PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.
A native of Eastern Asia, it is found under various names, from Japanto India, from the Orient to North America, where European colonistscarried it, according to Josselyn (345), before 1670. In early days ofEnglish mediseval medication it was employed in decoctions for fevers,and as a hot drink, to promote Perspiration. The juice was also em-ployed empirically for sore eyes, and as an application to warts. Itspopulär use, as heired from a time lost to history, led to its final utili-zation by the medical profession, and to its position in the medisevalherbals, as also in many pharmacopeias and treatises on Europeanmedianes and medication.
JATEORHIZA CALUMBA*
Persons familiär with our common yellow parilla, Menispermumcanadense, have a good idea of the plant that yields the calumba rootof commerce. Indeed, a casual observer would take an illustration ofone for the other, so closely do they resemble each other in shape ofleaf, stem, and general floral appearance. One author, Roxburgh(559) (Flora Ind., Vol. 3, p. 807) has placed the plant in the genusmenispermum. The genus jateorhiza as now constituted consists ofthree species, all natives of tropical Africa. It belongs to the naturalorder menispermaceae. The plant which produces the colombo root ofcommerce is a herbaceous vine climbing over trees in the forests ofeastern tropical Africa in the territory of Mozambique and Quilimani.The leaves are alternate, petiolate, cordate, and palmately lobed. Aspreviously stated, they look very much like the leaves of our commonyellow parilla. The flowers are dioecious and borne in pendulous axil-lary panicles. The female flowers have six sepals, six petals, six abor-tive stamens, and three pistils. The male flowers have the same floralenvelopes and six perfect stamens. The anthers, as in yellow parilla,are four-celled, a structure comparatively rare save in this naturalorder. The plants that produce the root of commerce vary much inthe shape of the leaves and in the amount of hispidity in the stem,and were formerly considered as belonging to two species, Jateorhizacalumba and Jateorhiza palmata, but later botanists have united themunder the former name.
Calumba (also columbo) root has long been in use under the name"kalumb" among the African tribes of Mozambique, who employedit as a remedy for dysentery and other diseases (Berry) (63). Un-doubtedly the drug was brought by them to the immediate knowledgeof the Portuguese when they obtained possession of that country in1508. Through the influence of their traders, knowledge of the drugwas slowly diffused among the Europeans during the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries.
•Derived from the Greek words iater, physician, and rhizt, root, evidently in allusionto its healing virtues. Most German and a few Englsh authorities (e. g. Flueckiger, theGerman pharmacopeia of 1890, the U. S. pharmacopeia of 1880, and others) spell the name"jateorrhiza," with the two r's, notwithstanding the fact that Miers, the author of the namespelled it with a Single r. In this he is followed by most authorities (except the Germans),including the Index Kewensis, and the U. S. pharmacopeia of 1890. Marme (Pharmacog-nosie, 1886), suggests that the name jatrorhiza, should be used instead of jateorhiza, andso also does Koehler (Medicinal-pflanzen, 140).
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