PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

Caucasus, Persia, throughout Asia Minor, Northern India, and evenin Siberia. It has been naturalized in North America and Brazil, andin England is a common weed. Dioscorides (194) mentions it amongmedicinal plants, and under the name Henbane it has been employed indomestic medicine throughout Europe from the remotest times. Anglo-Saxon works ort medicine in the eleventh Century give it a place. Dur-ing the Middle Ages the seeds and roots were much used. Its re-employment and introduction to modern regulär medicine, after it hadfallen into disuse, came through the efforts of Störck (617). Its quali-ties were well known to the Arabians, as is witnessed in numerous ref-erences thereto in the "Arabian Nights" (88), of which the followingis a sample:

"Presently he filled a cresset with fircwood, on which he strewed powderedhenbane, and lighting it, went round about the tent with it tili the smoke enteredthe nostrils of the guards, and they all feil asleep, drowned by the drug."(88) History of Gharib and his Brother Ajib, Vol. VII, p. 7.

Had Herodotus not said tree, it might have been accepted that thevolatile intoxicant mentioned by him referred to this drug. Indeed,the presumption would not have disturbed an author who made errorsmore pronounced than the distinction between an herb and a tree, andwho qualified his Statement by "it is said." However, as shown in ourarticle on Matico, that plant was originally described as "Soldier's Herbor Tree."

"Moreover it is said that other trees have been discovered by them whichyield fruit of such a kind that when they have assembled together in com-panics in the same place and lighted a fire, they sit round in a circle and throwsome of it into the fire, and they smell the fruit which is thrown on, as it burns,and are intoxicated by the scent as the Hellenes are with wine, and whenmore of the fruit is thrown on they become more intoxicated, until at lastthey rise up to dance and begin to sing." Herodotus (Macaulay), Book I,P- 99-

In this connection, through tradition probably, its uses in the samemanner came to populär uses. The grandmother of the writer, afffictedwith asthma, found her greatest relief in smoking stramonium leavesmixed with small amounts of henbane leaves. This was an heirloom ofprimitive medication transplanted to the Western American wilderness.

IPECACUANHA

The beginning of the history of ipecacuanha root and the firststudy of its virtues is clouded in mystery and fable. It is stated thatthe South American Indians were acquainted with the medicinal prop-erties of the plant, having gained their experience from observingthe habits of animals (409).* A vague yet probably the first sourceof Information on the subject of ipecacuanha root is found in a workpublished in London in 1625, named "The Pilgrimes," by Samuel Pur-chas (527), which in five volumes gives an account of many travelsand the natural history of foreign countries. In Vol. IV, page 1311,

*This fable has a parallel in the quaint description given by Clusius concerning thediscovery of the healing virtues of nux vomica bark in cases of snake bite.

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