaves, which as well as the rest of the plant are softly pubescent.

It is a native of Italy, Greece, the Greek Islands and Asia Minor, growing in waste and shady places; it is now also found throughout the greater part of the Mediterranean regions and in the Canary Islands, but whether in all instances truly indigenous is questionable. It is cultivated to some extent in Puglia, very little now near Montpellier.

=History=—Stavesacre was well known to the ancients. It is the ἀγροτἔρη σταϕὶς of Nicander,[23] the σταϕὶς ἀγρία of Dioscorides,[24] and Alexander Trallianus,[25] the Staphisagria or Herba pedicularia of Scribonius Largus,[26] the Astaphis agria or Staphis of Pliny.[27] The last named author mentions the use of the powdered seeds for destroying vermin on the head and other parts of the body.

The drug continued in use during the middle ages. Pietro Crescenzio,[28] who lived in the 13th century, mentions the collection of the seeds in Italy; and Simon Januensis,[29] physician to Pope Nicolas IV. (A.D. 1288-1292), describes them—“propter excellentem operationem in caputpurgio.”

[23] O. Schneider, Nicandrea, Lips. 1856. 271.

[24] De Mat. Med. lib. iv. c. 153.

[25] Puschmann’s edition (quoted in the Appendix) i. 450.

[26] De Compositione Medicamentorum, c. 165.

[27] Lib. xxiii. c. 13.

[28] Libro della Agricultura, Venet. (1511) lib. vi. c. 108.

[29] Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510.

=Description=—The fruit consists of three downy follicles, in each of which about 12 seeds are closely packed in two rows. The seeds (which alone are found in commerce) are about 3 lines in length and rather less in width; they have the form of a very irregular 4-sided pyramid, of which one side, much broader than the others, is distinctly vaulted. They are sharp-angled, a little flattened, and very rough, the testa being both wrinkled and deeply pitted. The latter is blackish-brown, dull and earthy-looking, rather brittle, yet not hard. It encloses a soft, whitish, oily albumen with a minute embryo at its sharper end.

The seeds have a bitter taste and occasion a tingling sensation when chewed. Ten of them weigh about 6 grains.

=Microscopic Structure=—The epidermis of the seed consists of one layer of large cells, either nearly cubical or longitudinally extended: hence the wrinkles of the surface. The brown walls of these cells are moderately thickened by secondary deposits, which may be made very obvious by macerating thin sections in a solution of chromic acid, 1 p. in 100 p. of water. By this treatment numerous crystals after a short time make their appearance,—without doubt the chromate of one of the alkaloids of staphisagria.

The outer layer of the testa is made up of thin-walled narrow cells, which become larger near the edges of the seed and in the superficial wrinkles. They contain a small number of minute starch granules and are not altered on addition of a salt of iron. The interior layer exhibits a single row of small, densely packed cells. The albumen is composed of the usual tissue loaded with granules of albuminoid matter and drops of fatty oil.

=Chemical Composition=—Brandes (1819) and Lassaigne and Feneulle (1819) have shown this drug to contain a basic principle. Erdmann in 1864 assigned it the formula C₂₄H₃₅NO₂; he obtained it to the extent of 1 per mille in crystals, soluble in ether, alcohol, chloroform, or benzol. The alkaloid has an extremely burning and acrid taste, and is highly poisonous.

Couerbe[30] in 1833 pointed out the presence in stavesacre of a second alkaloid separable from delphinine by ether in which it is insoluble.

The treatment of the shell of the seed with chromic acid, detailed above, shows that this part of the drug is the principal seat of the alkaloids; and the albumen indeed furnishes no crystals of any chromate. In confirmation of this view we exhausted about 400 grammes of the entire seeds with warm spirit of wine acidulated with a little acetic acid. The liquid was allowed to evaporate and the residue mixed with warm water. The solution thus obtained, separated from the resin, yielded on addition of chromic acid an abundant precipitate of chromate. The same solution likewise furnished copious precipitates when bichloride of platinum,[31] iodohydrargyrate of potassium, or bichromate of potassium were added. By repeating the above treatment on a larger scale we obtained crystals of delphinine of considerable size, and also a second alkaloid not soluble in ether.

[30] Ann. de Chimie et de Phys. lii. (1833) 352.

[31] The platinic compound is in fine microscopic crystals.

In the laboratory of Dragendorff, Marquis in 1877 succeeded in isolating the following alkaloids:—1. Delphinine, C₂₂H₃₅NO₆, yielding crystals one inch in length, belonging to the rhombic System. They are soluble in 11 parts of ether, 15 parts of chloroform, and 20 of absolute alcohol. 2. Staphisagrine, C₂₂H₃₃NO₅, is amorphous, soluble in less than 1 part of ether, also in 200 parts of water at 150°. This alkaloid, although it would appear to be the anhydride of the former, is in every respect widely different from delphinine. 3. Delphinoidine (formula not quite settled), amorphous, soluble in three parts of ether, more abundantly occurring in the seed than the two former alkaloids. In its physiological action delphinoidine agrees with delphinine, not with staphisagrine. 4. Delphisine (formula doubtful) forms crystalline tufts, occurs in but small amount, is sparingly soluble in alcohol, chloroform, or ether.—The total amount of alkaloids afforded by stavesacre is about 1 per cent.

By exhausting the seeds with boiling ether, we get 27 per cent. of a greenish, fatty oil, which continued fluid even at -5° C. It concreted by means of hyponitric acid, and is therefore to be reckoned among the non-drying oils; it contained a large part of the alkaloids.

The drug air-dry contains 8 per cent. of hygroscopic water. Dried at 100° C. and incinerated it left 8·7 per cent. of ash.

Nothing exact is known of the Delphinic acid of Hofschläger (about 1820) said to be crystalline and volatile.

=Commerce=—The seeds are imported from Trieste and from the south of France, especially from Nismes, near which city as well as in Italy (Puglia) the plant is cultivated.

=Uses=—Stavesacre seeds are still employed as in old times for the destruction of pediculi in the human subject, for which purpose they are reduced to powder which is dusted among the hair. Dr. Balmanno Squire[32] having ascertained that prurigo senilis is dependent on the presence of pediculus, has recommended an ointment of which theessential ingredients is the fatty oil of stavesacre seeds extracted by ether. It is plain that such a preparation would contain delphinine. Delphinine itself has been used externally in neuralgic affections. Stavesacre seeds are largely consumed for destroying the pediculi that infest cattle.

[32] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 405, and vii. (1877) 1043.

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RADIX ACONITI

Tuber Aconiti; Aconite Root[33]; F. Racine d’Aconit; G. Eisenhutknollen, Sturmhutknollen.

=Botanical Origin=—Aconitum Napellus L.—This widely diffused and most variable species grows chiefly in the mountainous districts of the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere.

It is of frequent occurrence throughout the chain of the Alps up to more than 6500 feet, the Pyrenees, the mountains of Germany and Austria, and is also found in Denmark and Sweden. It has become naturalized in a few spots in the west of England and in South Wales. Eastward it grows throughout the whole of Siberia, extending to the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast of North America. It occurs in company with other species on the Himalaya at 10,000 to 16,000 feet above the sea-level.

The plant is cultivated for medicinal use, and also for ornament. The Abbé Armand David[34] saw in northern Sz-chuen (Setchuan) fields planted with Aconite (A. Napellus?).

=History=—The Ἀκόνιτον of the Greeks and the Aconitum of the Romans are held to refer to the genus under notice, if not precisely to A. Napellus. The ancients were well aware of the poisonous properties of the aconites, though the plants were not more exactly distinguished until the close of the middle ages. The Greek name is supposed to refer to the same source as that of Conium. (See article on Fructus Conii.)

Aconite has been widely employed as an arrow-poison. It was used by the ancient Chinese,[35] and is still in requisition among the less civilized of the hill tribes of India. Something of the same kind was in vogue among the aborigines of ancient Gaul.[36] Aconite was pointed out in the thirteenth century, in “The Physicians of Myddvai,”[37] as one of the plants which every physician is to grow.

Störck of Vienna introduced aconite into regular practice about the year 1762[38]; the root and the herb occur in the German pharmaceutical tariff of the seventeenth century.

[33] We use the word root as most in accordance with the teaching of English botanists.

[34] Journal de mon troisième voyage en Chine, i. (Paris 1875) 367.

[35] F. Porter Smith, Mat. Med. and Nat. Hist. of China, Shanghai, 1871. 2, 3.

[36] Pliny, lib. xxvii. c. 76, also xxv. 25.

[37] The Physicians of Myddvai; Meddygon Myddfai. Published for the Welsh MSS. Society. Llandovery, 1861. 282, 457.

[38] De Stramonio, Hyoscyamo et Aconito, Vindob. 1762.

=Description=—The herbaceous annual stem of aconite starts from an elongated conical tuberous root 2 to 4 inches long and sometimes as much as an inch in thickness. This root tapers off in a long tail, while numerous branching rootlets spring from its sides. If dug up in the summer it will be found that a second and younger root (occasionally a third) is attached to it near its summit by a very short branch and is growing out of it on one side. This second root has a bud at the top which is destined to produce the stem of the next season. It attains its maximum development at the latter part of the year, the parent root meanwhile becoming shrivelled and decayed. This form of growth is therefore analogous to that of an orchis.

The dried root is more or less conical or tapering, enlarged and knotty at the summit which is crowned with the base of the stem. It is from 2 to 3 or 4 inches long and at the top from ½ to 1 inch thick. The tuber-like portion of the root is more slender, much shrivelled longitudinally, and beset with the prominent bases of rootlets. The drug is of a dark brown; when dry it breaks with a short fracture exhibiting a white and farinaceous, or brownish, or grey inner substance sometimes hollow in the centre. A transverse section of a sound root shows a pure white central portion (pith) which is many-sided and has at each of its projecting angles a thin fibro-vascular bundle.

In the fresh state the root of aconite has a sharp odour of radish which disappears on drying. Its taste which is at first sweetish soon becomes alarmingly acrid, accompanied with sensations of tingling and numbness.

=Microscopic Structure=—The tuberous root as seen in a transverse section, consists of a central part enclosed by a delicate cambial zone. The outer part of this central portion exhibits a thin brownish layer made up of a single row of cells (Kernscheide of the Germans). This is more distinctly obvious in the rootlets, which also show numerous, scattered, thick-walled cells of a yellow colour.

The fibro-vascular bundles of aconite root are devoid of true ligneous cells; its tissue is for the largest part built up of uniform parenchymatous cells loaded with starch granules.

=Chemical Composition=—Aconite contains chemical principles which are of great interest on account of their virulent effects on the animal economy.

The first to be mentioned is Aconitine, a highly active crystallizable alkaloid, furnishing readily crystallizable salts. It is accompanied by another active alkaloid, Pseudaconitine, which is crystallizable, but yields mostly amorphous salts. According to the admirable researches of Wright and Luff,[39] aconitine may be decomposed according to the following equation:—

C₃₃H₄₃NO₁₂. OH₂ = C₇H₆O₂. C₂₆H₃₉NO₁₁, Aconitine. Benzoic acid. Aconine.

and pseudaconitine breaks up in accordance with the equation:

C₃₆H₄₉NO₁₁. OH₂ = C₉H₁₀O₄. C₂₇H₄₁NO₈ Pseudaconitine. Dimethyl- Pseudaconine. protocatechnic acid.

[39] Pharm. Journ. 1875 to 1878, also Yearbook of Pharmacy, the results being summarized in the Yearbook for 1877, 466.—Comparative qualitative reactions of Aconitine, Aconine, Pseudaconitine, and Pseudaconine, see Yearbook (1877) 459.

The decomposition of aconitine, as well as of pseudaconitine, may be performed by means of mineral acids, alkaline solutions, or also by heating the bases with water in sealed tubes. The two alkaloids, Aconine and Pseudaconine, appear to be present already in the roots of Aconitum; they, moreover, contain two other alkaloids of less physiological potency. One of them, Picraconitine, C₃₁H₄₅NO₁₀, is merely bitter, producing no lip-tingling; it gives well crystallized salts, although it is itself amorphous. Commercial aconitine is a mixture of the above alkaloids. The total yield of basic substances afforded by aconite root is not more than about 0·07 per cent.

The other constituents of aconite root are but imperfectly known. In the preparation of the alkaloids, a dark green mixture of resin and fat is obtained; it is much more abundant in European than in Nepal aconite (Groves). The root contains Mannite, as proved by T. and H. Smith (1850), together with cane-sugar, and another sugar which reduces cupric oxide even in the cold. Tannin is absent, or is limited to the corky coat. The absence of a volatile alkaloid in the root was proved by Groves in 1866.

=Uses=—Prescribed in the form of tincture as an anodyne liniment; occasionally given internally in rheumatism.

=Adulteration and Substitution=—Aconite root, though offered in abundance in the market, is by no means always obtained of good quality. Collected in the mountainous parts of Europe by peasants occupied in the pasturing of sheep and cattle, it is often dug up without due regard to the proper season or even to the proper species,—a carelessness not surprising when regard is had to the miserable price which the drug realizes in the market.[40]

One of the species not unfrequent in the Alps, of which the roots are doubtless sometimes collected, is A. Störckeanum Reichenb. In this plant the tuberous roots are developed to the number of three or four, and have an anatomical structure slightly different from that of A. Napellus.[41] A. variegatum L., A. Cammarum Jacq., and A. paniculatum Lam. are blue-flowered species having tuberous roots resembling those of A. Napellus, but according to Schroff somewhat less active.

