PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

BALSAMUM TOLUTANUM

This South American and West Indian drug (obtained from Tolui-fera balsamum), was in use by the natives on the discovery of thosecountries, being to-day collected after the native manner, as is alsoBalsam of Peru. Monardes (447) in his treatise, 1574, on WestIndian productions, describes the Indian method of incising the barkand affixing shells of black wax to receive the baisam, in a district nearCartagena called Tolu, from which it takes its name.* He adds thatit was much esteemed by the Indians, and later by the Spaniards, whotransported it to Spain. Clusius (153) received, 1581, a specimenfrom Morgan, an apothecary to Queen Elizabeth. The price list ofthe city of Frankfort, Germany, 1669, gives it a place, while in 1646it was noticed in the records of the city of Basle. Notwithstandingthat Monardes (447) figured a broken pod and leaflet, and Humboldtand Bonpland (331) saw the tree in New Granada (1799), it was re-served for Weir (1863), a plant collector to the Royal HorticulturalSociety, London, to obtain the first good speeimens of the pods andleaves, Guerin, 1868, first obtaining the flowers. Thus a completedescription of a drug known for centuries was finally authoritativelyestablished. The introduction of Balsam of Tolu into medicine andpharmacy followed the track (as is true of all other natural drugs ofthe Pharmacopeia), of its empirical record.

BELLADONNAE RADIX ET FOLIA

The plant Atropa belladonna is native to Southern Europe, ex-tending thence to the Crimea, Caucasia, and the northern parts of AsiaMinor. About 1504 a book appeared in Paris titled the Grand Herbier,which carried the first authentic notice of belladonna, although theterm "solatrum furiale,'" used by Saladinus of Ascoli (570), about1450, is presumed to refer to it. Its effects, internally, were subjects oftreatises by Amoreaux (20a), Paris, 1760; Daries (184), Leipsic,1776; Münch (453), Gottingen, 1783 and 1785, and subsequently byall who wrote comprehensively on medicine. In toxicology, the Ger-man botanist, Leonard Fuchs, (251) figured the plant as Solanumsomniferum, 1542, fully identifying its poisonous properties, and J. M.Faber, Augsburg, 1677 (231a), wrote on its poisonous action. Butthe people in the plant's habitat have always been aware that all parts,even to the berries, were poisonous. In the eye, so far as we can lo-cate its record, the first study concerning its local effect is that of Himly(317a) of Paris, 1802, although country people in the habitat of bella-donna, from all time, know that it possesses the power of dilating thepupil. In "regulär medicine" belladonna has a more recent introduc-tion, due to the commendation of the well-known pharmacist, Mr. PeterSquire (611), of Eondon, who about 1860 commended it as the basis ofa useful liniment, for the relief of neuralgic pains. The drug is nowtised chiefly in the making of the alkaloid atropine, and in the prepara-

*This reminds one of the method, in Asia Minor, of collecting the juice of the Scammonyplant in the half shell of the clam.