Radix Sarzæ vel Sarsæ; Sarsaparilla; F. Racine de Salsepareille; G. Sarsaparillwurzel.
Botanical Origin—Sarsaparilla is afforded by several plants of the genus Smilax, indigenous to the northern half of South America, and the whole of Central America as far as the southern and western coast-lands of Mexico.
These plants are woody climbers, often ascending lofty trees by the strong tendrils which spring from the petiole of the leaf. Their stems are usually angular, armed with stout prickles, and thrown up from a large woody rhizome. The medicinal species inhabit swampy tropical forests, which are extremely deleterious to the health of Europeans, and can only be explored amid great difficulties. This circumstance taken in connexion with the facts that the plants are diœcious, that their scandent habit often renders their flowers and fruits (produced at different seasons) inaccessible, and that their leaves vary exceedingly in form,[2624] explains why we are but very imperfectly acquainted with the botanical sources of sarsaparilla.
It is not too much to assert that the sarsaparilla plant of no district in Tropical America is scientifically well known. The species moreover, to which the drug is assigned, have for the most part been founded upon characters that are totally insufficient, so that after an attentive study of herbarium specimens, we are obliged to regard as still doubtful several of the plants that have been named by previous writers.
Having made these preliminary remarks, we will enumerate the plants to which the sarsaparilla of commerce has been ascribed.
1. Smilax officinalis H.B.K.—This plant was obtained in the year 1805, by Humboldt, at Bajorque, a village since swept away by the stream, about in 7° N. lat., on the Magdalena in New Granada. The specimens, comprising only a few imperfect leaves, which we have examined in the National Herbarium of Paris, are the materials upon which Kunth founded the species. Humboldt[2625] states, that quantities of the root are shipped by way of Mompox and Cartagena to Jamaica and Cadiz.
In 1853 this plant was again gathered at Bajorque by the late De Warszewicz, who sent to one of us (H.) leaves and stems, accompanied by the root, which latter agrees with the Jamaica Sarsaparilla of commerce. But at Bajorque the root is no longer collected for exportation.
The same botanical collector, at the request of one of us, obtained in the year 1851, on the volcano and Cordillera of Chiriqui in Costa Rica, fruits, leaves, stems, and roots, of the plant there collected by the Indians as Sarsa peluda or Sarson. These specimens agree, so far as comparison is possible, with those of the Bajorque plant, while the root is undistinguishable from the Jamaica sarsaparilla of the shops. Other specimens of the same plant, gathered by the same collector in 1853, were forwarded to England with a living root, which latter however could not be made to grow.
Finally, in 1869, Mr. R. B. White obligingly communicated to us leaves and roots of a sarsaparilla collected at Patia in New Granada, which apparently belongs to the same species.
In the island of Jamaica, there has been cultivated for many years, and of late with a view to medicinal use, a sarsaparilla plant which appears to be Smilax officinalis. The specimens transmitted to us[2626] include neither flowers nor fruits; but the leaves and square stem accord exactly with those of the plant collected at Bajorque. The root is of a light cinnamon-brown, and far more amylaceous than the so-called Jamaica Sarsaparilla of commerce (see p. 710).
2. Smilax medica Schl. et Cham.—This species,[2627] which was discovered in Mexico by Schiede in 1820, is without doubt the source of the sarsaparilla shipped from Vera Cruz. According to our observations, it has a flexuose (or zigzag) stem, and much smaller foliage than S. officinalis; the leaves, though very variable, often assume an auriculate form, with broad, obtuse, basal lobes.
It grows on the eastern slopes of the Mexican Andes, and is the only species of that region of which the roots are collected. These, according to Schiede, are dug up all the year round, dried in the sun and made into bundles.