The yellow-flowered A. Anthora L. and A. Lycoctonum L. produce roots which cannot be confounded with those of A. Napellus L.

The root of A. japonicum Thunb. has been noticed in Europe by Christison as early as 1859[42]; it is now imported occasionally from the East. It forms grey or almost blackish tubers from ⁶/₁₀ of an inch to upwards of 1 inch in length, and from ²/₁₀ to ⁴/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, oblong or ovoid, either tapering or rounded at their extremities. They are of plump, scarcely shrivelled appearance.[43]

Japanese aconite afforded to Wright and Luff a crystallized active alkaloid different from both aconitine and pseudaconitine.

Holmes[44] states that the aromatic roots of Imperatoria Ostruthium L. have been found mixed with aconite.

[40] Thus the continental druggists are able to offer it in quantity as low as 4_d._ to 5_d._ per lb., and a pound, we find, contains fully 150 roots!

[41] See figure in Berg’s Atlas zur pharm. Waarenkunde (1865) fig. 24.

[42] Hanbury, Science Papers (1876) 258, with figure. See also Pharm. Journ. ix. (1879) 615, where the drug is derived from Aconitum Fischeri.

[43] Their microscopic structure is figured in the paper of Dr. Dunin (quoted farther on, in our article on Aconitum heterophyllum at p. 14) 217-225.

[44] Pharm. Journ. vii. (1877) 749.

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FOLIA ACONITI

Herba Aconita; Aconite Leaves; F. Feuilles d’Aconit; G., Eisenhutkraut, Sturmhutkraut.

=Botanical Origin=—Aconitum Napellus L., see preceding article.

=History=—Aconite herb was introduced into medicine in 1762 by Störck of Vienna; and was admitted into the London Pharmacopœia in 1788.

=Description=—The plant produces a stiff, upright, herbaceous, simple stem, 3 to 4 feet high, clothed as to its upper half with spreading, dark green leaves, which are paler on their under side. The leaves are from 3 to 5 or more inches in length, nearly half consisting of the channelled petiole. The blade, which has a roundish outline, is divided down to the petiole into three principal segments, of which the lateral are subdivided into two or even three, the lowest being smaller and less regular than the others. The segments, which are trifid, are finally cut into 2 to 5 strap-shaped pointed lobes. The leaves are usually glabrous, and are deeply impressed on their upper side by veins which run with but few branchings to the tip of every lobe. The uppermost leaves are more simple than the lower, and gradually pass into the bracts of the beautiful raceme of dull-blue helmet-shaped flowers which crowns the stem.

The leaves have when bruised a herby smell; their taste is at first mawkish but afterwards persistently burning.

=Chemical Composition=—The leaves contain aconitine in small proportion and also aconitic acid,—the latter in combination with lime.

Aconitic Acid, C₁₆H₆O₆, discovered by Peschier in 1820 in somewhat considerable quantity in the leaves of aconite, occurs also in those of larkspur, and is identical with the Equisetic Acid of Braconnot and the Citridic Acid of Baup.[45] It has been stated to be present likewise in Adonis vernalis L. (Linderos, 1876,—10 per cent. of dried leaves!) and in the sugar cane (Behr, 1877).

Schoonbroodt[46] (1867) on treating the extract with a mixture of alcohol and ether, obtained acicular crystals, which he thought were the so-called Aconella of Smith. He further found that the distillate of the plant was devoid of odour, but was acid, and had a burning taste. By saturation with an alkali he obtained from it a crystalline substance, soluble in water, and having a very acrid taste. Experiments made about the same time by Groves,[47] a careful observer, led to opposite results. He distilled on different occasions both fresh herb and fresh roots, and obtained a neutral distillate, smelling and tasting strongly of the plant, but entirely devoid of acridity. Hence he concluded that A. Napellus contains no volatile acrid principle.

In an extract of aconite that has been long kept, the microscope reveals crystals of aconitate of calcium, as well as of sal-ammoniac.

The leaves contain a small proportion of sugar, and a tannin striking green with iron. When dried they yield on incineration 16·6 per cent. of ash.

=Uses=—In Britain the leaves and small shoots are only used in the fresh state, the flowering herb being purchased by the druggist in order to prepare an inspissated juice,—Extractum Aconiti. This preparation, which is considered rather uncertain in its action, is occasionally prescribed for the relief of rheumatism, inflammatory and febrile affections, neuralgia, and heart diseases.

[45] Gmelin, Chemistry, xi. (1857) 402.

[46] Wittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift, xviii. (1869) 82, also Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann (1869) 12.

[47] Pharm. Journ. viii. (1867) 118.

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RADIX ACONITI INDICA

Bish, Bis or Bikh, Indian Aconite Root, Nepal Aconite.

=Botanical Origin=—The poisonous root known in India as Bish, Bis, or Bikh[48] is chiefly derived from Aconitum ferox Wallich, a plant growing 3 to 6 feet high and bearing large, dull-blue flowers, native of the temperate and sub-alpine regions of the Himalaya at an elevation of 10,000 to 14,000 feet in Garhwal, Kumaon, Nepal and Sikkim.[49] In the greater part of these districts, other closely allied and equally poisonous species occur, viz. A. uncinatum L., A. luridum, H. f. et Th., A. palmatum Don, and also abundantly A. Napellus L., which last, as already mentioned, grows throughout Europe as well as in Northern Asia and America. The roots of these plants are collected indiscriminately according to Hooker and Thomson[50] under the name of Bish or Bikh.

=History=—The Sanskrit name of this potent drug, Visha, signifies simply poison, and Ativisha, a name which it also bears, is equivalent to “summum venenum.” Bish is mentioned by the Persian physician Alhervi[51] in the 10th century as well as by Avicenna[52] and many other Arabian writers on medicine,—one of whom, Isa Ben Ali, calls it the most rapid of deadly poisons, and describes the symptoms it produces with tolerable correctness.[53]

Upon the extinction of the Arabian school of medicine this virulent drug seems to have fallen into oblivion. It is just named by Acosta (1578) as one of the ingredients of a pill which the Brahmin physicians give in fever and dysentery.[54] There is also a very strange reference to it as “Bisch” in the Persian Pharmacopœia of Father Ange, where it is stated[55] that the root, though most poisonous when fresh, is perfectly innocuous when dried, and that it is imported into Persia from India, and mixed with food and condiments as a restorative! Ange was aware that it was the root of an aconite.

[48] The Arabic name Bish or Persian Bis is stated by Moodeen Sheriff in his Supplement to the Pharmacopœia of India (p. 265) to be a more correct designation than Bikh, which seems to be a corruption of doubtful origin. We find that the Arabian writer Ibn Baytar gives the word as Bish (not Bikh).

[49] Figured in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants (1877) pt. 27.

[50] Flor. Ind. i. (1855) 54, 57; and Introd. Essay, 3.

[51] Abu Mansur Mowafik ben Ali Alherui, Liber Fundamentorum Pharmacologiæ, i. (Vindob. 1830) 47. Seligmann’s edition.

[52] Valgrisi edition, 1564, lib. ii. tract. 2. it. N. (p. 347).

[53] Ibn Baytar, Sontheimers transl. i. (1840) 199.

[54] Clusius, Exotica, 289.

[55] Pharm. Persica, 1681, p. 17, 319, 358. The word bisch is correctly given in Arabic characters, so that of its identity there can be no dispute. (Pharm. persica, see appendix: Angelus.)

The poisonous properties of Bish were particularly noticed by Hamilton (late Buchanan)[56] who passed several months in Nepal in 1802-3: but nothing was known of the plant until it was gathered by Wallich and a description of it as A. ferox communicated by Seringe to the Société de physique de Genève in 1822.[57] Wallich himself afterwards gave a lengthened account of it in his Plantæ Asiaticæ Rariores (1830).[58]

=Description=—Balfour, who also figures A. ferox,[59] describes the plant from a specimen that flowered in the Botanical Garden of Edinburgh as—“having 2—3 fasciculated, fusiform, attenuated tubers, some of the recent ones being nearly 5 inches long, and 1½ inches in circumference, dark brown externally, white within, sending off sparse, longish branching fibres.”

Aconite root has of late been imported into London from India in considerable quantity, and been offered by the wholesale druggists as Nepal Aconite.[60] It is of very uniform appearance, and seems derived from a single species, which we suppose to be A. ferox. The drug consists of simple tuberous roots of an elongated conical form, 3 to 4 inches long, and ½ to 1¾ inches in greatest diameter. Very often the roots have been broken in being dug up and are wanting in the lower extremity: some are nearly as broad at one end as at the other. They are mostly flattened and not quite cylindrical, often arched, much shrivelled chiefly in a longitudinal direction, and marked rather sparsely with the scars of rootlets. The aerial stem has been closely cut away, and is represented only by a few short scaly rudiments.[61]

The roots are of a blackish brown, the prominent portions being often whitened by friction. In their normal state they are white and farinaceous within, but as they are dried by fire-heat and often even scorched, their interior is generally horny, translucent, and extremely compact and hard. The largest root we have met with weighed 555 grains.

In the Indian Bazaars, Bish is found in another form, the tuberous roots having been steeped in cow’s urine to preserve them from insects.[62] These roots which in our specimen[63] are mostly plump and cylindrical, are flexible and moist when fresh, but become hard and brittle by keeping. They are externally of very dark colour, black and horny within, with an offensive odour resembling that of hyraceum or castor. Immersed in water, though only for a few moments, they afford a deep brown solution. Such a drug is wholly unfit for use in medicine, though not unsuitable, perhaps, for the poisoning of wild beasts, a purpose to which it is often applied in India.[64]

[56] Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, Edin. 1819, 98.

[57] Musée Helvétique d’Hist. Nat. Berne, i. (1823) 160.

[58] Yet strange to say confused the plant with A. Napellus, an Indian form of which he figured as A. ferox!

[59] Edinb. New Phil Journ. xlvii. (1849) 366, pl. 5.

[60] The first importation was in 1869, when ten bags containing 1,000 lbs., said to be part of a much larger quantity actually in London, were offered for sale by a drug-broker.

[61] There is a rude woodcut of the root in Pharm. Journ. i. (1871) 434.

[62] A specimen of ordinary Bish in my possession for two or three years became much infested by a minute and active insect of the genus Psocus.—D. H.

[63] Obligingly sent to me in 1867 by Messrs. Rogers & Co. of Bombay, who say it is the only kind there procurable.—D. H.

[64] According to Moodeen Sheriff (Supplement to Pharm. of India, pp. 25-32, 265) there are several kinds of aconite root found in the Indian bazaars, some of them highly poisonous, others innocuous. The first or poisonous aconites he groups under the head Aconitum ferox, while the second, of which there are three varieties mostly known by the Arabic name Jadvár (Persian Zadvár), he refers to undetermined species of Aconitum.

The surest and safest names in most parts of India for the poisonous aconite roots are Bish (Arabic); Bis (Persian); Singyā-bis, Mīthā-zahar, Bachhnāg (Hindustani); Vasha-nāvi (Tamil); Vasa-nābhi (Malyalim).

=Microscopic Structure=—Most of the roots fail to display any characteristic structure by reason of the heat to which they have been subjected. A living root sent to us from the Botanical Garden of Edinburgh exhibited the thin brownish layer which encloses the central part in A. Napellus, replaced by a zone of stone-cells,—a feature discernible in the imported root.

=Chemical Composition=—According to Wright and Luff (see previous article) the roots of Aconitum ferox contain comparatively large quantities of pseudaconitine with a little aconitine and an alkaloid, apparently non-crystalline, which would appear not to agree with the analogous body from A. Napellus.

=Uses=—The drug has been imported and used as a source of aconitine. It is commonly believed to be much more potent than the aconite root of Europe.

RADIX ACONITI HETEROPHYLLI.

Atís or Atees.

=Botanical Origin=—Aconitum heterophyllum Wallich, a plant of 1 to 3 feet high with a raceme of large flowers of a dull yellow veined with purple, or altogether blue, and reniform or cordate, obscurely 5-lobed, radical leaves.[65] It grows at elevations of 8000 to 13,000 feet in the temperate regions of the Western Himalaya, as in Simla, Kumaon and Kashmír.

=History=—We have not met with any ancient account of this drug, which however is stated by O’Shaughnessy[66] to have been long celebrated in Indian medicine as a tonic and aphrodisiac. It has recently attracted some attention on account of its powers as an antiperiodic in fevers, and has been extensively prescribed by European physicians in India.

=Description=—The tuberous roots of A. heterophyllum are ovoid, oblong, and downward-tapering or obconical; they vary in length from ½ to 1½ inches and in diameter from ³/₁₀ to ⁶/₁₀ of an inch, and weigh from 5 to 45 grains. They are of a light ash colour, wrinkled and marked with scars of rootlets, and have scaly rudiments of leaves at the summit. Internally they are pure white and farinaceous. A transverse section shows a homogeneous tissue with 4 to 7 yellowish vascular bundles. In a longitudinal section these bundles are seen to traverse the root from the scar of the stem to the opposite pointed end, here and there giving off a rootlet. The taste of the root is simply bitter with no acridity.

