Chapter II: Part 2

[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.

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.

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.

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._

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.

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.

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.