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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[26] De Compositione Medicamentorum, c. 165.

[27] Lib. xxiii. c. 13.

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

[29] Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[40] Thus the continental druggists are able to offer it in quantity as low as 4d. to 5d. 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.

[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.

[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.)

[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).

[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.

[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.

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

[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.

[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.

[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”!

[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.

[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.

[93] From the Arabic Bádiyán fennel.

[94] Amœnitates, 1712. 880.

[95] Flora Japonica, 1784. 235.

[96] Adansonia, viii. 9; Hist. des Plantes, Magnoliacées, 1868. 154.

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

[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.

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

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.