[65] Beautifully figured in Royle’s Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan mountains, &c., 1839, tab. 13; also in Bentley and Trimen’s Medicinal Plants, Part 27 (1877).

[66] Bengal Dispensatory, 1842. 167.

=Microscopic Structure=—The tissue is formed of large angular thin-walled cells loaded with starch which is either in the form of isolated or compound granules. The vascular bundles contain numerous spiroid vessels which seen in transverse section appear arranged so as to form about four rays. The outer coat of the root is made up of about six rows of compressed, tabular cells with faintly brownish walls.

=Chemical Composition=—The root contains Atisine, an amorphous alkaloid of intensely bitter taste discovered by Broughton,[67] who assigns to it the formula C₄₆H₇₄N₂O₅, obtained from concurrent analysis of a platinum salt. The alkaloid is readily soluble in bisulphide of carbon or in benzol, also to some extent in water. It is of decidedly alkaline reaction, devoid of any acridity. Atisine has also been prepared (1877) by Dunin[68] from the root in the laboratory of one of us. We have before us its hydroiodate, forming colourless crystallized scales, which we find to be very sparingly soluble in cold alcohol or water. At boiling temperature the hydroiodate of atisine is readily dissolved; the aqueous solution on cooling yields beautiful crystals. They agree, according to Dunin, with the formula C₄₆H₇₄N₂O₄. HI + OH₂; this chemist has also shown atisine not to be poisonous. The absence in the drug of aconitine is proved by medical experience,[69] and fully confirmed by the absence of any acridity in the root.

=Uses=—The drug is stated to have proved a valuable remedy in intermittent and other paroxysmal fevers. In ordinary intermittents it may be given in powder in 20-grain doses. As a simple tonic the dose is 5 to 10 grains thrice a day.

=Substitutes=—The native name Atís applied in India to several other drugs, one of which is an inert tasteless root commonly referred to Asparagus sarmentosus L. In Kunawar the tubers of Aconitum Napellus L. are dug up and eaten as a tonic, the name atís being applied to them as well as to those of A. heterophyllum.[70]

[67] Pharm. Journ. vi (1875) 189; also Blue Book, East India Chinchona Cultivation, 1877. 133.

[68] Dr. M. Dunin von Wasowicz has devoted to the drug under notice an elaborate paper in the Archiv der Pharmacie, 214 (1879) 193-216, including its structure, which he illustrates by engravings.

[69] Pharm. of India, 1868. 4. 434.

[70] Hooker and Thomson (on the authority of Munro) Flor. Ind. 1855. 58.

RADIX CIMICIFUGÆ.

Radix Actæa racemosæ; Black Snake-root, Black Cohosh, Bugbane.

=Botanical Origin=—Cimicifuga racemosa Elliott (Actæa racemosa L.), a perennial herb 3 to 8 feet high, abundant in rich woods in Canada and the United States, extending southward to Florida.[71] It much resembles Actæa spicata L., a plant widely spread over the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America, occurring also in Britain; but it differs in having an elongated raceme of 3 to 8 inches in length and dry dehiscent capsules. A. spicata has a short raceme and juicy berries, usually red.

[71] For figure, see Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, Part 23 (1877).

=History=—The plant was first made known by Plukenet in 1696 as Christophoriana Canadensis racemosa. It was recommended in 1743 by Colden[72] and named in 1749 by Linnæus in his Materia Medica as Actæa racemis longissimis. In 1823 it was introduced into medical practice in America by Garden; it began to be used in England about the year 1860.[73]

=Description=—The drug consists of a very short, knotty, branching rhizome, ½ an inch or more thick, having, in one direction, the remains of several stout aerial stems, and in the other, numerous brittle, wiry roots, ¹/₂₀ to ⅒ of an inch in diameter, emitting rootlets still smaller. The rhizome is of somewhat flattened cylindrical form, distinctly marked at intervals with the scars of fallen leaves. A transverse section exhibits in the centre a horny whitish pith, round which are a number of rather coarse, irregular woody rays, and outside them a hard, thickish bark. The larger roots when broken display a thick cortical layer, the space within which contains converging wedges of open woody tissue 3 to 5 in number forming a star or cross,—a beautiful and characteristic structure easily observed with a lens. The drug is of a dark blackish brown; it has a bitter, rather acrid and astringent taste, and a heavy narcotic smell.

=Microscopic Structure=—The most striking character is afforded by the rootlets, which on a transverse section display a central woody column, traversed usually by 4 wide medullary rays and often enclosing a pith. The woody column is surrounded by a parenchymatous layer separated from the cortical portion by one row of densely packed small cells constituting a boundary analogous to the nucleus-sheath (Kernscheide) met with in many roots of monocotyledons, as for instance in sarsaparilla. The parenchyme of cimicifuga root contains small starch granules. The structure of the drug is, on the whole, the same as that of the closely allied European Actæa spicata L.

=Chemical Composition=—Tilghmann[74] in 1834 analysed the drug, obtaining from it gum, sugar, resin, starch and tannic acid, but no peculiar principal.

Conard[75] extracted from it a neutral crystalline substance of intensely acrid taste, soluble in dilute alcohol, chloroform, or ether, but not in benzol, oil of turpentine, or bisulphide of carbon. The composition of this body has not been ascertained. The same chemist showed the drug not to afford a volatile principle, even in its fresh state.

The American practitioners called Eclectics prepare with Black Snake-root in the same manner as they prepare podophyllin, an impure resin which they term Cimicifugin or Macrotin. The drug yields, according to Parrish, 3¾ per cent. of this substance, which is sold in the form of scales or as a dark brown powder.

=Uses=—Cimicifuga usually prescribed in the form of tincture (called Tinctura Actæa racemosæ) has been employed chiefly in rheumatic affections. It is also used in dropsy, the early stages of phthisis, and in chronic bronchial disease. A strong tincture has been lately recommended in America as an external application for reducing inflammation.[76]

[72] Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal. 1743. 131.

[73] Bentley, Pharm. Journ. ii. (1861) 460.

[74] Quoted by Bentley.

[75] Am. Journ. of Pharm. xliii. (1871) 151; Pharm. Journ. April 29, 1871. 866.

[76] Yearbook of Pharmacy, 1872. 385.

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MAGNOLIACEÆ

CORTEX WINTERANUS.

Cortex Winteri, Cortex Magellanicus; Winter’s Bark, Winter’s Cinnamon; F. Ecorce de Winter; G. Wintersrinde, Magellanischer Zimmt.

=Botanical Origin=—Drimys[77] Winteri Forster, a tree distributed throughout the American continent from Mexico to Cape Horn. It presents considerable variation in form and size of leaf and flower in the different countries in which it occurs, on which account it has received from botanists several distinct specific names. Hooker[78] has reduced these species to a single type, a course in which he has been followed by Eichler in his monograph of the small order Winteraceæ[79].—In April, 1877, the tree was blossoming in the open air in the botanic garden at Dublin.

[77] From δριμὺς, acrid, biting.

[78] Flora Antarctica, ii. (1847) 229.

[79] Martius, Flor. Bras. fasc. 38 (1864) 134. Eichler however admits five principal varieties, viz. α. Magellanica; β. Chilensis; γ. Granatensis; δ. revoluta; ε. angustifolia.

=History=—In 1577 Captain Drake, afterwards better known as Sir Francis Drake, having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a commission to conduct a squadron to the South Seas, set sail from Plymouth with five ships; and having abandoned two of his smaller vessels, passed into the Pacific Ocean by the Straits of Magellan in the autumn of the following year. But on the 7th September, 1578, there arose a dreadful storm, which dispersed the little fleet. Drake’s ship, the Pelican, was driven southward, the Elizabeth, under the command of Captain Winter, repassed the Straits and returned to England, while the third vessel, the Marigold, was heard of no more.

Winter remained three weeks in the Straits of Magellan to recover the health of his crew, during which period, according to Clusius (the fact is not mentioned in Hakluyt’s account of the voyage), he collected a certain aromatic bark, of which, having removed the acridity by steeping it in honey, he made use as a spice and medicine for scurvy during his voyage to England, where he arrived in 1579.

A specimen of this bark having been presented to Clusius, he gave it the name of Cortex Winteranus, and figured and described it in his pamphlet: “Aliquot notæ in Garciæ aromatum historiam,” Antverpiæ, 1582, p. 30, and also in the Libri Exoticorum, published in 1605. He afterwards received a specimen with wood attached, which had been collected by the Dutch navigator Sebald de Weerdt.

Van Noort, another well-known Dutch navigator, who visited the Straits of Magellan in 1600, mentions cutting wood at Port Famine to make a boat, and that the bark of the trees was hot and biting like pepper. It is stated by Murray that he also brought the bark to Europe.

But although the straits of Magellan were several times visited about this period, it is certain that no regular communication between that remote region and Europe existed either then or subsequently; and we may reasonably conclude that Winter’s Bark became a drug of great rarity, and known to but few persons. It thus happened that, notwithstanding most obvious differences, the Canella alba of the West Indies, and another bark of which we shall speak further on, having been found to possess the pungency of Winter’s Bark, were (owing to the scarcity of the latter) substituted for it, until at length the peculiar characters of the original drug came to be entirely forgotten.

The tree was figured by Sloane in 1693, from a specimen (still extant in the British Museum) brought from Magellan’s Straits by Handisyd, a ship’s surgeon, who had experienced its utility in treating scurvy.

Feuillée,[80] a French botanist, found the Winter’s Bark-tree in Chili (1709-11), and figured it as Boigue cinnamomifera. It was, however, Forster,[81] the botanist of Cook’s second expedition round the world, who first described the tree accurately, and named it Drimys Winteri. He met with it in 1773 in Magellan’s Straits, and on the eastern coasts of Tierra del Fuego, where it grows abundantly, forming an evergreen tree of 40 feet, while on the western shores it is but a shrub of 10 feet high. Specimens have been collected in these and adjacent localities by many subsequent botanists, among others by Dr. J. D. Hooker, who states that about Cape Horn the tree occurs from the sea-level to an elevation of 1000 feet.

Although the bark of Drimys was never imported as an article of trade from Magellan’s Straits, it has in recent times been occasionally brought into the market from other parts of South America, where it is in very general use. Yet so little are drug dealers acquainted with it, that its true name and origin have seldom been recognized.[82]

[80] Journ. des observations physiques, &c. iv. 1714. 10, pl. 6.

[81] Characteres Generum Plantarum, 1775. 42.

[82] We have seen it offered in a drug sale at one time as “Pepper Bark,” at another as “Cinchona.” Even Mutis thought it a Cinchona, and called it “Kinkina urens”!

=Description=—We have examined specimens of true Winter’s Bark from the Straits of Magellan, Chili, Peru, New Granada, and Mexico, and find in each the same general characters. The bark is in quills or channelled pieces, often crooked, twisted or bent backwards, generally only a few inches in length. It is most extremely thick (⅒ to ³/₁₀ of an inch) and appears to have shrunk very much in drying, bark a quarter of an inch thick having sometimes rolled itself into a tube only three times as much in external diameter. Young pieces have an ashy-grey suberous coat beset with lichens. In older bark, the outer coat is sometimes whitish and silvery, but more often of a dark rusty brown, which is the colour of the internal substance, as well as of the surface next the wood. The inner side of the bark is strongly characterized by very rough striæ, or, as seen under a lens, by small short and sharp longitudinal ridges, with occasional fissures indicative of great contraction of the inner layer in drying. In a piece broken or cut transversely, it is easy to perceive that the ridges in question are the ends of rays of white liber which diverge towards the circumference in radiate order, a dark rusty parenchyme intervening between them. No such feature is ever observable in either Canella or Cinnamodendron.

Winter’s Bark has a short, almost earthy fracture, an intolerably pungent burning taste, and an odour which can only be described as terebinthinous. When fresh its smell may be more agreeable. The descriptions of Clusius, as alluded to above, are perfectly agreeing and even his figures as nearly as might be expected.

=Microscopic Structure=—In full-grown specimens the most striking fact is the predominance of sclerenchymatous cells. The tissue moreover contains numerous large oil-ducts, chiefly in the inner portion of the large medullary rays. A fibrous structure of the inner part of the bark is observable only in the youngest specimens.[83] Very small starch granules are met with in the drug, yet less numerous than in canella. The tissue of the former assumes a blackish blue colour on addition of perchloride of iron.

The wood of Drimys consists of dotted prosenchyme, traversed by medullary rays, the cells of which are punctuated and considerably larger than in Coniferæ.

=Chemical Composition=—No satisfactory chemical examination has been made of true Winter’s Bark. Its chief constituents, as already pointed out, are tannic matters and essential oil, probably also a resin. In a cold aqueous infusion, a considerable amount of mucilage is indicated by neutral acetate of lead. On addition of potash it yields a dark somewhat violet liquid. Canella alba is but little altered by the same treatment. By reason of its astringency the bark is used in Chili for tanning.[84]

=Uses=—Winter’s Bark is a stimulating tonic and antiscorbutic, now almost obsolete in Europe. It is much used in Brazil and other parts of South America as a remedy in diarrhœa and gastric debility.

