Chapter III: Part 3

=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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

OPIUM.

=Botanical Origin=—_Papaver somniferum_ L., see preceding article.

=History=[186]—The medicinal properties of the milky juice of the poppy have been known from a remote period. Theophrastus who lived in the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. was acquainted with the substance in question, under the name of Μηκώνιον. The investigations of Unger (1857; see _Capsulæ Papaveris_,) have failed to trace any acquaintance of ancient Egypt with opium.

Scribonius Largus in his _Compositiones Medicamentorum_[187] (_circa_ A.D. 40) notices the method of procuring opium, and points out that the true drug is derived from the capsules, and not from the foliage of the plant.

[186] For more particulars see Dr. Rice’s learned notes in _New Remedies_, New York, 1876, 229, reprinted in _Pharm. Journ._ vii. (2 Dec. 1876; 23 June 1877), pp. 452 and 1041.

[187] Ed. Bernhold, Argent. 1786, c. iii. sect. 22.

About the year 77 of the same century, Dioscorides[188] plainly distinguished the juice of the capsules under the name of ὀπός from an extract of the entire plant, μηκώνειον, which he regarded as much less active. He described exactly how the capsules should be incised, the performing of which operation he designated by the verb ὀπίζειν. We may infer from these statements of Dioscorides that the collection of opium was at that early period a branch of industry in Asia Minor. The same authority alludes to the adulteration of the drug with the milky juices of _Glaucium_ and _Lactuca_, and with gum.

Pliny[189] devotes some space to an account of _Opion_, of which he describes the medicinal use. The drug is repeatedly mentioned as _Lacrima papaveris_ by Celsus in the 1st century, and more or less particularly by numerous later Latin authors. During the classical period of the Roman Empire as well as in the early middle ages, the only sort of opium known was that of Asia Minor.

The use of the drug was transmitted by the Arabs to the nations of the East, and in the first instance to the Persians. From the Greek word ὀπός, _juice_, was formed the Arabic word _Afyun_, which has found its way into many Asiatic languages.[190]

The introduction of opium into India seems to have been connected with the spread of Islamism, and may have been favoured by the Mahommedan prohibition of wine. The earliest mention of it as a production of that country occurs in the travels of Barbosa[191] who visited Calicut on the Malabar coast in 1511. Among the more valuable drugs the prices of which he quotes, opium occupies a prominent place. It was either imported from Aden or Cambay, that from the latter place being the cheaper, yet worth three or four times as much as camphor or benzoin.

Pyres[192] in his letter about Indian drugs to Manuel, king of Portugal, written from Cochin in 1516, speaks of the opium of Egypt, that of Cambay and of the kingdom of Coûs (Kus Bahár, S.W. of Bhotan) in Bengal. He adds that it is a great article of merchandize in these parts and fetches a good price;—that the kings and lords eat of it, and even the common people, though not so much because it costs dear.

Garçia d’Orta[193] informs us that the opium of Cambay in the middle of the 16th century was chiefly collected in Malwa, and that it is soft and yellowish. That from Aden and other places near the Erythrean Sea is black and hard. A superior kind was imported from Cairo, agreeing as Garçia supposed with the opium of the ancient Thebaïd, a district of Upper Egypt near the modern Karnak and Luksor.

[188] Lib. iv. c. 65.

[189] Lib. xx. c. 76.

[190] There are no ancient Chinese or Sanskrit names for opium. In the former language the drug is called _O-fu-yung_ from the Arabic. Two other names _Ya-pien_ and _O-pien_ are adaptations to the Chinese idiom of our word _opium_. There are several other designations which may be translated _Smoking dirt_, _Foreign poison_, _Black commodity_, &c.

[191] _Coasts of East Africa and Malabar_ (Hakluyt Soc.), Lond. 1866. 206, 223.

[192] _Journ. de Soc. Pharm. Lusit._ ii. (1838) 36. Pires, or Pyres, was the first ambassador from Europe to China: Abel Rémusat, _Nouv. mélanges asiatiques_, ii. (1829) 203. See also Pedro José da Silva, _Elogio historico e noticia completa de Thomé Pires, pharmaceutico e primeiro naturalista da India_, Lisboa, 1866 (Library of the Pharm. Soc., London, Pamphlets, No. 30).

[193] _Aromatum ... Historia_, edit Clusius, Antv. 1574. lib. i. c. 4.

In India the Mogul Government uniformly sold the opium monopoly, and the East India Company followed their example, reserving to itself the sole right of cultivating the poppy and selling the opium.

_Opium thebaïcum_ was mentioned by Simon Januensis,[194] physician to Pope Nicolas IV. (A.D. 1288-92), who also alludes to _meconium_ as the dried juice of the pounded capsules and leaves. Prosper Alpinus,[195] who visited Egypt in 1580-83, states that opium or meconium was in his time prepared in the Thebaïd from the expressed juice of poppy heads.

The German traveller Kämpfer, who visited Persia in 1685, describes the various kinds of opium prepared in that country. The best sorts were flavoured with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon and mace, or simply with saffron and ambergris. Such compositions were called _Theriaka_, and were held in great estimation during the middle ages, and probably supplied to a large extent the place of pure opium. It was not uncommon for the sultans of Egypt of the 15th century to send presents of _Theriaka_ to the doges of Venice and the sovereigns of Cyprus.[196]

In Europe opium seems in later times not to have been reckoned among the more costly drugs; in the 16th century we find it quoted at the same price as benzoin, and much cheaper than camphor, rhubarb, or manna.[197]

With regard to China it is supposed that opium was first brought thither by the Arabians, who are known to have traded with the southern ports of the empire as early as the 9th century. More recently, at least until the 18th century, the Chinese imported the drug in their junks as a return cargo from India. At this period it was used almost exclusively as a remedy for dysentery, and the whole quantity imported was very small. It was not until 1767 that the importation reached 1,000 chests, at which rate it continued for some years, most of the trade being in the hands of the Portuguese. The East India Company made a small adventure in 1773; and seven years later an opium depôt of two small vessels was established by the English in Lark’s Bay, south of Macao.

The Chinese authorities began to complain of these two ships in 1793, but the traffic still increased, and without serious interruption until 1820, when an edict was issued forbidding any vessel having opium on board to enter the Canton river. This led to a system of contraband trade with the connivance of the Chinese officials, which towards the expiration of the East India Company’s charter in 1834 had assumed a regular character. The political difficulties between England and China that ensued shortly after this event, and the so-called Opium War, culminated in the Treaty of Nanking (1842), by which five ports of China were opened to foreign trade, and opium was in 1858 admitted as a legal article of commerce.[198]

[194] _Clavis Sanationis_, Venet. 1510. 46.

[195] _De Medicina Ægyptiorum_, Lugd. Bat. 1719. 261.

[196] De Mas Latrie, _Hist. de Chypre_, iii. 406. 483; Muratori, _Rerum Italic. Scriptores_, xxii. 1170; Amari, _I diplomi Arabi del archivio Fiorentino_, Firenze, 1863. 358.

[197] Fontanon, _Edicts et ordonnances des roys de France_, ii. (1585) 347.

[198] For more ample particulars on these momentous events, see S. Wells Williams’s _Middle Kingdom_, vol. ii. (1848); _British Almanac Companion_ for 1844, p. 77.