Doubt and confusion hang over the other species of Smilax which have been quoted as the sources of sarsaparilla. S. syphilitica H.B.K., with flowers in a raceme of umbels, discovered on the Cassiquiare in New Granada, and well figured by Berg and Schmidt from an authentic specimen, appears from Pöppig’s statements to yield some of the sarsaparilla shipped at Pará. But Kunth states that Pöppig’s plant, gathered near Ega, is not that of Humboldt and Bonpland. Spruce, who collected S. syphilitica (herb. No. 3779) in descending the Rio Negro in 1854, has informed us that the Indians in various places in the Amazon valley always strenuously asserted it to be a species worthless for “Salsa.”
S. papyracea, described by Poiret[2628] in 1804, and figured by Martius,[2629] is but very imperfectly known. It has foliage resembling that of S. officinalis, but, judging from Spruce’s specimens (No. 1871) collected on the Rio Negro, a multangular stem. It is probably the source of the Pará Sarsaparilla.
S. cordato-ovata Rich. is a doubtful plant, perhaps identical with S. Schomburgkiana Knth., a Panama species. Pöppig alleges that its root is mixed with that of the plant which he calls S. syphilitica.
S. Purhampuy Ruiz, a Peruvian species, said to afford a valuable sort of sarsaparilla, is practically unknown, and is not admitted by Kunth.[2630]
No new information on the several above mentioned species of Smilax is found in the review of this genus by A. and C. De Candolle,[2631] where 105 American species are enumerated.
History—Monardes[2632] has recorded that sarsaparilla was first introduced to Seville about the year 1536 or 1545, from New Spain; and a better variety soon afterwards from Honduras. He further narrates that a drug of excellent quality was subsequently imported from the province of Quito, that it was collected in the neighbourhood of Guayaquil, and was of a dark hue, and larger and thicker than that of Honduras.
Pedro de Cieza de Leon, in his Chronicle of Peru,[2633] which contains the observations made by him in South America between 1532 and 1550, gives a particular account of the sarsaparilla which grows in the province of Guayaquil and the adjacent island of Puna, and recommends the sudorific treatment of syphilis, exactly as pursued at the present time.
These statements are confirmed by the testimony of other writers. Thus, João Rodriguez de Castello Branco, commonly known as Amatus Lusitanus, a Portuguese physician of Jewish origin, who practised chiefly in Italy, has left a work recording his medical experiences and narrating cases of successful treatment.[2634] One of the latter concerns a patient suffering from acute rheumatism, for whom he finally prescribed Sarsaparilla. This drug, he explains, has of late years been brought from the newly found country of Peru, that it is in long whip-like roots, growing from the stock of a sort of bramble resembling a vine, that the Spaniards call it Zarza parrilla, and that it is an excellent medicine.
About the same period, sarsaparilla was described by Auger Ferrier,[2635] a physician of Toulouse, who states that in the treatment of syphilis, which he calls Lues Hispanica, it is believed to be better than either China root or Lignum sanctum. Girolamo Cardano of Milan, in a little work called De radice Cina et Sarza Parilia judicium,[2636] expresses similar opinions. After so strong recommendations, the drug soon found its way to the pharmaceutical stores; we find it quoted for instance in 1563, in the tariff of the “Apotheke” of the little town of Annaberg in Saxony.[2637] We have also noticed “Sarsaparilla” in the Ricettario Fiorentino of the year 1573.[2638] Gerarde,[2639] who wrote about the close of the century, states that the sarsaparilla of Peru is imported into England in abundance.
Collection of the Root—Mr. Richard Spruce, the enterprising botanical explorer of the Amazon valley, has communicated to us the following particulars on this subject, which we give in his own graphic words:—
“When I was at Santarem on the Amazon in 1849-50, where considerable quantities of sarsaparilla are brought in from the upper regions of the river Tapajóz, and again when on the Upper Rio Negro and Uaupés in 1851-53, I often interrogated the traders about their criteria of the good kinds of sarsaparilla. Some of them had bought their stock of Indians of the forest, and had themselves no certain test of its genuineness or of its excellence, beyond the size of the roots, the thickest fetching the best price at Pará. Those who had gathered sarsaparilla for themselves were guided by the following characters:—1. Many stems from a root. 2. Prickles closely set. 3. Leaves thin.—The first character was (to them) alone essential, for in the species of Smilax that have solitary stems, or not more than two or three, the roots are so few as not to be worth grubbing up; whereas the multicaul species have numerous long roots,—three at least to each stem,—extending horizontally on all sides.