=Substitute=—False Winter’s Bark—We have shown that the bark of Drimys or True Winter’s Bark has been confounded with the pungent bark of Canella alba L., and with an allied bark, also the produce of Jamaica. The latter is that of Cinnamodendron corticosum Miers,[85] a tree growing in the higher mountain woods of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and St. John, but not observed in any other of the West Indian islands than Jamaica. It was probably vaguely known to Sloane when he described the “Wild Cinamon tree, commonly, but falsely, called Cortex Winteranus,” which, he says, has leaves resembling those of Lauro-cerasus; though the tree he figures is certainly Canella alba.[86] Long[87] in 1774, speaks of Wild Cinamon, Canella alba, or Bastard Cortex Winteranus, saying that it is used by most apothecaries instead of the true Cortex Winteranus.

[83] The structure of Winter’s Bark is beautifully figured by Eichler, loc. cit. tab. 32.

[84] Perez-Rosales, Essai sur le Chili, 1857. 113.

[85] Annals of Nat. Hist., May 1858; also Miers’ Contributions to Botany, i. 121, pl. 24, Bot. Magaz., Sept. 1874, vol. xxx. pl. 6121, and Bentley and Trimens’ Medicinal Plants, part 10.

[86] Phil. Trans. xvii for 1693. 465.

[87] Hist. of Jamaica. London, iii. (1774) 705—also i. 495.

It is probable that both writers really had in view Cinnamodendron, the bark of which has been known and used as Winter’s Bark, both in England and on the continent from an early period up to the present time.[88] It is the bark figured as Cortex Winteranus by Goebel and Kunze[89] and described by Mérat and De Lens,[90] Pereira, and other writers of repute. Guibourt indeed pointed out in 1850 its great dissimilarity to the bark of Drimys and questioned if it could be derived from that genus.

It is a strange fact that the tree should have been confounded with Canella alba L., differing from it as it does in the most obvious manner, not only in form of leaf, but in having the flowers axillary, whereas those of C. alba are terminal. Although Cinnamodendron corticosum is a tree sometimes as much as 90 feet high[91] and must have been well known in Jamaica for more than a century, yet it had no botanical name until 1858 when it was described by Miers[92] and referred to the small genus Cinnamodendron which is closely allied to Canella.

The bark of Cinnamodendron has the general structure of Canella alba. There is the same thin corky outer coat (which is not removed) dotted with round scars, the same form of quills and fracture. But the tint is different, being more or less of a ferruginous brown. The inner surface which is a little more fibrous than in canella, varies in colour, being yellowish, brown, or of a deep chocolate. The bark is violently pungent but not bitter, and has a very agreeable cinnamon-like odour.

In microscopic structure it approaches very close to canella; yet the thick-walled cells of the latter exist to a much larger extent and are here seen to belong to the suberous tissue. The medullary rays are loaded with oxalate of calcium.

Cinnamodendron bark has not been analysed. Its decoction is blackened by a persalt of iron whereby it may be distinguished from Canella alba; and is coloured intense purplish brown by iodine, which is not the case with a decoction of true Winter’s Bark.

[88] It is so labelled in the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, 28th April, 1873.

[89] Pharm. Waarenkunde, 1827-29. i. Taf. 3. fig. 7.

[90] As shown by De Lens’ own specimen kindly given to us by Dr. J. Léon Soubeiran. There are specimens of the same bark about a century old marked Cortex Winteranus verus in Dr. Burges’s cabinet of drugs belonging to the Royal College of Physicians.

[91] Griesbach calls it a low shrubby tree, 10-15 feet high. Mr. N. Wilson, late of the Bath Botanic Garden, Jamaica, has informed me it grows to be 40-45 in height, but that he has seen a specimen 90 feet high. (Letter 22 May 1862.)—D. H.

[92] Loc. cit.

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FRUCTUS ANISI STELLATI

Semen Badiana[93]; Star-Anise; F. Badiane, Anis étoilé; G. Sternanis.

=Botanical Origin=—Illicium anisatum Loureiro (I. religiosum Sieb.). A small tree, 20 to 25 feet high, native of the south-western provinces of China; introduced at an early period into Japan by the Buddhists and planted about their temples.

Kämpfer in his travels in Japan, in 1690-1692, discovered and figured a tree called Somo or Skimmi[94] which subsequent authors assumed to be the source of the drug Star-anise. The tree was also found in Japan by Thunberg[95] who remarked that its capsules are not so aromatic as those found in trade. Von Siebold in 1825 noticed the same fact, in consequence of which he regarded the tree as distinct from that of Loureiro, naming it Illicium Japonicum, a name he changed in 1837 to I. religiosum. Baillon,[96] while admitting certain differences between the fruits of the Chinese and Japanese trees, holds them to constitute but one species, and the same view is taken by Miquel.[97]

[93] From the Arabic Bádiyán fennel.

[94] Amœnitates, 1712. 880.

[95] Flora Japonica, 1784. 235.

[96] Adansonia, vHist. des Plantes, Magnoliacées_, 1868. 154.

[97] Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugdun. Batav. ii. (1865-1866). 257.

The star-anise of commerce is produced in altitudes of 2500 metres in the north-western parts of the province of Yunnan in South-western China where the tree, which attains a height of 12 to 15 feet, grows in abundance.[98] The fruits of the Japanese variety of the tree are not collected, and the Chinese drug alone is in use even in Japan.

=History=—Notwithstanding its striking appearance, there is no evidence that star-anise found its way to Europe like other Eastern spices during the middle ages. Concerning its ancient use in China, the only fact we have found recorded is, that during the Sung dynasty, A.D. 970-1127, star-anise was levied as tribute in the southern part of Kien-chow, now Yen-ping-fu, in Fokien.[99]

Star-anise was brought to England from the Philippines by the voyager Candish, about A.D. 1588. Clusius obtained it in London from the apothecary Morgan and the druggist Garet, and described it in 1601.[100] The drug appears to have been rare in the time of Pomet, who states (1694) that the Dutch use it to flavour their beverages of tea and “sorbec.”[101] In those times it was brought to Europe by way of Russia, and was thence called Cardamomum Siberiense, or Annis de Sibérie.

=Description=—The fruit of Illicium anisatum is formed of 8 one-seeded carpels, originally upright, but afterwards spread into a radiate whorl and united in a single row round a short central column which proceeds from an oblique pedicel. When ripe they are woody and split longitudinally at the upturned ventral suture, so that the shining seed becomes visible. This seed, which is elliptical and somewhat flattened, stands erect in the carpel; it is truncated on the side adjoining the central column, and is there attached by an obliquely-rising funicle. The upper edge of the seed is keeled, the lower rounded. The boat-shaped carpels, to the number of 8, are attached to the column through their whole height, but adhere to each other only slightly at the base; the upper or split side of each carpel occupies a nearly horizontal position. The carpels are irregularly wrinkled, especially below, and are more or less beaked at the apex; their colour is a rusty brown. Internally they are of a brighter colour, smooth, and with a cavity in the lower half corresponding to the shape of the seed. The cavity is formed of a separate wall, ½ millim. thick, which, as well as the testa of the seed, distinctly exhibits a radiate structure. The small embryo lies next the hilum in the soft albumen, which is covered by a dark brown endopleura. The seed, which is not much aromatic, amounts to about one-fifth of the entire weight of the fruit.

[98] Thorel, Notes Médicales du voyage d’exploration du Mékong et de Cochinchine, Paris, 1870. 31.—Garnier, Voyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine II. (Paris, 1873) 439.—Rondot, Etude pratique du commerce d’exportation de la Chine, 1848. 11.

[99] Bretschneider in (Foochow) Chinese Recorder, Jan., 1871, 220, reprinted in his “Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works,” Foochow, 1872, 13.—See also Hirth du Frênes, in New Remedies, New York, 1877, 181.

[100] Rarior. Plant. Hist. 202.

[101] Hist. des Drog. pt. i. liv. i. 43.

Star-anise has an agreeable aromatic taste and smell, more resembling fennel than anise, on which account it was at first designated Fœniculum Sinense.[102] When pulverised, it has a subacid after-taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The carpels consist of an external, loose, dark brown layer and a thick inner wall, separated by fibro-vascular bundles. The outer layer exhibits numerous large cells, containing pale yellow volatile oil. The inner wall of the carpels consists of woody prosenchyme in those parts which are exterior to the seed cavity, and especially in the shining walls laid bare by the splitting of the ventral suture. The inner surface of the carpel is entirely composed of sclerenchyme. A totally different structure is exhibited by this stony shell where it lines the cavity occupied by the seed. Here it is composed of a single row of cells, consisting of straight tubes exactly parallel to one another, more than 500 mkm. long, and 70 mkm. in diameter, placed vertically to the seed cavity; their porous walls, marked with fine spiral striations, display splendid colours in polarized light. The seed contains albumen and drops of fat. Starch is wanting in star-anise, except a little in the fruit-stalk.

=Chemical Composition=—The volatile oil amounts to four or five per cent. Its composition is that of the oils of fennel or anise. We observed that oil of star-anise, as distilled by one of us, continued fluid below 8° C. It solidified at that temperature as soon as a crystal of anethol (see our article on Fructus Anisi) was brought in contact with the oil. The crystallized mass began to melt again at 16° C. The oils of anise and star-anise possess no striking optical differences, both deviating very little to the left. We are unable to give any chemical characters by which they can be discriminated, although they are distinguished by dealers; the oil of star-anise imparts a somewhat different flavour, for instance, to drinks than that produced by anise oil.

Star-anise is rich in sugar, which seems to be cane-sugar inasmuch as it does not reduce alkaline cupric tartrate. An aqueous extract of the fruit assumes, on addition of alcohol, the form of a clear mucilaginous jelly, of which pectin is probably a constituent. The seeds contain a large quantity of fixed oil.

=Commerce=—Star-anise is shipped to Europe and India from China. In 1872 Shanghai imported, mostly by way of Hong Kong 5273 peculs (703,066 lb.), a large proportion of which was re-shipped to other ports of China.[103] According to Rondot (l. c.) the best is first brought by junks from Fokien to Canton, being exported from Tsiouen-tchou-fou. A little is also collected in Kiangsi and Kuang-tung. The same drug, under the name of Bādiyāne-khatāi (i.e. Chinese fennel), is carried by inland trade from China to Yarkand and thence to India, where it is much esteemed.

=Uses=—Star-anise is employed to flavour spirits, the principal consumption being in Germany, France, and Italy. It is not used in medicine at least in England, except in the form of essential oil, which is often sold for oil of aniseed.

[102] Redi, Experimenta, Amstelod. 1675, p. 172.

[103] Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports in China for 1872, 4-8.

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MENISPERMACEÆ

RADIX CALUMBÆ.

Radix Columba; Calumba or Colombo Root; F. Racine de Colombo; G. Kalumbawurzel, Columbowurzel.

=Botanical Origin=—Jateorhiza palmata Miers[104] a diœcious perennial plant, with large fleshy roots and herbaceous annual stems, climbing over bushes and to the tops of lofty trees. The leaves are of large size and on long stalks, palmate-lobed and membranous. The male flowers are in racemose panicles a foot or more in length, setose-hispid at least in their lower part, or nearly glabrous. The whole part is more or less hispid with spreading setæ and glandular hairs.

It is indigenous to the forests of Eastern Africa between Ibo or Oibo, the most northerly of the Portuguese settlements (lat. 12° 28′ S.), and the banks of the Zambesi, a strip of coast which includes the towns of Mozambique and Quilimane. Kirk found it (1860) in abundance at Shupanga, among the hills near Morambala, at Kebrabasa and near Senna, localities all in the region of the Zambesi. Peters[105] states that on the islands of Ibo and Mozambique the plant is cultivated. In the Kew Herbarium is a specimen from the interior of Madagascar.

The plant was introduced into Mauritius a century ago in the time of the French governor Le Poivre, but seems to have been lost, for after many attempts it was again introduced in 1825 by living specimens procured from Ibo by Captain Owen.[106] It still thrives there in the Botanical Garden of Pamplemousses.

It was taken from Mozambique to India in 1805 and afterwards cultivated by Roxburgh in the Calcutta Garden, where however it has long ceased to exist.

[104] Synonyms—Menispermum palmatum Lamarck, Cocculus palmatus DC, Menispermum Columba Roxb., Jateorhiza Calumba Miers, J. Miersii Oliv., Chasmanthera Columba Baillon. As we thus suppress a species admitted in recent works, it is necessary to give the following explanation. Menispermum palmatum of Lamarck, first described in the Encyclopédie méthodique in 1797 (iv. 99), was divided by Miers into two species, Jateorhiza palmata and J. Calumba. Oliver in his Flora of Tropical Africa, i. (1868) 42, accepted the view taken by Miers, but to avoid confusion abolished the specific name palmata, substituting for it that of Miersii. At the same time he noticed the close relationship of the two species, and suggested that further investigation might warrant their union. The characters supposed to distinguish them inter se are briefly these:—In J. palmata, the lobes at the base of the leaf overlap, and the male inflorescence is nearly glabrous; while in J. Calumba, the basal lobes are rounded, but do not overlap, and the male inflorescence is setose-hispid (“sparsely pilose” Miers). On careful examination of a large number of specimens, including those of Berry from Calcutta, and others from Mauritius, Madagascar, and the Zambesi, together with the drawings of Telfair and Roxburgh, and the published figures and descriptions, I am convinced that the characters in question are unimportant and do not warrant the establishment of two species. In this view I have the support of Mr. Horne of Mauritius, who at my request has made careful observations on the living plant and found that both forms of leaf occur on the same stem.—D. H.

