PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

to be found about every dwelling. As already stated, Burdock hasbeen used in domestic medicine from time out of date. Several va-rieties, however, have inherited the common name, such works asSalmon, 1683 (570a) Samuel Dale, 1737 (179) Quincy, 1749 (532)Lewis, 1768 (382) Motherby, 1775 (451b) testifying thereto. In allthese it is titled Bardana.

LEPTANDRA

Leptandra, Veronica virginica, grows in rieh woodlands through-out the United States east of the Mississippi River, being found inabundance wherever it is native to a section and the woodlands havebeen undisturbed. The various species are known under many localnames, such as black root, Culver's root, Brinton root, Bowman root,physic root, etc., as used by the settlers. They derived their knowledgeof the drug from the American Indians, and designated the plant bythe name of the man who used it in his practice, or from its charac-teristics. The Delaware Indians called the plant quitel, and the Mis-souri and Osage tribes knew it as hini. Leptandra was employed indecoction by settlers and savages alike as a violent purgative, and inthe practice of early physicians of the United States it was used forbilious fevers. Peter Smith (605), author of the "Indian Doctor'sDispensatory," 1813, states that his father used "Culver's Root" to eurethe pleurisy, which it did "with amazing speed." The use of the drugwas confined to domestic medication until the appearance of theAmerican Dispensatory (356), 1852, which gave it a general intro-duetion to the profession of medicine. Professor W. Byrd Powell, aphysician of high education, valued leptandra very highly, and it wasupon his strong commendation to Professor John King (356), editorof the American Dispensatory, that it was there given a position.

LIMONIS, CORTEX ET SUCCUS

The lemon tree, Citrus limonum, is a native of the forests ofNorthern India, oecurring elsewhere through the adjacent countries.It has been known from the beginning of written history in its nativeland, but its mention in Sanskrit literature oecurs in more moderntimes, rather than in antiquity. The Arabian writers gave it the namelimun, from the Hindu word limbu, or limu. (See extract fromarticle of Dr. Rice, to follow.) The lemon was unknown to the earlyinhabitants of Greece and Rome, but it was mentioned in the third andfourth centuries A. D., in the Book of Nabathcean AgriculHire. Inthis connection it may be said that the introduetion of the lemon paral-lels somewhat the record of the orange. The use of the lemon as agrateful aeid in drinks and cordials, as well as the peel of the fruit asa flavoring material in medicine, seems to have been known to primi-tive humanity. Possibly the most authoritative dissertation on thelemon, which embodies the history of the citrus family generally, is thatby Dr. Charles Rice (see Frontispiece to this Bulletin), published inNew Remedies, August, September, and October, 1878. With his

54