“In 1851, when I was at the falls of the Rio Negro, which are crossed by the equator, nine men started from the village of St. Gabriel to gather Salsa, as they called it, at the head of the river Cauaburís. During their absence I made the acquaintance of an old Indian, who told me that four years ago he had brought stools of Salsa from the Cauaburís and had planted them in a tabocál,—a clump of bamboos, indicating the site of an ancient Indian village,—on the other side of the falls, whither he invited me to go and witness the gathering of his first crop of roots. On the 23rd March, I visited the tabocál, and found some half-dozen plants of a Smilax with very prickly stems, but no flowers or fruit. At my request the Indian operated on the finest plant first. It had five stems from the crown, and numerous roots about 9 feet long, radiating horizontally on all sides. The thin covering of earth was first scraped away from the roots by hand, aided by a pointed stick; and had the salsa been the only plant occupying the ground, the task would have been easy. But the roots of the salsa were often difficult to trace among those of bamboo and other plants, which had to be cut through with a knife whenever they came in the way. The roots being at length all laid bare—(in this case it was the work of half a day, but with large plants it sometimes takes up a whole day or even more)—they were cut off near the crown, a few slender ones being allowed to remain, to aid the plant in renewing its growth. The stems also were shortened down to near the ground, and a little earth and dead leaves heaped over the crown, which would soon shoot out new stems.
“The yield of this plant, of four years’ growth, was 16 lb.—half a Portuguese arroba—of roots; but a well grown plant will afford at the first cutting from one to two arrobas. In a couple of years, a plant may be cut again, but the yield will be much smaller and the roots more slender and less starchy.”
General Description—The medicinal species of Smilax have a thick, short, knotty rhizome, called by the druggists chump, from which grow in a horizontal direction long fleshy roots, from about the thickness of a quill to that of the little finger. These roots are mostly simple, forked only towards their extremities, beset with thread-like branching rootlets of nearly uniform size, which however are not emitted to any great extent from the more slender part of the root near the stock. When fresh the root is plump,[2640] but as found in commerce in the dried state it is more or less furrowed longitudinally, at least in the vicinity of the rhizome. When examined with a good lens both roots and rootlets may be seen in some specimens to be clothed with short velvety or shaggy hairs.
The presence or absence in greater or less abundance of starch in the bark of the root is regarded as an important criterion in estimating the good quality of sarsaparilla. In England the non-amylaceous or non-mealy roots are preferred, they alone being suitable for the manufacture of the dark fluid extract that is valued by the public. On the Continent, and especially in Italy, sarsaparilla, which when cut exhibits a thick bark, pure white within, is the esteemed kind.
The more or less plentiful occurrence of starch in the roots of Smilax is a character which has no botanical significance, and appears, indeed, to vary in the same species. If one examines Jamaica sarsaparilla by shaving off a little of the bark, one finds a large majority of roots to be non-amylaceous in their entire length; but others can be picked out which, though non-amylaceous for some distance from the rhizome, acquire a starchy bark, which is white internally in their middle and lower portions;—and there are still others which are slightly starchy even as they start from the parent rhizome, becoming still more as they advance. In Guatemala sarsaparilla, which is considered a very mealy sort, it is easy to perceive that the bark is hardly amylaceous in the vicinity of the rhizome, but that it acquires an enormous deposit of fecula as it proceeds in its growth.
Sarsaparilla varies greatly in the abundance of rootlets, technically called beard, with which the roots are clothed. This character depends partly on natural circumstances, and partly on the practice of the collectors who remove or retain the rootlets at will. Dr. Rhys of Belize has stated that the proportion of rootlets depends much on the nature of the soil, their development being most favoured by moist situations.
Dry sarsaparilla has not much smell, yet when large quantities are boiled, or when a decoction is evaporated, a peculiar and very perceptible odour is emitted. The taste of the root is earthy, and not well marked, and even a decoction has no very distinctive flavour.