[105] Reise nach Mossambique, Botanik i. (1862) 172.

[106] Hooker, Bot. Mag. lvii. (1830) tabb. 2970-71.

=History=—The root is held in high esteem among the natives of Eastern Africa who call it Kalumb, and use it for the cure of dysentery and as a general remedy for almost any disorder.

It was brought to Europe by the Portuguese in the 17th century, and is first noticed briefly in 1671 by Francesco Redi, who speaks of it[107] as an antidote to poison deserving trial.

No further attention was paid to the drug for nearly a century, when Percival[108] in 1773 re-introduced it as “a medicine of considerable efficacy ... not so generally known in practice as it deserves to be.” From this period it began to come into general use. J. Gurney Bevan, a London druggist, writing to a correspondent in 1777 alludes to it as—“an article not yet much dealt in and subject to great fluctuation.” It was in fact at this period extremely dear, and in Mr. Bevan’s stock-books is valued in 1776 and 1777 at 30_s._ per lb., in 1780 at 28_s._, 1781 at 64_s._, 1782 at 15_s._, 1783 at 6_s._ Calumba was admitted to the London Pharmacopœia in 1788.

=Collection=—As to the collection and preparation of the drug for the market, the only account we possess is that obtained by Dr. Berry,[109] which states that the roots are dug up in the month of March, which is the dry season, cut into slices and dried in the shade.

=Description=—The calumba plant produces great fusiform fleshy roots growing several together from a short head. Some fresh specimens sent to one of us (H.) from the Botanic Garden, Mauritius, in 1866, and others from that of Trinidad in 1868, were portions of cylindrical roots, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, externally rough and brown and internally firm, fleshy, and of a brilliant yellow. When sliced transversely, and dried by a gentle heat, these roots exactly resemble imported calumba except for being much fresher and brighter.

The calumba of commerce consists of irregular flattish pieces of a circular or oval outline, 1 to 2 inches or more in diameter, and ⅛ to ½ an inch thick. In drying, the central portion contracts more than the exterior: hence the pieces are thinnest in the middle. The outer edge is invested with a brown wrinkled layer which covers a corky bark about ⅜ of an inch thick, surrounding a pithless internal substance, from which it is separated by a fine dark shaded line. The pieces are light and of a corky texture, easily breaking with a mealy fracture. Their colour is a dull greenish yellow, brighter when the outer surface is shaved off with a knife.[110] The drug has a weak musty odour and a rather nauseous bitter taste. It often arrives much perforated by insects, but seems not liable to such depredations here.

[107] “Sono ancora da farsi nuove esperienze intorno alla radice di Calumbe, creduta un grandissimo alessifarmaco.”—Esperienze, p. 125. (See Appendix, R.)

[108] Essays Medical and Experimental, Lond. ii. (1773) 3.

[109] Asiatick Researches, x. (1808) 385; Ainslie, Mat. Med. of Hindoostan, 298.

[110] Wholesale druggists sometimes wash the drug to improve its colour.

=Microscopic Structure=—On a transverse section the root exhibits a circle of radiate vascular bundles only in the layer immediately connected with the cambial zone; they project much less distinctly into the cortical part. The tissue of the whole root, except the cork and vascular bundles, is made up of large parenchymatous cells. In the outer part of the bark,— some of them have their yellow walls thickened and are loaded with fine crystals of oxalate of calcium, whilst all the other cells contain very large starch granules, attaining as much as 90 mkm. The short fracture of the root is due to the absence of a proper ligneous or liber tissue.

=Chemical Composition=—The bitter taste of calumba, and probably likewise its medicinal properties, are due to three distinct substances, Columbin, Berberine, and Columbic Acid.

Columbin, or Columba-Bitter was discovered by Wittstock in 1830. It is a neutral bitter principle, crystallizing in colourless rhombic prisms, slightly soluble in cold alcohol or ether, but dissolving more freely in those liquids when boiling. It is soluble in aqueous alkalis and in acetic acid.

The presence of Berberine in calumba was ascertained in 1848 by Bödeker, who showed that the yellow cell-walls of the root owe their colour to it and (as we may add) to Columbic Acid, another substance discovered by the same chemist in the following year. Columbic Acid is yellow, amorphous, nearly insoluble in cold water, but dissolving in alcohol and in alkaline solutions. It tastes somewhat less bitter than columbin. Bödeker surmises that it may exist in combination with the berberine.

Bödeker has pointed out a connection between the three bitter principles of calumba. If we suppose a molecule of ammonia, NH₃, to be added to columbin C₄₂H₄₄O₁₄, the complex molecule thence resulting will contain the elements of berberine C₂₀H₁₇NO₄, columbic acid C₂₂H₂₄O₇, and water 3H₂O.

Among the more usual constituents of plants, calumba contains (in addition to starch) pectin, gum, and nitrate of potassium, but no tannic acid. It yields when incinerated 6 per cent. of ash.

=Commerce=—Calumba root is shipped to Europe and India from Mozambique and Zanzibar, and exported from Bombay and other Indian ports.

=Uses=—It is much employed as a mild tonic, chiefly in the form of tincture or of aqueous infusion.

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PAREIRA BRAVA

Radix Pareiræ; Pareira-Brava[111]; F. Racine de Butua ou de Pareira-Brava; G. Grieswurzel.

=Botanical Origin=—Chondodendron tomentosum Ruiz et Pav. (non Eichler) (Cocculus Chondodendron DC., Botryopsis platyphylla Miers[112]).—It is a lofty climbing shrub with long woody stems, and leaves as much as a foot in length. The latter are of variable form, but mostly broadly ovate, rounded or pointed at the extremity, slightly cordate at the base, and having long petioles. They are smooth on the upper side; on the under covered between the veins with a fine close tomentum of an ashy hue. The flowers are unisexual, racemose, minute, produced either from the young shoots or from the woody stems. The fruits are ¾ of an inch long, oval, black and much resembling grapes in form and arrangement.[113]

[111] From the Portuguese parreira, signifying a vine that grows against a wall (in French treille), and brava, wild.

[112] For a figure see Bentley and Trimen, Medic. Plants, Part 5 (1876); also Eichler in Martius’ Flor. Bras. fasc. 38. tab. 48. The Cissampelos Abutua of Vellozo’s Flora Fluminensis, tom. x. tab. 140 appears to us the same plant.

[113] See Pharm. Journ. Aug. 2, 1873. 83; Yearbook, 1873. 28; Am. Journ. of Pharm. Oct. 1, 1873. fig. 3; Hanbury Science Papers. 382.

The plant grows in Peru and Brazil,—in the latter country in the neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, where it occurs in some abundance on the range of hills separating the Copacabana from the basin of the Rio de Janeiro. It is also found about San Sebastian further south.

=History=—The Portuguese missionaries who visited Brazil in the 17th century became acquainted with a root known to the natives as Abutua or Butua, which was regarded as possessing great virtues. As the plant affording it was a tall climbing shrub with large, simple, long-stalked leaves, and bore bunches of oval berries resembling grapes, the Portuguese gave it the name of Parreira brava or Wild Vine.

The root was brought to Lisbon where its reputed medicinal powers attracted the notice of many persons, and among others of Michel Amelot, ambassador of Louis XIV., who took back some of it when he returned to Paris in 1688. Specimens of the drug also reached the botanist Tournefort, and one presented by him to Pomet was figured and described by the latter in 1694.[114] The drug was again brought to Paris by Louis-Raulin Rouillé, the successor to Amelot at Lisbon, together with a memoir detailing its numerous virtues.

Specimens obtained in Brazil by a naval officer named De la Mare in the early part of the last century, were laid before the French Academy, which body requested a report upon them from Geoffroy, professor of medicine and pharmacy in the College of France, who was already somewhat acquainted with the new medicine. He reported many favourable trials in cases of inflammations of the bladder and suppression of urine.[115] The drug was a favourite remedy of Helvetius,[116] physician to Louis XIV. and Louis XV., who administered it for years with great success.

Both Geoffroy and Helvetius were in frequent correspondence with Sloane[117] who received from the former as well as from other sources specimens of Pareira Brava, which are still in the British Museum and have enabled us fully to identify the drug as the root of Chondodendron tomentosum.

Several other plants of the order Menispermaceæ have stems or roots employed in South America in the same manner as Chondodendron. Pomet had heard of two varieties of Pareira Brava, and two were known to Geoffroy.[118] Lochner of Nürnberg who published a treatise on Pareira Brava in 1719[119] brought forward a plant of Eastern Africa figured in 1675 by Zanoni,[120] and supposed to be the mother plant of the drug. A species of Cissampelos called by the Portuguese in Brazil Caapeba, Cipó de Cobras or Herva de Nossa Senhora described by Piso in 1648,[121] afterwards became associated with Pareira Brava on account of similarity of properties.

[114] Hist. des Drog. Paris, 1694. part i. livre 2. cap. 14.

[115] Hist. de l’Acad. roy. des Sciences, anneé 1710. 56.

[116] Traité des maladies les plus fréquentes et des remèdes spécifiques pour les guérir, Paris, 1703. 98.

[117] In the volumes of Sloane MSS. No. 4045 and 3322 contained in the British Museum, are a great many letters to Sloane from Etienne-François Geoffroy and from his younger brother Claude-Joseph, dating 1699 to 1744.

[118] Tract. de Mat. Med. ii. (1741) 21-25.

[119] Schediasma de Parreira Brava, 1719. (ed. 2. auctior.)

[120] Istoria Botanica, 1675. 59. fig. 22.

[121] Medicina Brasiliensis, 1648. 94.

Thus was introduced a confusion which we may say was consolidated when Linnæus in 1753,[122] founded a species as Cissampelos Pareira, citing it as the source of Pareira Brava,—a confusion which has lasted for more than a hundred years. This plant is very distinct from that yielding true Pareira Brava, and though its roots and stems are used medicinally in the West Indies,[123] there is nothing to prove that they were ever an object of export to Europe.

As Pareira Brava failed to realise the extravagant pretensions claimed for it, it gradually fell out of use,[124] and the characters of the true drug became forgotten. This at least seems to be the explanation of the fact that for many years past the Pareira Brava found in the shops and supposed to be genuine is a substance very diverse from the original drug,—albeit not devoid of medicinal properties. More recently even this has become scarce, and an inert Pareira Brava has been almost the sole kind obtainable. The true drug has however still at times appeared in the European market, and attention having been directed to it,[125] we may hope that it will arrive in a regular manner.

The re-introduction of Pareira Brava into medical practice is due (so far as Great Britain is concerned) to Brodie[126] who recommended it in 1828 for inflammation of the bladder.

=Description=—True Pareira Brava as derived from Chondodendron tomentosum is a long, branching, woody root, attaining 2 inches or more in diameter, but usually met with much smaller and dividing into rootlets no thicker than a quill or even than a horse-hair. It is remarkably tortuous or serpentine and marked with transverse ridges as well as with constrictions and cracks more or less conspicuous; besides which the surface is strongly wrinkled longitudinally. The bark is of a dark blackish brown or even quite black when free from earth, and disposed to exfoliate. The root breaks with a coarse fibrous fracture; the inner substance is of a light yellowish-brown,—sometimes of a dull greenish brown.

Roots of about an inch in diameter cut transversely exhibit a central column 0·2 to 0·4 of an inch in diameter composed of 10 to 20 converging wedges of large-pored woody tissue with 3 or 4 zones divided from each other by a wavy light-coloured line. Crossing these zones are wedge-shaped woody rays, often rather sparsely and irregularly distributed. The interradial substance has a close, resinous, waxy appearance.

[122] Species Plantarum, Holmiæ, 1753; see also Mat. Med. 1749. No. 459.

[123] Lunan, Hort. Jamaic. ii. (1814) 254; Descourtilz, Flor. méd. des Antilles, iii. (1827) 231.

[124] Thus it was omitted from the London pharmacopœias of 1809 and 1824, and from many editions of the Edinburgh Dispensatory.

[125] Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. Aug. 2-9, 1873, pp. 81 and 102.

[126] Lond. Med. Gazette, Feb. 16, 1828; Brodie, Lectures on Diseases of the Urinary Organs, ed. 3. 1842. 108, 138.

The root though hard is easily shaved with a knife, some pieces giving the impression when cut of a waxy, rather than of a woody and fibrous substance. The taste is bitter, well marked but not persistent. The drug has no particular odour. Its aqueous decoction is turned inky bluish-black by tincture of iodine.

The aerial stems especially differ by enclosing a small but well-defined pith.

=Microscopic Structure=—The most interesting character consists in the arrangement rather than in the peculiarity of the tissues composing this drug. The wavy light-coloured lines already mentioned are built up partly of sclerenchymatous cells. The other portions of the parenchyme are loaded with large starch granules, which are much less abundant in the stem.

=Chemical Composition=—From the examination of this drug made by one of us in 1869,[127] it was shown that the bitter principle is the same as that discovered in 1839 by Wiggers in the drug hereafter described as Common False Pareira Brava, and named by him Pelosine. It was further pointed out that this body possesses the chemical properties of the Bibirine of Greenheart bark and of the Buxine obtained by Walz from the bark of Buxus sempervirens L. It was also obtained on the same occasion (1869) from the stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L. collected in Jamaica; but from both drugs in the very small proportion of about ½ per cent.

