PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

action of the heart, was indicated through its native employment asan ordeal poison.

PHYTOLACCA

Poke root, Phytolacca decandra, is a handsome plant foundthroughout the temperate regions of North America, east of the Miss-issippi River, thriving in rieh bottom lands, fence corners, and woodypastures. The American Indians used it, powdered to a pulp, as apoultice. The early American settlers applied it in like manner asa poultice to inflammatory conditions of the cow's udder, in the dis-ease known as garget, a circumstance which has given to the plantone of its common names, garget plant. Phytolacca crept thenceinto more extensive use in domestic medicine, a tineture of the samebeing next employed. Following this came its introduetion into the"licensed" profession. In domestic medication the drug was employedfrom the date of the early settlers, and in the practice of Eclecticismit has ever been a valued remedy. To cite American references to thisdrug would be to name all the publications of the liberal authors con-nected with medicines.

PILOCARPUS

Pilocarpus jaborandi is a shrub native to Eastern Brazil, wherePiso (Sil), of Holland, 1643, ^ rst mentions its use as a modifier ofthe infusion of ipecac. Plumier, 1693, also (515) refers to the mix-ture, describing two varieties of jaborandi. Its conspieuous introdue-tion to medicine oecurred in 1874, when Dr. Coutinho (170), of Per-nambueo, from observing its native uses, made its qualities as a sialo-gogue known to the medical world. The plant has been eultivated inEuropean greenhouses since the middle of the last Century, but no"scientific" observer gave it the honor of a thought in therapeutic di-rections.

PIMENTA

Allspice (Pimenta officinalis) is the berry of a tree native toJamaica and other West India islands, where it was found in use asa spiee by the explorers in the days of the enthusiasm of the new worlddiscovery. It was probably this substance that Garret, a druggist ofLondon, 1601, gave to Clusius (153), who described it in his LiberExoticorum. According to Parkinson's (492) Theatrum Botanicum,1567, it was imported into England soon after the beginning of thatCentury, under the name round cardamom. It has reeeived many dif-ferent names in its passage through various countries. Its chief useis as a spiee, but a distilled water made therefrom has also been em-ployed.

PIPER

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a perennial, climbing shrub na-tive to the forests of Malabar and Travancore, whence it was intro-duced to other tropical countries, such as Sumatra, the Philippines,West Indies, and the Malay Peninsula. It has been used as a spiee

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