Microscopic Structure[2641]—On a transverse section of the root, its fibro-vascular bundles are seen to be restricted to the central part, being all enclosed by a brown ring. Within this ring the bundles are densely packed so as to form a ligneous zone. The very centre of the section consists of white medullary tissue, through which sometimes a certain number of fibro-vascular bundles are scattered. A similar medullary parenchyme is met with between the brown ring or nucleus-sheath or the epidermis. On a longitudinal section the latter exhibits several rows of elongated cells, having their outer brown walls thickened by secondary deposits. The brown nucleus-sheath, on the other hand, consists of only one row of prismatic cells, their inner and lateral walls alone having secondary deposits. The vascular bundles contain large scalariform vessels and lignified prosenchymatous cells.
The parenchymatous cells, if not devoid of solid contents, are loaded with large compound starch granules; some cells also exhibit bundles of acicular crystals of calcium oxalate. In non-mealy sarsaparilla the vessels and ligneous cells sometimes contain a yellow resin.
The various sorts of sarsaparilla differ, not only in being mealy or non-mealy, but also as regards the thickness of the ligneous zone, which in some of them is many times thinner than the diameter of the central medullary tissue. In other kinds this diameter is very much smaller. Yet the nucleus-sheath affords still better means for distinguishing the sorts of this drug, if we examine its single cells in a transverse section. The outline of such a cell may be of a square or somewhat rounded shape, or it may be more or less extended. In this case it may be extended in the direction of a radius, or in the direction of a tangent. The secondary deposits may vary in thickness.
Sorts of Sarsaparilla—In the present state of our knowledge no botanical classification of the different kinds of sarsaparilla being possible, we shall resort to the arrangement adopted by Pereira and place them in two groups,—the mealy, or those of which starch is a prevalent constituent, and the non-mealy, or those in which starch exists to a comparatively small extent.
(A.) Mealy Sarsaparillas.
1. Honduras Sarsaparilla—This drug is exported from Belize. It is made up in hanks or rolls about 30 inches long and 2½ to 4 inches or more in diameter, closely wound round with a long root so as to form a neat bundle. The hanks are united into bales by large pieces of hide, placed at top and bottom, and held together with thongs of the same, further strengthened with iron hoops.
The roots are deeply furrowed, or sometimes plump and smooth, more or less provided with beard or rootlets. In a very large proportion of their length they exhibit when cut a thick bark loaded with starch; yet in those parts which are near the rhizome the bark is brown, resinous, and non-amylaceous. They are of a pale brown, sometimes verging into orange. But the drug is subject to great variation, so that it is impossible to lay down absolutely distinctive characters.
The annual imports into the United Kingdom of sarsaparilla from British Honduras during the five years ending with 1870 averaged about 52,000 lb.
2. Guatemala Sarsaparilla—This sort of sarsaparilla, which first appeared in commerce about 1852, resembles the Honduras kind in many of its characters, and is packed in a similar manner. But it has a more decided orange hue; the roots as they start from the rhizome are lean, shrunken, and but little starchy, but they become gradually stouter (³/₁₀ inch diam.), and acquire a thick bark, which is internally very white and mealy. There is a tendency in the bark of this sarsaparilla to crack and split off, so that bare spaces showing the central woody column are not unfrequent.
According to Bentley,[2642] who examined specimens of the plant, this drug is derived from Smilax papyracea; we are not prepared to agree in this opinion.
3. Brazilian, Para or Lisbon Sarsaparilla—Though formerly held in high esteem Brazilian sarsaparilla is not now appreciated in England, and is rarely seen in the London market.[2643] It is packed in a very distinctive manner, the roots being tightly compressed into a cylindrical bundle, 3 feet or more in length and about 6 inches in diameter, firmly held together by the flexible stem of a bignoniaceous plant, closely wound round them, the ends being neatly shaved off.
(B.) Non-mealy Sarsaparillas.