Whether to Buxine (for by this name rather than Pelosine it should be designated) is due the medicinal power of the drug may well be doubted. No further chemical examination of true Pareira Brava has been made.

=Uses=—The medicine is prescribed in chronic catarrhal affections of the bladder and in calculus. From its extensive use in Brazil[128] it seems deserving of trial in other complaints. Helvetius used to give it in substance, which in 5-grain doses was taken in infusion made with boiling water from the powdered root and not strained.

=Substitutes=—We have already pointed out how the name Pareira Brava has been applied to several other drugs than that described in the foregoing pages. We shall now briefly notice the more important.

1. Stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L.—Owing to the difficulty of obtaining good Pareira Brava in the London market, although this plant is very widely diffused over all the tropical regions of both hemispheres, the firm of which one of us was formerly a member (Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, Plough Court, Lombard Street) caused to be collected in Jamaica, under the superintendence of Mr. N. Wilson, of the Bath Botanical Gardens, the stems and root of Cissampelos Pareira L., of which it imported in 1866-67-68 about 300 lb. It was found impracticable to obtain the root per se; and the greater bulk of the drug consisted of long cylindrical stems,[129] many of which had been decumbent and had thrown out rootlets at the joints. They had very much the aspect of the climbing stems of Clematis vitalba L., and varied from the thickness of a quill to that of the forefinger, seldom attaining the diameter of an inch. The stems have a light brown bark marked longitudinally with shallow furrows and wrinkles, which sometimes take a spiral direction. Knots one to three feet apart, sometimes throwing out a branch, also occur. The root is rather darker in colour, but not very different in structure from the stem.

[127] Neues Jahrb. f. Pharm. xxxi. (1869) 257; Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 192.

[128] “Presentamente (Abutua) é reputada diaphoretica, diuretica e emenagoga, e usada interiormente na dóse de duas a quatro oitavas para uma libra de infusão ou cozimento, nas febres intermittentes, hydropisias, e suspensão de lochios.”—Langgaard, Diccionario de Medicina domestica e popular, Rio de Janeiro, i. (1865) 17.

[129] Figured, together with the plant, in Bentley and Trimen, Medic. Plants, part 9 (1876).

The fracture of the stem is coarse and fibrous. The transverse section, whether of stem or root, shows a thickish, corky bark surrounding a light brown wood composed of a number of converging wedges (10 to 20) of very porous structure, separated by narrow medullary rays. There are no concentric layers of wood,[130] nor is the arrangement of the wedges oblique as in many other stems of the order. The drug is inodorous, but has a very bitter taste without sweetness or astringency.

[130] It is therefore entirely different to the wood figured as that of C. Pareira by Eichler in Martius’ Flor. Bras. xiii. pars. i. tab. 50. fig. 7.

2. Common False Pareira Brava—Under this name we designate the drug which for many years past has been the ordinary Pareira Brava of the shops, and regarded until lately as derived from Cissampelos Pareira L. We have long endeavoured to ascertain, through correspondents in Brazil, from what plant it is derived, but without success. We only know that it belongs to the order Menispermaceæ.

The drug consists of a ponderous, woody, tortuous stem and root, occurring in pieces from a few inches to a foot or more in length, and from 1 to 4 inches in thickness, coated with a thin, hard, dark brown bark. The pieces are cylindrical, four-sided, or more or less flattened—sometimes even to the extent of becoming ribbon-like. In transverse section, their structure appears very remarkable. Supposing the piece to be stem, a well-defined pith will be found to occupy the centre of the first-formed wood, which is a column about ¼ of an inch in diameter. This is succeeded by 10 to 15 or more concentric or oftener eccentric zones, ⅒ to ²/₁₀ of an inch wide, each separated from its neighbour by a layer of parenchyme, the outermost being coated with a true bark. In pieces of true root, the pith is reduced to a mere point.

Sometimes the development of the zones has been so irregular that they have formed themselves entirely on one side of the primitive column, the other being coated with bark. The zones, including the layer, around the pith (if pith is present), are crossed by numerous small medullary rays. These do not run from the centre to the circumference, but traverse only their respective zones, on the outside of which they are arched together.

The drug, when of good quality, has its wood firm, compact, and of a dusky yellowish-brown hue, and a well-marked bitter taste. It exhibits under the knife nothing of the close waxy texture seen in the root of Chondodendron, but cuts as a tough, fibrous wood. Its decoction is not tinged blue by iodine. It was in this drug that Wiggers in 1839 discovered pelosine.

The drug just described, which is by no means devoid of medicinal power, has of late years been almost entirely supplanted in the market by another sort consisting exclusively of stems which are devoid of bitterness and appear to be wholly inert. They are in the form of sticks or truncheons, mostly cylindrical. Cut traversely, they display the same structure as the sort last described, with a well-defined pith. The wood is light in weight, of a dull tint, and disposed to split. The bark, which consists of two layers, is easily detached.

3. Stems of Chondodendron tomentosum R. et P.—These have been recently imported from Brazil, and sold as Pareira Brava.[131] The drug consists of truncheons about 1½ feet in length, of a rather rough and knotty stem, from 1 to 4 inches thick.[132] The larger pieces, which are sometimes hollow with age, display, when cut traversely, a small number (5-9) nearly concentric woody zones. The youngest pieces have the bark dotted over with small dark warts.

The wood is inodorous, but has a bitterish taste like the root, of which it is probably an efficient representative. Some pieces have portions of root springing from them, and detached roots occur here and there among the bits of stem. The structure and development of the latter has been elaborately examined and figured by Moss,[133] and also by Lanessan,[134] in the French translation of our book.

4. White Pareira Brava—Stems and roots of Abuta rufescens Aublet.—Mr. J. Correa de Méllo of Campinas has been good enough to send to one of us (H.) a specimen of the root and leaves[135] of this plant, marked Parreira Brava grande. The former we have identified with a drug received from Rio de Janeiro as Abutua Unha de Vaca, i.e. Cowhoof Abutua, and also with a similar drug found in the London market. Aublet[136] states that the root of Abuta rufescens was, in the time of his visit to French Guiana, shipped from that colony to Europe as Pareira Brava Blanc (White Pareira Brava).

[131] 45 packages containing about 20 cwt. were offered for sale by Messrs. Lewis and Peat, drug-brokers, 11 Sept. 1873, but there had been earlier importations.

[132] From these knots, which are at regular intervals, and sometimes very protuberant, it would appear that the panicles of flower arise year after year.

[133] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1876) 702.

[134] Histoire des Drogues d’origine végétale, i. (Paris, 1878) 72.

[135] I have compared these leaves with Aublet’s own specimen in the British Museum.—D. H.

[136] Hist. des Plantes de la Guiane Françoise, i. (1775) 618. tab. 250.

This name is well applicable to the drug before us, which consists of short pieces of a root, ½ an inch to 3 inches thick, covered with a rough blackish bark, and also of bits of stem having a pale, striated, corky bark. Cut transversely, the root displays a series of concentric zones of white amylaceous cellular tissue, each beautifully marked with narrow wedge-shaped medullary rays of dark, porous tissue. The wood of the stem is harder than that of the root, the medullary rays are closer together and broader, and there is a distinct pith.

The wood, neither of root nor stem, has any taste or smell. A decoction of the root is turned bright blue by iodine.

5. Yellow Pareira Brava—This drug, of which a quantity was in the hands of a London drug-broker in 1873, is, we presume, the Pareira Brava jaune of Aublet—the bitter tasting stem of his “Abuta amara folio levi cordiformi ligno flavescente,”—a plant of Guiana unknown to recent botanists. That which we have seen consists of portions of a hard woody stem, from 1 to 5 or 6 inches in diameter, covered with a whitish bark. Internally it is marked by numerous regular concentric zones, is of a bright yellow colour and of a bitter taste. It contains berberine. The same drug, apparently, was exhibited in the Paris exposition of 1878 as “Liane amère” from French Guiana.

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COCCULUS INDICUS

Fructus Cocculi; Cocculus Indicus; F. Coque du Levant; G. Kokkelskörner.

=Botanical Origin=—Anamirta paniculata Colebrooke, 1822 (Menispermum Cocculus L.; Anamirta Cocculus Wight et Arnott, 1834), a strong climbing shrub found in the eastern parts of the Indian peninsula from Concan and Orissa to Malabar and Ceylon, in Eastern Bengal, Khasia and Assam, and in the Malayan Islands.

=History=—It is commonly asserted that Cocculus Indicus was introduced into Europe through the Arabs, but the fact is difficult of proof; for though Avicenna[137] and other early writers mention a drug having the power of poisoning fish, they describe it as a bark, and make no allusion to it as a production of India. Even Ibn Baytar[138] in the 13th century professed his inability to discover what substance the older Arabian authors had in view.

Cocculus Indicus is not named by the writers of the School of Salerno. The first mention of it we have met with is by Ruellius,[139] who, alluding to the property possessed by the roots of Aristolochia and Cyclamen of attracting fishes, states that the same power exists in the little berries found in the shops under the name of Cocci Orientis, which when scattered on water stupify the fishes, so that they may be captured by the hand.

Valerius Cordus[140] thought the drug which he calls Cuculi de Levante to be the fruit of a Solanum growing in Egypt.

Dalechamps[141] repeated this statement in 1586, at which period and for long afterwards, Cocculus Indicus used to reach Europe from Alexandria and other parts of the Levant. Gerarde,[142] who gives a very good figure of it, says it is well known in England (1597) as Cocculus Indicus, otherwise Cocci vel Cocculæ Orientales, and that it is used for destroying vermin and poisoning fish. In 1635 it was subject to an import duty of 2_s._ per lb., as Cocculus Indiæ.[143]

The use of Cocculus Indicus in medicine was advocated by Battista Codronchi, a celebrated Italian physician of the 16th century, in a tractate entitled De Baccis Orientalibus.[144] In the “Pinax” Caspar Bauhin (about 1660) states that Cocculæ officinarum “saepe racematim pediculis hærentes, hederæ corymborum modo, ex Alexandria adferuntur.”

[137] Valgrisi edition, 1564. lib. ii. tract. 2. cap. 488.

[138] Sontheimer’s transl. ii. 460.

[139] De Natura Stirpium, Paris, 1536. lib. iii. c. 4.

[140] Adnotationes, 1549. cap. 63 (p. 509).

[141] Hist. Gen. Plant. 1586. 1722.

[142] Herball, Lond. 1636. 1548-49.

[143] The Rates of Marchandizes, Lond. 1635.

[144] It forms part of his work De Christiana ac tuta medendi ratione, Ferrariæ, 1591.

The word Cocculus is derived from the Italian coccola, signifying a small, berry-like fruit.[145] Mattioli remarks that as the berries when first brought from the East to Italy had no special name, they got to be called Coccole di Levante.[146]

=Description=—The female flower of Anamirta has normally 5 ovaries placed on a short gynophore. The latter, as it grows, becomes raised into a stalk about ½ an inch long, articulated at the summit with shorter stalks, each supporting a drupe, which is a matured ovary. The purple drupes thus produced are 1 to 3 in number, of gibbous ovoid form, with the persistent stigma on the straight side, and in a line with the shorter stalk or carpodium. They grow in a pendulous panicle, a foot or more in length.

These fruits removed from their stalks and dried have the aspect of little round berries, and constitute the Cocculus Indicus of commerce. As met with in the market they are shortly ovoid or subreniform, ⁴/₁₀ to ⁵/₁₀ of an inch long, with a blackish, wrinkled surface, and an obscure ridge running round the back. The shorter stalk, when present, supports the fruit very obliquely. The pericarp, consisting of a wrinkled skin covering a thin woody endocarp, encloses a single reniform seed, into which the endocarp deeply intrudes. In transverse section the seed has a horseshoe form; it consists chiefly of albumen, enclosing a pair of large, diverging lanceolate cotyledons, with a short terete radicle.[147]

The seed is bitter and oily, the pericarp tasteless. The drug is preferred when of dark colour, free from stalks, and fresh, with the seeds well-preserved.

=Microscopic Structure=—The woody endocarp is built up of a peculiar sclerenchymatous tissue, consisting of branched, somewhat elongated cells. They are densely packed, and run in various directions, showing but small cavities. The parenchyme of the seed is loaded with crystallized fatty matter.

=Chemical Composition=—Picrotoxin, a crystallizable substance occurring in the seed to the extent of ⅖ to 1 per cent., was observed by Boullay, as early as 1812, and is the source of the poisonous property of the drug. Picrotoxin does not neutralize acids. It dissolves in water and in alkalis; the solution in the latter reduces cupric or bismutic oxide like the sugars, but to a much smaller extent than glucose. The alcoholic solutions deviate the ray of polarized light to the left. The aqueous solution of picrotoxin is not altered by any metallic salt, or by tannin, iodic acid, iodohydrargyrate or bichromate of potassium—in fact by none of the reagents which affect the alkaloids. It may thus be easily distinguished from the bitter poisonous alkaloids, although in its behaviour with concentrated sulphuric acid and bichromate of potassium it somewhat resembles strychnine, as shown in 1867 by Köhler.