4. Jamaica Sarsaparilla—To the English druggist this is the most important variety; it is that which appears to have the greatest claim to possess some medicinal activity, and it is the only sort admitted to the British Pharmacopœia. Although constantly called Jamaica sarsaparilla, it is well known that it only bears the name of Jamaica through having been formerly shipped from Central America by way of that island.[2644] At the commencement of the last century, Jamaica was an emporium for sarsaparilla, great quantities of which, according to Sloane,[2645] were brought thither from Honduras, New Spain and Peru. Its actual place of growth, according to De Warszewicz (1851), is the mountain range known as the Cordillera of Chiriqui, in that part of the isthmus of Panama adjoining the republic of Costa Rica: here the plant grows at an elevation of 4000 to 8000 feet above the level of the sea. The root is brought by the natives to Boca del Toro on the Atlantic coast for shipment.
The drug consists of roots, 6 feet or more in length, bent repeatedly so as to form bundles of 18 inches long, and 4 in diameter, which are secured by being twined round (but less trimly and closely than the Honduras sort) with a long root of the same drug. The rhizome is entirely absent, but the fibre or beard is preserved, and is reckoned a valuable portion of the drug. The roots are deeply furrowed, shrunken, and generally more slender than in the Honduras kind; the bark when shaved off with a penknife is seen to be brown, hard and non-mealy throughout. Yet it is by no means uncommon to find roots which have a smooth bark rich in starch. In colour, Jamaica sarsaparilla varies from a pale earthy brown to a deeper more ferruginous hue, the latter tint being the most esteemed.
The sarsaparilla referred to at p. 704 as grown in the island of Jamaica, is a well prepared drug, yet so pale in colour and so amylaceous, that it finds but little favour in the English market. There were exported of it from Jamaica in 1870, 1747 lb.,[2646] in 1871, 1290 lb.
5. Mexican Sarsaparilla—The roots of this variety are not made into bundles, but are packed in straight lengths of about 3 feet into bales, the chump and portion of an angular (but not square) thorny stem being frequently retained. The roots are of a pale, dull brown, lean, shrivelled, and with but few fibres. When thick and large, they have a somewhat starchy bark, but when thin and near the rhizome, they are non-amylaceous.
6. Guayaquil Sarsaparilla—An esteemed kind of sarsaparilla has long been exported from Guayaquil (p. 705). Mr. Spruce has informed us that it is obtained in most of the valleys that debouch into the plain on the western side of the Equatorial Andes, but chiefly in the valley of Alausi, where, in 1859, he saw plants of it at the junction of the small river Puma-cocha with the Yaguachi. The plant appears to be very productive, an instance being on record of as much as 75 lb. of fresh roots having been obtained from a single stock.[2647]
Guayaquil sarsaparilla differs considerably from the sorts previously noticed. It is rudely packed in large bales, and is not generally made into separate hanks. The rhizome (chump) and a portion of the stem are often present, the latter being round and not prickly. The root is dark, large and coarse-looking, with a good deal of fibre. The bark is furrowed, rather thick, and not mealy in the slenderer portions of the root which is near the rootstock; but as the root becomes stout, so its bark becomes smoother, thicker and amylaceous, exhibiting when cut a fawn-coloured or pale yellow interior.
The quantity exported from Guayaquil in 1871 was 1017 quintals, value £3814.[2648]
Chemical Composition—Galileo Pallotta, at Naples, in 1824, first attempted to obtain from sarsaparilla a peculiar principle, which he believed to be an alkaloid, and termed Pariglina, or as now written Parillin. He exhausted the crude drug with boiling water and mixed the decoction with milk of lime, whereby a greyish precipitate was produced. This was dried, and treated with hot alcohol which extracted the parillin. Pallotta says the substance slightly reddens litmus, but does not explicitly state whether he got it in crystals or not. Berzelius in 1826 replaced the name pariglina by Smilacin. The same substance was obtained, more or less pure, by Thubeuf in 1831 and called Salseparin; Batka in 1833 termed it Parillinic acid. We have isolated parillin[2649] by exhausting Mexican sarsaparilla with boiling alcohol, 0·835 sp. gr., and evaporating the tincture to ⅙ of the weight of the root. By diluting 2 parts of the residue with 3 parts of cold water, a yellowish deposit of crude parillin is formed and may be separated after a few days by decantation. The deposit is then mixed with about half a volume of strong alcohol, now filtered and washed with dilute alcohol, about 0·965 sp. gr. It may further be purified by repeated recrystallization from dilute alcohol and the use of a little charcoal. The yield is about 0·19 per cent. of perfectly white crystallized parillin; a little more may be removed from the washings, but with much difficulty. These liquids and the mother-liquors may be concentrated and boiled with a little sulphuric acid in order to afford parigenin.