[145] Frutto d’alcuni alberi, e d’alcune piante, o erbe salvatiche, come cipresso, ginepro, alloro, pugnitopo, e lentischio, e simili.—Lat. bacca; Gr. ἀκρόδρνα.—Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca.

[146] Quoted by J. J. von Tschudi, Die Kokkelskörner und das Pikrotoxin, St. Gallen, 1847.

[147] The fruit should be macerated in order to examine its structure.

Picrotoxin melts at 200° C.; its composition, C₉H₁₀O₄, as ascertained in 1877 by Paternò and Oglialoro, is the same as that of everninic, hydrocoffeïc, umbellic and veratric (or dimethyl-protocatechuic acid—see Semen Sabadillæ) acids.

Pelletier and Couerbe (1833) obtained from the pericarp of Cocculus Indicus two crystallizable, tasteless, non-poisonous substances, having the same composition, and termed respectively Menispermine and Paramenispermine. These bodies, as well as the very doubtful amorphous Hypopicrotoxic Acid of the same chemists, require re-examination.

The fat of the seed, which amounts to about half its weight, is used in India for industrial purposes. Its acid constituent, formerly regarded as a peculiar substance under the name of Stearophanic or Anamirtic Acid, was found by Heintz to be identical with stearic acid.

=Commerce=—Cocculus Indicus is imported from Bombay and Madras, but we have no statistics showing to what extent. The stock in the dock warehouses of London on 1st of December, 1873, was 1168 packages, against 2010 packages on the same day of the previous year. The drug is mostly shipped to the Continent, the consumption in Great Britain being very small.

=Uses=—In British medicine Cocculus Indicus is only employed as an ingredient of an ointment for the destruction of pediculi. It has been discarded from the British Pharmacopœia, but has a place in that of India.

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GULANCHA

Caulis et radix Tinosporæ.

=Botanical Origin=—Tinospora cordifolia Miers (Cocculus cordifolius DC.), a lofty climbing shrub found throughout tropical India from Kumaon to Assam and Burma, and from Concan to Ceylon and the Carnatic.[148] It is called in Hindustani Gulancha; in Bombay the drug is known under the name of Goolwail.

=History=—The virtues of this plant which appear to have been long familiar to the Hindu physicians, attracted the attention of Europeans in India at the early part of the present century.[149] According to a paper published at Calcutta in 1827,[150] the parts used are the stem, leaves, and root, which are given in decoction, infusion, or a sort of extract called pálo, in a variety of diseases attended with slight febrile symptoms.

O’Shaughnessy declares the plant to be one of the most valuable in India, and that it has proved a very useful tonic. Similar favourable testimony is borne by Waring. Gulancha was admitted to the Bengal Pharmacopœia of 1844, and to the Pharmacopœia of India of 1868.

=Description=—The stems are perennial, twining and succulent, running over the highest trees and throwing out roots many yards in length which descend like slender cords to the earth. They have a thick corky bark marked with little prominent tubercles.

[148] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 13.

[149] Fleming, Catal. of Indian Med. Plants and Drugs, Calcutta, 1810. 27.

[150] On the native drug called Gulancha by Ram Comol Shen.—Trans. of Med. and Phys. Soc. of Calcutta, iii. (1827) 295.

As found in the bazaars the drug occurs as short transverse segments of a cylindrical woody stem from ¼ of an inch up to 2 inches in diameter. They exhibit a shrunken appearance, especially those derived from the younger stems, and are covered with a smooth, translucent, shrivelled bark which becomes dull and rugose with age. Many of the pieces are marked with warty prominences and the scars of adventitious roots. The outer layer which is easily detached covers a shrunken parenchyme. The transverse section of the stem shows it to be divided by about 12 to 14 medullary rays into the same number of wedge-shaped woody bundles having very large vessels, but no concentric structure. The drug is inodorous but has a very bitter taste. The root is stated by O’Shaughnessy[151] to be large, soft, and spongy.

=Microscopic Structure=—The suberous coat consists of alternating layers of flat corky cells and sclerenchyme, sometimes of a yellow colour. The structure of the central part reminds one of that of Cissampelos Pareira (p. 28), like which it is not divided into concentric zones. The woody rays which are sometimes intersected by parenchyme, are surrounded by a loose circle of arched bundles of liber tissue.

=Chemical Composition=—No analysis worthy of the name has been made of this drug, and the nature of its bitter principle is wholly unknown. We have had no material at our disposal sufficient for chemical examination.

=Uses=—Gulancha is reputed to be tonic, antiperiodic and diuretic. According to Waring[152] it is useful in mild forms of intermittent fever, in debility after fevers and other exhausting diseases, in secondary syphilitic affections and chronic rheumatism.

=Substitute=—Tinospora crispa Miers, an allied species occurring in Silhet, Pegu, Java, Sumatra, and the Philippines, possesses similar properties, and is highly esteemed in the Indian Archipelago as a febrifuge.

[151] Bengal Dispensatory, 1842. 198.

[152] Pharm. of India, 1868. 9.

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BERBERIDEÆ

CORTEX BERBERIDIS INDICUS.

Indian Barberry Bark.

=Botanical Origin=—This drug is allowed in the Pharmacopœia of India to be taken indifferently from three Indian species of Berberis[153] which are the following:—

1. Berberis aristata DC., a variable species occurring in the temperate regions of the Himalaya at 6000 to 10,000 feet elevation, also found in the Nilgiri mountains and Ceylon.[154]

2. B. Lycium, Royle, an erect, rigid shrub found in dry, hot situations of the western part of the Himalaya range at 3000 to 9000 feet above the sea-level.

[153] For remarks on the Indian species of Berberis, see Hooker and Thomson’s Flora Indica (1855), also Hooker’s Flora of British India, i. (1872) 108.

[154] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 25.

3. B. asiatica Roxb.—This species has a wider distribution than the last, being found in the dry valleys of Bhutan and Nepal whence it stretches westward along the Himalaya to Garhwal, and occurs again in Afghanistan.

=History=—The medical practitioners of ancient Greece and Italy made use of a substance called Lycium, (λύκιον) of which the best kind was brought from India. It was regarded as a remedy of great value in restraining inflammatory and other discharges; but of all the uses to which it was applied the most important was the treatment of various forms of ophthalmic inflammation.

Lycium is mentioned by Dioscorides, Pliny, Celsus, Galen, and Scribonius Largus; by such later Greek writers as Paulus Ægineta, Ætius, and Oribasius, as well as by the Arabian physicians.

The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea who probably lived in the 1st century, enumerates λύκιον as one of the exports of Barbarike at the mouth of the Indus, and also names it along with Bdellium and Costus among the commodities brought to Barygaza:—and further, lycium is mentioned among the Indian drugs on which duty was levied at the Roman custom-house of Alexandria about A.D. 176-180.[155]

An interesting proof of the esteem in which it was held is afforded by some singular little vases or jars of which a few specimens are preserved in collections of Greek antiquities.[156] These vases were made to contain lycium, and in them it was probably sold; for an inscription on the vessel not only gives the name of the drug but also that of a person who, we may presume, was either the seller or the inventor of the composition. Thus we have the Lycium of Jason, of Musæus, and of Heracleus. The vases bearing the name of Jason were found at Tarentum, and there is reason to believe that that marked Heracleus was from the same locality. Whether it was so or not, we know that a certain Heraclides of Tarentum is mentioned by Celsus[157] on account of his method of treating certain diseases of the eye; and that Galen gives formulæ for ophthalmic medicines[158] on the authority of the same person.

Innumerable conjectures were put forth during at least three centuries as to the origin and nature of lycium, and especially of that highly esteemed kind that was brought from India.

In the year 1833, Royle[159] communicated to the Linnean Society of London a paper proving that the Indian Lycium of the ancients was identical with an extract prepared from the wood or root of several species of Berberis growing in Northern India, and that this extract, well known in the bazaars as Rusot or Rasot, was in common use among the natives in various forms of eye disease.[160] This substance attracted considerable notice in India, and though its efficacy per se[161] seemed questionable, it was administered with benefit as a tonic and febrifuge.[162] But the rusot of the natives being often badly prepared or adulterated, the bark of the root has of late been used in its place, and in consequence of its acknowledged efficacy has been admitted to the Pharmacopœia of India.

[155] Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, ii. (1807) 390, 410, 734.

[156] Figures of these vessels were published by Dr. J. Y. Simpson in an interesting paper entitled Notes on some ancient Greek medical vases for containing Lycium, of which we have made free use.—See (Edinb.) Monthly Journal of Med. Science, xvi. (1853) 24, also Pharm. Journ. xiii. (1854) 413.

[157] Lib. vii. c. 7.—See also Cælius Aurelianus, De morbis chronicis (Haller’s ed.) lib. i. c. 4, lib. iii. c. 8.

[158] Cataplasmata lippientium quibus usus est Heraclides Tarentinus—Galen, De Comp. Med. sec. locos, lib. iv. (p. 153 in Venice edit. of 1625).

[159] On the Lycium of Dioscorides.—Linn. Trans. xvii. (1837) 83.

[160] It is interesting to find that two of the names for lycium given by Ibn Baytar in the 13th century are precisely those under which rusot is met with in the Indian bazaars at the present day.

[161] The natives apply it in combination with alum and opium.

[162] O’Shaughnessy, Bengal Dispensatory (1842) 203-205.

=Description.=—In B. asiatica (the only species we have examined) the roots which are thick and woody, and internally of a bright yellow, are covered with a thin, brittle bark. The bark has a light-brown corky layer, beneath which it appears of a darker and greenish yellow hue, and composed of coarse fibres running longitudinally. The inner surface has a glistening appearance by reason of fine longitudinal striæ. The bark is inodorous and very bitter.

=Chemical Composition.=—Solly[163] pointed out in 1843 that the root-bark of the Ceylon barberry [B. aristata] contains the same yellow colouring matter as the barberry of Europe. L. W. Stewart[164] extracted Berberine in abundance from the barberry of theNilgiri Hills and Northern India, and presented specimens of it to one of us in 1865.

The root-bark of Berberis vulgaris L. was found by Polex (1836) to contain another alkaloid named Oxyacanthine, which forms with acids colourless crystallizable salts of bitter taste.[165]

=Uses.=—The root-bark of the Indian barberries administered as a tincture has been found extremely useful in India in the treatment of fevers of all types. It has also been given with advantage in diarrhœa and dyspepsia, and as a tonic for general debility. In the collection of the Chinese customs at Paris, in 1878, the root-barks of Berberis Lycium and B. chinensis, from the province of Shensi, were likewise exhibited (No. 1,823) as a tonic.

[163] Journ. of R. Asiat. Soc. vii. (1843) 74.

[164] Pharm. Journ. vii. (1866) 303.

[165] Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 197.

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RHIZOMA PODOPHYLLI

Radix podophylli; Podophyllum Root.

=Botanical Origin=—Podophyllum peltatum L., a perennial herb growing in moist shady situations throughout the eastern side of the North American continent from Hudson’s Bay to New Orleans and Florida.

The stem about a foot high, bears a large, solitary, white flower, rising from between two leaves of the size of the hand composed of 5 to 7 wedge-shaped divisions, somewhat lobed and toothed at the apex. The yellowish pulpy fruit of the size of a pigeon’s egg is slightly acid and is sometimes eaten under the name of May Apple. The leaves partake of the active properties of the root.

=History=—The virtues of the rhizome as an anthelminthic and emetic have been long known to the Indians of North America. The plant was figured in 1731 by Catesby[166] who remarks that its root is an excellent emetic. Its cathartic properties were noticed by Schöpf[167] and Barton[168] and have been commented upon by many subsequent writers. In 1820, podophyllum was introduced into the United States Pharmacopœia, and in 1864 into the British Pharmacopœia. Hodgson published in 1832 in the Journal of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy[169] the first attempt of a chemical examination of the rhizome, which now furnishes one of the most popular purgatives, the so-called Podophyllin, manufactured on a large scale at Cincinnati and in other places in America, as well as in England.

=Description=—The drug consists of the rhizome and rootlets. The former creeps to a length of several feet, but as imported is mostly in somewhat flattened pieces of 1 to 8 inches in length and 2 to 4 lines in longest diameter: it is marked by knotty joints showing a depressed scar at intervals of a few inches which marks the place of a fallen stem. Each joint is in fact the growth of one year, the terminal bud being enclosed in papery brownish sheaths. Sometimes the knots produce one, two, or even three lateral buds and the rhizome is bi- or tri-furcate. The reddish-brown or grey surface is obscurely marked at intervals by oblique wrinkles indicating the former attachment of rudimentary leaves. The rootlets are about ½ a line thick and arise from below the knots and adjacent parts of the rhizome, the internodal space being bare. They are brittle, easily detached, and commonly of a paler colour. The rhizome is mostly smooth, but some of the branched pieces are deeply furrowed. Both rootstock and rootlets have a short, smooth, mealy fracture; the transverse section is white, exhibiting only an extremely small corky layer and a thin simple circle of about 20 to 40 yellow, vascular bundles, enclosing a central pith which in the larger pieces is often 2 lines in diameter.

The drug has a heavy narcotic, disagreeable odour, and a bitter, acrid, nauseous taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The vascular bundles are composed of spiral and scalariform vessels intermixed with cambial tissue. From each bundle a narrow-tissued, wedge-or crescent-shaped liber-bundle projects a little into the cortical layer. This, as well as the pith, exhibits large thin-walled cells. The rootlets are as usual of a different structure, their central part consisting of one group of vascular bundles more or less scattered.[170] The parenchymatous cells of the drug are loaded with starch granules; some also contain stellate tufts of oxalate of calcium.

[166] Nat. Hist. of Carolina, i. tab. 24.

[167] Materia Med. Americ. Erlangæ, 1787, p. 86. Schöpf was physician to German troops fighting in the War of Independence.

[168] Collections for an Essay on Mat. Med. of U.S. Philad. 1798, 31.

[169] Vol. iii. 273.

[170] Figured by Power, Proc. American Phar. Assoc., 1877. 420-433.

=Chemical Composition=—The active principles of podophyllum exist in the resin, which according to Squibb[171] is best prepared by the process termed re-percolation. The powdered drug is exhausted by alcohol which is made to percolate through successive portions. The strong tincture thus obtained is slowly poured into a large quantity of water acidulated with hydrochloric acid (one measure of acid to 70 of water), and the precipitated resin dried at a temperature not exceeding 32° C. The acid is used to facilitate the subsidence of the pulverulent resin which according to Maisch settles down but very slowly if precipitated by cold water simply, and if thrown down by hot water fuses into a dark brown cake. The resin redissolved in alcohol and again precipitated by acidulated water, after thorough washing with distilled water and finally drying over sulphuric acid, amounts to about 2 per cent.

[171] American Journ. of Pharm. xvi. (1868) 1-10.

Resin of podophyllum is a light, brownish-yellow powder with a tinge of green, devoid of crystalline appearance, becoming darker if exposed to a heat above 32° C., and having an acrid, bitter taste; it is very incorrectly called Podophyllin. The product is the same whether the rhizome or the rootlets are exclusively employed.[172] It is soluble in caustic, less freely in carbonated alkalis, even in ammonia, and is precipitated, apparently without alteration, on addition of an acid. Ether separates it into two nearly equal portions, the one soluble in the menstruum, the other not, but both energetically purgative. From the statements of Credner[173] it appears that if caustic lye is shaken with the ethereal solution, about half the resin combines with the potash, while the other half remains dissolved in the ether. If an acid is added to the potassic solution a red-brown precipitate is produced which is no longer soluble in ether nor possessed of purgative power. According to Credner, the body of greatest purgative activity was precipitated by ether from an alcoholic solution of crude podophyllin.

By exhausting the resin with boiling water, Power found that finally not more than 20 per cent. of the resin remained undissolved. By melting the crude resin with caustic soda, a little protocatechuic acid was obtained.

F. F. Mayer[174] of New York stated podophyllum to contain, beside the resin already mentioned, a large proportion of Berberine, a colourless alkaloid, an odoriferous principle which might be obtained by sublimation in colourless scales, and finally Saponin. From all these bodies the resin as prepared by Power,[175] was ascertained by him to be destitute; he especially proved the absence of berberine in Podophyllum.

=Uses=—Podophyllum is only employed for the preparation of the resin (Resina Podophylli) which is now much prescribed as a purgative.

[172] Saunders in Am. Journ. of Pharm. xvi. 75.

[173] Ueber Podophyllin (Dissertation), Giessen, 1869.

[174] Am. Journ. of Pharmacy, xxxv. (1863) 97.

[175] L. cit., also Am. Journ. of Pharm. (1878) 370.

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PAPAVERACEÆ

PETALA RHŒADOS.

Flores Rhœados; Red Poppy Petals; F. Fleurs de Coquelicot; G. Klatschrosen.

=Botanical Origin=—Papaver Rhœas L.—The common Red Poppy or Corn Rose is an annual herb found in fields throughout the greater part of Europe often in extreme abundance. It almost always occurs as an accompaniment of cereal crops, frequently disappearing when this cultivation is given up. It is plentiful in England and Ireland, but less so in Scotland; is found abundantly in Central and Southern Europe and in Asia Minor, whence it extends as far as Abyssinia, Palestine, and the banks of the Euphrates. But it does not occur in India or in North America.

From the evidence adduced by De Candolle[176] it would appear that the plant is strictly indigenous to Sicily, Greece, Dalmatia, and possibly the Caucasus.

=History=—Papaver Rhœas was known to the ancients, though doubtless it was often confounded with P. dubium L. the flowers of which are rather smaller and paler. The petals were used in pharmacy in Germany in the 15th century.[177]

=Description=—The branches of the stem are upright, each terminating in a conspicuous long-stalked flower, from which as it opens the two sepals fall off. The delicate scarlet petals are four in number, transversely elliptical and attached below the ovary by very short, dark violet claws. As they are broader than long, their edges overlap in the expanded flower. In the bud they are irregularly crumpled, but when unfolded are smooth, lustrous, and unctuous to the touch. They fall off very quickly, shrink up in drying, and assume a brownish-violet tint even when dried with the utmost care. Although they do not contain a milky juice like the green parts of the plant, they have while fresh a strong narcotic odour and a faintly bitter taste.

=Chemical Composition=—The most important constituent of the petals is the colouring matter, still but very imperfectly known. According to L. Meier (1846) it consists of two acids, neither of which could be obtained other than in an amorphous state. The colouring matter is abundantly taken up by water or spirit of wine but not by ether. The aqueous infusion is not precipitated by alum, but yields a dingy violet precipitate with acetate of lead, and is coloured blackish-brown by ferric salts or by alkalis.

The alkaloids of opium cannot be detected in the petals. Attfield in particular has examined the latter (1873) for morphine but without obtaining a trace of that body.

[176] Géogr. botanique, ii (1855) 649.

[177] Flores Papaveris rubri—in the list of the pharmaceutical shop of the town of Nördlingen. See Flückiger, in the Archiv der Pharm. 211 (1877) 97, No. 62.

The milky juice of the herb and capsules has a narcotic odour, and appears to exert a distinctly sedative action. Hesse obtained from them (1865) a colourless crystallizable substance, Rhœadine, C₂₁H₂₁NO₆, of weak alkaline reaction. It is tasteless, not poisonous, nearly insoluble in water, alcohol, ether, chloroform, benzol, or aqueous ammonia, but dissolves in weak acids. Its solution in dilute sulphuric or hydrochloric acid acquires after a time a splendid red colour, destroyed by an alkali but reappearing on addition of an acid. Hesse further believes (1877) the milky juice to contain meconic acid.

=Uses=—Red Poppy petals are employed in pharmacy only for the sake of their fine colouring matter. They should be preferred in the fresh state.

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CAPSULÆ PAPAVERIS

Fructus Papaveris; Poppy Capsules, Poppy Heads; F. Capsules ou Têtes de Pavot; G. Mohnkapseln.

=Botanical Origin=—Papaver somniferum L. Independently of the garden-forms of this universally known annual plant, we may, following Boissier,[178] distinguish three principal varieties, viz.:—

α. setigerum (P. setigerum DC), occurring in the Peloponnesus, Cyprus, Corsica and the islands of Hières, the truly wild form of the plant with acutely toothed leaves, the lobes sharp-pointed, and each terminating in a bristle. The leaves, peduncles, and sepals are covered with scattered bristly hairs, and the stigmata are 7 or 8 in number.

β. glabrum—Capsule subglobular, stigmata 10 to 12. Chiefly cultivated in Asia Minor and Egypt.

γ. album (P. officinale Gmelin)—has the capsule more or less egg-shaped and devoid of apertures. It is cultivated in Persia.

Besides the differences indicated above, the petals vary from white to red or violet, with usually a dark purplish spot at the base of each.[179] The seeds also vary from white to slate-coloured.

=History=—The poppy has been known from a remote period throughout the eastern countries of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and Central Asia, in all which regions its cultivation is of very ancient date.[180]

Syrup of poppies, a medicine still in daily use, is recommended as a sedative in catarrh and cough in the writings of the younger Mesue (ob. A.D. 1015) who studied at Bagdad, and subsequently resided at Cairo as physician to the Caliph of Egypt. Their medicinal use seems to have reached Europe at an early period, for the Welsh “Physicians of Myddvai” in the 13th century already stated:[181] “Poppy heads bruised in wine will induce a man to sleep soundly.” They even prepared pills with the juice of poppy, which they called opium. In the Ricettario Fiorentino (see Appendix R) a formula is given for the syrup as Syroppo di Papaveri semplici di Mesue; in the first pharmacopœia of the London College (1618), the medicine is prescribed as Syrupus de Meconio Mesuæ.

[178] Flora Orientalis, i. (1867) 116.

[179] English growers prefer a white-flowered poppy.

[180] For further particulars consult Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, vi. (1843) 773, etc.; Unger, Botanische Streifzüge auf dem Gebiete der Culturgeschichte, ii. (1857) 46.

[181] Meddygon Myddfai, Llandovery, 1861, 50. 216. 400.

=Description=—The fruit is formed by the union of 8 to 20 carpels, the edges of which are turned inwards and project like partitions towards the interior, yet without reaching the centre, so that the fruit is really one-celled. In the unripe fruit, the sutures of the carpels are distinctly visible externally as shallow longitudinal stripes.

The fruit is crowned with a circular disc, deeply cut into angular ridge-like stigmas in number equal to the carpels, projecting in a stellate manner with short obtuse lobes. Each carpel opens immediately below the disc by a pore, out of which the seeds may be shaken; but in some varieties of poppy the carpel presents no aperture even when fully ripe. The fruit is globular, sometimes flattened below, or it is ovoid; it is contracted beneath into a sort of neck immediately above a tumid ring at its point of attachment with the stalk. Grown in rich moist ground in England, it often attains a diameter of three inches, which is twice that of the capsules of the opium poppy of Asia Minor or India. While growing it is of a pale glaucous green, but at maturity becomes yellowish-brown, often marked with black spots. The outer wall of the pericarp is smooth and hard; the rest is of a loose texture, and while green exudes on the slightest puncture an abundance of bitter milky juice. The interior surface of the pericarp is rugose, and minutely and beautifully striated transversely. From its sutures spring thin and brittle placentæ directed towards the centre and bearing on their perpendicular faces and edges a vast number of minute reniform seeds.

The unripe fruit has a narcotic odour which is destroyed by drying; and its bitter taste is but partially retained.

=Microscopic Structure=—The outer layer consists of a thin cuticle exhibiting a large number of stomata; the epidermis is formed of a row of small thick-walled cells. Fragments of these two layers, which on the whole exhibit no striking peculiarity, are always found in the residue of opium after it has been exhausted by water.

The most interesting part of the constituent tissues of the fruit is the system of laticiferous vessels, which is of an extremely complicated nature inasmuch as it is composed of various kinds of cells intimately interlaced so as to form considerable bundles.[182] The cells containing the milky juice are larger but not so much branched as in many other plants.

[182] For particulars see Trécul, Ann. des Sciences Nat. v. (1866) 49; also Flückiger, Grundlagen der Pharmaceutischen Waarenkunde, 1873. 45.

=Chemical Composition=—The analyses of poppy heads present discrepant results with regard to morphine. Merck and Winckler detected it in the ripe fruit to the extent of 2 per cent., and it has also been found by Groves (1854) and by Deschamps d’Avallon (1864). Other chemists have been unable to find it.

In recent pharmacopœias poppy heads are directed to be taken previous to complete maturity, and both Meurein and Aubergier have shown that in this state they are richer in morphine than when more advanced. Deschamps d’Avallon found them sometimes to contain narcotine. He also obtained mucilage perceptible by neutral acetate of lead, ammonium salts, meconic, tartaric, and citric acid, the ordinary mineral acids, wax, and lastly two new crystalline bodies, Papaverin, and Papaverosine. The former is not identical with Merck’s alkaloid of the same name; although nitrogenous and bitter, it has an acid reaction (?), yet does not combine with bases. It yields a blue precipitate with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium.

Papaverosine on the other hand is a base to which sulphuric acid imparts a violet colour, changing to dark yellowish-red on addition of nitric acid.

In ripe poppy heads, Hesse (1866) found Rhœadine. Groves in 1854 somewhat doubtfully announced the presence of Codeine. Fricker[183] stated to have obtained from the capsules 0·10 per cent. of alkaloid, and Krause[184] was able to prove the presence of traces of morphine, narcotine, and meconic acid. Ripe poppy capsules (seeds removed) dried at 100° C. afforded us 14·28 per cent. of ash, consisting chiefly of alkaline chlorides and sulphates, with but a small quantity of phosphate.

=Production=—Poppies are grown for medicinal uses in many parts of England, mostly on a small scale. The large and fine fruits (poppy heads) are usually sold entire; the smaller and less slightly are broken and the seeds having been removed are supplied to the druggist for pharmaceutical preparations. The directions of the pharmacopœia as to the fruit being gathered when “nearly ripe” does not appear to be much regarded.

=Uses=—In the form of syrup and extract, poppy heads are in common use as a sedative. A hot decoction is often externally applied as an anodyne.

In upper India an intoxicating liquor is prepared by heating the capsules of the poppy with jagghery and water.[185]

[183] Dragendorff’s Jahresbericht, 1874. 148.

[184] Archiv der Pharm. 204 (1874) 507.

[185] Catal. Ind. Departm. Internat. Exhibition. 1862. No. 742.

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