Parillin forms brilliant scales, or can be obtained in thin prisms from boiling alcohol 0·965 sp. gr. Parillin is almost insoluble in cold water, but dissolves in 20 parts of boiling water. On cooling, the latter solution affords no crystals; an abundance of them are however produced on addition of alcohol. Parillin is also soluble in 25 parts of alcohol, 0·814 sp. gr., at 25° C., and much more abundantly in boiling alcohol, from which it partly separates in crystals on cooling. In both absolute alcohol or water, parillin is less soluble than in dilute alcohol. Hence aqueous solutions are precipitated by absolute alcohol, and parillin, on the other hand, separates from alcoholic solutions on addition of cold water. With chloroform, parillin yields a viscid solution which affords no crystals.
The alcoholic solutions of parillin have a somewhat acrid taste, and are devoid of rotatory power.
By dilute mineral acids, parillin is resolved into Parigenin and sugar; the liquid gradually acquires a dingy brown or greenish hue and fluorescence, which is most obvious if parillin dissolved in chloroform is decomposed by hydrochloric gas. Parigenin is easily isolated; it is insoluble even in boiling water, but crystallizes in white scales from alcohol.
The composition of parillin and parigenin is not settled; the former belongs to the class of saponin. Yet parillin differs from saponin as contained in Saponaria or Quillaja[2650] by not being sternutatory; its solutions froth when shaken.
The presence in sarsaparilla of starch, resin, and calcium oxalate, as revealed by the microscope, has been already pointed out. Pereira[2651] examined the essential oil, which is heavier than water and has the odour and taste of the drug; 140 lb. of Jamaica sarsaparilla afforded of it only a few drops.
The nature of the dark extractive matter which water removes from the root in abundance, and the proportion of which is considered by druggists a criterion of goodness, has not been studied.
Commerce—The importation of sarsaparilla into the United Kingdom in 1870 (later than which year we have no returns) amounted to 345,907 lb., valued at £26,564.
Uses—Sarsaparilla is regarded by many as a valuable alterative and tonic, but by others as possessing little if any remedial powers. It is still much employed, though by no means so extensively as a few years ago. The preparations most in use are those obtained by a prolonged boiling of the root in water.
Radix Chinæ; China Root; F. Squine; G. Chinawurzel.
Botanical Origin—Smilax China L., a woody, thorny, climbing shrub, is commonly said to afford this drug. The plant is a native of Japan, the Loochoo islands, Formosa, China, Cochin China, also of Eastern India, as Kasia, Assam, Sikkim, Nepal. The chief authority for attributing the China root to this plant is Kämpfer, who saw the latter in Japan and figured it.[2652]
S. glabra Roxb. and S. lanceæfolia Roxb., natives of India and Southern China, have tubers which, according to Roxburgh, cannot be distinguished from the China root of medicine, though the plants are perfectly distinct in appearance from S. China. Dr. Hance,[2653] of Whampoa, received a living specimen of China root, which proved to be that of S. glabra. The three above-named species all grow in the island of Hongkong.
History—The use of this drug as a remedy for syphilis was made known to the Portuguese at Goa by Chinese traders about a.d. 1535. Garcia de Orta, who makes this statement, further narrates that so great was the reputation of the new drug, that the small quantities first brought to Malacca were sold at the rate of 10 crowns per ganta, a weight of 24 ounces.
Possibly the drug found its way to Europe even before that year, for we find a careful description of it in the posthumous works[2654] of Valerius Cordus and Walther Ryff[2655] states in 1548 that the root was brought a few years ago to Venice.
The reported good effects of China root on the Emperor Charles V. who was suffering from gout, acquired for the drug a great celebrity in Europe, and several works[2656] were written in praise of its virtues. But though its powers were soon found to have been greatly overrated, it still retained some reputation as a sudorific and alterative, and was much used at the end of the 17th century in the same way as sarsaparilla. It still retains a place in some modern pharmacopœias.
Description—The plant produces stout fibrous roots, here and there thickened into large tubers, which when dried become the drug China root. These tubers, as found in the market, are of irregularly cylindrical form, usually a little flattened, sometimes producing short knobby branches. They are from about 4 to 6 or more inches in length, and 1 to 2 inches in thickness, covered with a rusty-coloured, rather shining bark, which in some specimens is smooth and in others more or less wrinkled. They have no distinct traces of rudimentary leaves, which however are perceptible on those of some allied species. Some still retain portions of the cord-like woody runners on which they grew; the bases of a few roots can also be observed. The tubers mostly show marks of having been trimmed with a knife.
China root is inodorous and almost insipid. A transverse section exhibits the interior as a dense granular substance of a pale fawn colour.
Microscopic Structure—The outermost cortical layer is made up of brown, thick-walled cells, tangentially-extended. They enclose numerous tufts of needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate, and reddish-brown masses of resin. The bark is at once succeeded by the inner parenchyme which contrasts strongly with it, consisting of large, thin-walled, porous cells which are completely gorged with starch, but here and there contain colouring matter and bundles of crystals. The starch granules are large (up to 50 mkm.), spherical, often flattened and angular from mutual pressure. Like those of colchicum, they exhibit a radiate hilum: very frequently they have burst and run together, probably in consequence of the tubers having been scalded. The vascular bundles scattered through the parenchyme, contain usually two large scalariform or reticulated vessels, a string of delicate thin-walled parenchyme, and elegant wood-cells with distinct incrusting layers and linear pores.
Chemical Composition—The drug is not known to contain any substance to which its supposed medicinal virtues can be referred. We have endeavoured to obtain from it Parillin, the crystalline principle of sarsaparilla, but without success.
Commerce—China root is imported into Europe from the South of China—usually from Canton. The quantity shipped from that port in 1872, was only 384 peculs (51,200 lb.); while the same year there was shipped from Hankow, the great trading city of the Yangtsze, no less than 10,258 peculs (1,367,733 lb.), all to Chinese ports. For the year 1874, these figures were: Hankow 9393 peculs, valued at 53,194 taels (one tael about 5s. 10d.), Kewkiang 3627 peculs, Ningpo 2905 peculs,[2657] and for 1877 Hankow 12,075 peculs, Kewkiang 3942 peculs.
Uses—Notwithstanding the high opinion formerly entertained of the virtues of China root, it has in England fallen into complete disuse. In China and India it is still held in great esteem for the relief of rheumatic and syphilitic complaints, and as an aphrodisiac and demulcent. Polak asserts that the tubers of Smilax are consumed as food by Turcomans and Mongols.[2658]
Substitutes—Several American species of Smilax furnish a nearly allied drug, which at various times has been brought into commerce as Radix Chinæ occidentalis. It was already known to the authors of the 16th century; we met with it in 1872, and before, in the London market, as an importation from Puntas Arenas, the port of Costa Rica on the Pacific coast.
Of the exact species it is difficult to speak with certainty: but S. Pseudo-China L. and S. tamnoides L. growing in the United States from New Jersey southwards; S. Balbisiana Knth., a plant common in all the West Indian Islands; and S. Japicanga Griseb., S. syringoides Griseb. and S. Brasiliensis Spreng., are reputed to afford large tuberous rhizomes which in their several localities replace the China root of Asia, and are employed in a similar manner.[2659]